Husband supports wife accused of drowning kids

2001-06-22 10:11

Houston - The husband of a woman accused of drowning their five children in the bathtub said tearfully that he wants to help his wife through the ordeal, blaming her actions on severe depression.

"I want to show her I love her and support her," Russell Yates said as he stood in his suburban Houston front yard filled with stuffed animals and flowers. He clutched a family photo.

"The woman here is not the woman who killed my children," Yates said on Thursday as he pointed to the picture of his smiling wife.

Andrea Yates, 36, is charged with capital murder. Police believe she systematically drowned all five of the couple's children, ages 6 months to 7 years, on Wednesday morning, then called police and her husband, a computer specialist at NASA.

Yates said his wife told him simply: "You need to come home."

"I was afraid of her tone. Her tone was very serious," Yates said. He returned home to find his children dead and watch helplessly as his wife was arrested. "My heart just sunk."

Found under a sheet in a bedroom were the wet bodies of Mary, 6 months; Luke, 2; Paul, 3; and John, 5. The fifth child, Noah, 7, was found in the tub.

Preliminary results from autopsies conducted on Thursday indicate that the children drowned, Harris County Medical Examiner Dr Joye Carter said.

Yates said his wife had gone through postpartum depression following the birth of the couple's fourth child.

"She attempted suicide and they gave her medication. It took a while, but she just snapped out of it," he said. "She was fine from that time until a few months after she had our fifth child."

He also said Andrea Yates' father died about three months ago "and that just sent her spiraling down".

"We were all hopeful she would respond to the same medications she had the first time, but she never responded that well," Yates said.

Andrea Yates was held without bail on Thursday. Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty.

Laurence Kruckman, a professor of medical anthropology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, said there are three levels of postpartum depression. The worst is postpartum psychosis, a hormonal condition that affects mothers after one or two of every 1 000 births.

"If you are in that category, there is a high likelihood of hallucinations," said Kruckman, who heads Postpartum Support International. "Mothers hear voices that say kill yourself or kill the baby, or both."

"She was probably hallucinating and hearing voices and couldn't take it any more," he added. "Could it be criminal? Sure, it could be."

After visiting his home for a short time on Thursday, Yates headed to the medical examiner's office to identify his children. He planned to meet with his in-laws to try to find an attorney for his wife of eight years.

Russell Yates' mother, Dora, helped take care of the children during the last few months. She would not talk about her daughter-in-law's depression.

"Andrea is a beautiful person," she said. "It is very shocking to all of us."

Yates said that apart from his wife's depression, his family was much like others. They went to neighbourhood birthday parties and made sure a family portrait was taken once a year. He said the family even came up with a list of ways for Andrea Yates to deal with her stress.

"I think that she obviously wasn't herself and that will come out," he said. "Everyone who knows her knew she loved the kids. She is a kind, gentle person. What you see here and what you saw yesterday, it's not her."

- AP