Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five young children during postpartum psychosis, remains in a mental hospital and intends to stay there permanently.
According to the New York Post, Yates refused a hearing last month to determine her competency for release. Her conviction allows for annual reviews, but she has consistently declined the assessments.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, on June 20, 2001, police responded to a 911 call from Yates’ home in Clear Lake, Texas. When police arrived, they found Yates outside, with her shirt wet.
Investigators learned that Yates filled a bathtub with water inside her home and drowned her children: Luke, 2; Paul, 3; John, 5; and daughter Mary, 6 months. Her 7-year-old son, Noah, saw his sister dead in the tub and tried to run, but Yates caught him, wrestled him into the tub, and drowned him.
She then placed the bodies of her four youngest children on her bed, covered them with a sheet, and repeatedly called 911.
Yates was convicted of capital murder in 2002, and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years. Her attorneys appealed, leading to the verdict being overturned.
In a 2006 retrial, Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
“My children weren’t righteous,” she reportedly told a jail psychiatrist. “They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell.”
Yates remains at Kerrville State Hospital, a facility for people who’ve been acquitted of crimes and committed by a court for inpatient mental health care.
She now spends her time creating greeting cards and crafts, according to the Post. She sells the items at art shows and festivals, donating the proceeds to the Yates Children’s Memorial Fund to support people suffering from postpartum depression.
[Feature Photo: Yates Family/AP]
