The Crime of Andrea Yates

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The Crime of Andrea Yates. The crime of Andrea Yates in which she drowned all 5 of her children one by one is a very difficult crime to understand. There are many elements that come into consideration when looking at this case. The two elements that this research will be focusing on are the Psychological and Sociological factors. Andrea Yates was a middle aged woman when she gave birth to her first child Noah. Shortly after marrying her husband, Rusty, she gave up her career as a registered nurse so she could start a family; not long after that was when she fell pregnant with Noah, once Noah was born Andrea was faced with the decision to return to her career or not. It has been said that Andrea would have wanted to return to work but she decided to be a full-time mother. Throughout the 8 years of their marriage leading up to this tragic event, Andrea spent the majority of her time in a state of pregnancy or nursing her younger children. She also had many visits to see psychiatric doctors/nurses and had many psychiatric treatments and was prescribed drugs such as Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Effexor and Haldon, which are a combination of anti-depressants and anti-psychotics (Yates, A. 2014). It has been reported that Andrea attempted suicide on two occasions, the first was soon after her son Luke was born and the second unsuccessful attempt was a few months later after her father passed away, she was then hospitalised (Feldmen 2001). Attempted suicide aside, it has also been indicate that Andrea was having hallucinations. A couple of the reported hallucination that Andrea suffered from included; * After the birth of Noah she was experiencing visions and hearing voices, as she told Dr James Thompson (Murderpedia N.D.). * And also a hallucination that included stabbing (McLellen 2006). * She began to self-mutilate and heard voices that told her to “get a
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