Andrea Yates: The Case That Shook the Country

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In 2001, Andrea Yates went from stay-at-home mom to a national headline no one could ignore.

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Depending on who you ask, she was either deeply broken or deeply evil.

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And while the rest of the country was arguing over which box to put her in,

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the truth sat somewhere messier.

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This story isn't about a single moment.

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It's about years of ignored warnings, mental health care that barely qualified as care,

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and a family whose five kids and a godly life unraveled in the worst way possible.

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Before we dive in, if you like your true crime brief and bingeable,

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This is 10 Minute Murder.

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Let's get into it.

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[Music]

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June 20, 2001, is the day Andrea Yates went from anonymous suburban mom

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to headline shorthand for something unthinkable.

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For some, she was clearly broken.

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For others, she was evil.

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There wasn't a lot of middle ground.

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When she sat in court facing a murder charge that would shake the country,

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Andrea probably didn't care which side anyone was on.

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She spent years asking to die.

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Long before she ended up here.

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It hadn't always been that way.

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Andrea Yates was the kind of student teachers bragged about.

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Smart, disciplined, valedictorian.

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But behind the grades and polite smiles,

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she had already told at least one friend that she was thinking about ending her own life.

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She pushed those thoughts down, or at least learn how to keep them quiet enough to get through college.

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Andrea became a nurse at the University of Texas,

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MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she stayed for eight years.

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She was good at the job, caring with her patients,

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quiet in her personal life.

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That quiet may have had something to do with a relationship gone bad in her early 20s.

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At 24, Hartbrookin and newly cautious, she didn't let people in easily.

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But there was a man, one man who eventually got past her defenses.

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Russell Yates, who went by Rusty,

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was a NASA engineer who lived for spreadsheets, prayer groups, and scripture.

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When Andrea met him in his apartment complex, it was instant.

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There wasn't a dramatic love story behind it.

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It just happened, fast and simple.

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They moved in together, got married, and started having kids almost immediately.

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Rusty's religious beliefs put a lot of value on having a big family,

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and his career gave him the paycheck to make that a reality.

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They didn't use birth control.

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They bought a four bedroom house.

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The plan, loosely, was to leave the rest up to God.

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Rusty and Andrea had what you could generously call a faith-based family planning strategy.

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No birth control, no real in-game.

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Just the belief that however many kids God wanted them to have, they'd make it work.

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So they bought a four bedroom house with the goal of filling it, literally and spiritually.

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But not long after their first son Noah was born, that plan went up and smoke.

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The house, actually, went up and smoke. It burned down.

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Rusty took a new job in Florida and the family downsized fast.

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They moved into a cramped trailer, meant to be a temporary move.

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But by the time their third child Paul came along, they were still living in it.

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Rusty said Andrea never complained.

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Not about the tight space, not even about the motorhome they eventually upgraded to after moving back to Texas.

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That decision was heavily influenced by a traveling preacher Rusty had started following.

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One who lived in a motorhome, homeschooled his kids, and seemed to have the whole God wants it this way.

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God wants it this way. Lifestyle figured out.

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By the time Andrea was pregnant with baby number four, they were actively discussing homeschooling.

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It was all part of the plan, or maybe more accurately, part of the momentum.

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Then Luke was born. And that's when things shifted.

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Andrea started to unravel. At first it looked like postpartum depression.

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Then she called Rusty one day, barely able to speak.

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He came home to find her trembling, chewing her fingernails down, and whispering, "I need help."

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At the time no one realized how true those words were.

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The next day Andrea attempted suicide. She overdosed on pills.

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Her mother found her just in time and rushed her to the hospital.

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After she was released, Andrea picked up a knife, held it to her throat, and begged Rusty to let her die.

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She was hospitalized again. This time the doctors got aggressive with medication.

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And for a while it seemed to work. She stabilized. Rusty moved the family into a real house again,

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hoping that maybe a more traditional home could anchor her. It helped. But only for a little while.

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In 1999 she relapsed hard, multiple suicide attempts, more hospitalizations.

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That's when the doctors finally gave the full diagnosis.

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Severe depression and postpartum psychosis. Psychiatrists made it clear.

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No more pregnancies. They warned that another child could push Andrea past a line she may not come back from.

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But those warnings, they didn't stick.

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Somewhere along the line the warnings stopped registering.

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Andrea's doctors said it very plainly. Another pregnancy could be dangerous, life-threatening, even.

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Not just for her, but for the kids. But Andrea's brother would later say that Rusty had his own thoughts on depression.

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His reported advice, "A swift kick in the pants." Not exactly clinical.

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Seven weeks after her last hospital stay, Andrea was pregnant again.

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This would be her fifth child, a baby girl named Mary.

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For a while things seemed manageable. Andrea's mental health didn't spiral during the pregnancy or immediately after.

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But then the following year her father died. And everything fell apart again.

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Andrea stopped taking her medication completely. She became obsessive about the Bible. Sometimes reading it for hours.

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She started harming herself. There were times she couldn't bring herself to even feed Mary.

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Other times she was too afraid to put her down. Eventually Andrea went catatonic.

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She was hospitalized again. It was becoming a cycle. Hospital release relapse repeat.

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She was discharged again. But this time it came with strict conditions.

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She could not be left alone, not even for a few minutes. Rusty agreed.

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Family members rearranged their schedules to make sure someone was always nearby.

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Then came the morning of June 20th, 2001. Rusty left for work. His mother was scheduled to arrive in an hour.

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He figured that hour wasn't such a big risk. But it was. And it wasn't the first time he'd taken it.

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Despite Andrea's release instructions, Rusty had already been leaving her alone with the children for short windows each day.

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An hour in the morning and hour in the afternoon.

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The idea was to ease her back into full-time parenting. A gradual return to normal. A test run.

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That morning Andrea had just enough time. She started with the youngest boys, Paul, Luke and John.

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She filled the bathtub and drowned them one by one. Then she carried their bodies to her bedroom and laid them on the bed.

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Next came Mary. Andrea left her floating in the water. And that's what Noah walked in on. Her oldest child, just seven years old.

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He asked what was wrong with his sister. Then in the next few seconds he figured out. He turned and ran.

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Andrea chased him down, caught him, pulled him back into the bathroom, and drowned him next. She laid Mary in John's arms. Then she picked up the phone.

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Her message was vague. She told the dispatcher, "It's time. No explanation. Just that."

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Next she called Rusty and told him to come home. Something was wrong with all the kids.

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When police arrived, Andrea didn't hesitate. She confessed right away. Said she believed Satan had taken up residents inside her.

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And in her mind she had already ruined the children. She told investigators she was trying to save them.

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That drowning them was the only way to send them to heaven before they could be further corrupted.

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She even said that she hoped Texas would send it to death.

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There was no doubt Andrea was mentally ill. Both the prosecution and the defense agreed on that.

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But the question at trial was whether she still understood the difference between right and wrong.

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That's the legal threshold for insanity in Texas. It's not enough to be mentally ill.

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If the person knows what they're doing is wrong, the insanity defense doesn't apply.

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Prosecutors argued that Andrea knew exactly what she was doing. She waited until Rusty left.

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She waited until no one else was home. That, they said, showed she understood her actions were wrong.

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At least enough to try to avoid being caught. Rusty disagreed.

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He spent the trial defending Andrea publicly and privately. He told the press he believed she should be released.

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He talked about their future together. He even said he hoped they could have more children someday.

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The jury didn't see it that way. Andrea was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years.

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But that was not the end.

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At a second trial, Andrea was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

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This time the court agreed that her psychosis had stripped her of the ability to distinguish reality from delusion.

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She wasn't set free. She was sent to a psychiatric hospital where she remains today.

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Which is fair. Take care of yourself. Don't ignore red flags and maybe keep your personal life just personal enough that it never ends up in one of these episodes.

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Talk to you next time.

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