Judge sentences Yates to life in prison
By Pam Easton
Associated Press

HOUSTON — A judge formally sentenced Andrea Yates to life in prison Monday in the drownings of her five children. Some of her relatives, meanwhile, accused her husband of not doing enough to help her.

Yates, clad in an orange Harris County jumpsuit instead of the civilian clothes she wore during her four-week trial, was fingerprinted in the courtroom. She looked into the gallery, but her only close supporters there were jail psychiatrists Melissa Ferguson and Debbie Osterman.

“Good luck to you, Mrs. Yates,” state District Judge Belinda Hill said as she dismissed the 37-year-old woman, who will be eligible for parole in 2041. When Yates arrives in the Texas prison system, she will join 69 other women serving time for killing one or more of their children.

Defense attorney George Parnham requested that she stay at the Harris County Jail for as long as possible to continue receiving medical care.

Jurors rejected an insanity defense and convicted Yates last week of capital murder in the June 20 drownings of Noah, 7, John, 5, and 6-month-old Mary. Evidence also was presented about the drownings of Paul, 3, and Luke, 2.

The same jury took less than an hour Friday to reject lethal injection, meaning Monday’s life sentence was automatic.

Yates’ husband, Russell, and other relatives appeared on several national TV shows Monday, as did several jurors.

In a group interview with Houston television station KTRK that was aired on ABC’s “Good Morning, America,” some members of Yates’ family criticized Russell Yates.

Brian Kennedy, a brother of Andrea Yates, called Russell Yates an “unemotional” husband inattentive to his sister’s needs.

Andrea Yates’ mother, Jutta Karin Kennedy, said her son-in-law told her after the birth of their fourth child that he had never changed a diaper.

“I think that any man and woman whose spouse was that severely down, confused, that sick, that I would do whatever it would take to make sure my other half would get the help that was necessary,” Brian Kennedy said.

Asked about criticism of his role, Russell Yates told NBC’s “Today” show that some people “don’t understand the biochemical nature of Andrea’s illness ... so they’ll say there must have been something else going on in that household, or there must have been this or that and it’s all false.”

Yates told CBS’ “Early Show” that “I think I have to” sue those responsible for her medical care. He contends that his wife was wrongly taken off antipsychotic medication before the killings despite lapsing into severe mental illness following the births of her last two children.

“She was never diagnosed, she was never treated and they didn’t protect our family,” he said.

Several jurors described their decisions on conviction and sentencing, and said that the way Yates drowned her children in the family bathtub seemed premeditated and methodical.

Juror Leona Baker told the “Early Show” that a “couple” of jurors initially voted for death, then the jury discussed it and became unanimous on the life sentence.

“I believed that she was not going to be a threat to society being in prison for the next 40 years of her life,” she said.

On the “Today” show, juror Melissa Ryan said, “I think she should be punished for what she did considering she did know right from wrong and I think prison’s the way to go.”

On NBC’s “Dateline” juror Jill Sweeney said as Yates explained to police how she drowned the children, it seemed as if she was “thinking pretty clearly.”

One juror pointed to Yates’ decision the night before to drown the children and the organized manner in which she went about holding each child beneath the water’s surface before calling in the next.

When she finished, Yates called police.

“She was able to describe what she did. ... I felt like she knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew it was wrong, or she would not have called the police,” juror Roy Jordan told “Dateline.”

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