Andrea Yates Essay

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1)A summary of the Andrea Yates case, including the facts of the case, the trail, and retrial To commit such a heinous crime against your own flesh and blood can only be describe as pure evil. What was Andrea Yates thinking as she drowned her 5 children, 4 sons and 1 daughter; Noah 7, John 5, Paul 3, Luke 2 and Mary 6 months old in an upstairs bathtub? What really happened in Houston on the morning of June 20, 2001? Upon receiving this assignment my first and immediate reaction was that of a harsh, critical and judgmental mother. I found myself infuriated and judging this woman I had never met, blaming her for her actions. In my opinion she was using the insanity plea to save her own skin. After doing some extensive research I found myself touched, even moved and full of compassion for a woman that was lead down such a self destructive path by an overbearing, controlling, rigid conservative religious nut named Randy Yates. Most mothers who kill their children are younger and generally start out as teen-age moms. Andrea Yates doesn’t fit the profile of a mother who would kill her children. Andrea was a 37 year old housewife, a former swim team captain and Valedictorian from Milby High School who went on to graduate from the University of Texas receiving a degree of Nursing in 1986. She held a steady job for 8 years at a Cancer Center working as a pediatric nurse when she met her husband at age 25, they married in 1993. They had 5 children in the course of 8 years. In 1998 Andrea started to show signs of mental decline after Randy moved his wife and four young children into a cramped 350 square foot remodeled bus as a makeshift home. Andrea’s first suicide attempt came in June,1999. She was hospitalized and diagnosed with a major depression disorder called PostPartum Depression PPD. She was prescribed a cocktail of anti-psychotic and anti-depressive drugs, including

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