Andrea Yates 2001

On a quiet June morning in 2001, a tragedy unfolded inside a suburban Houston home that forever changed the American conversation around mental illness and the legal system. In this episode, we look past the sensational headlines to examine the life of Andrea Yates—a devoted mother who systematically drowned her five young children while in the grip of severe, untreated postpartum psychosis. 

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Hello, listeners. Welcome to Case by Case. This is a true crime podcast for educational purposes only. Nothing that I say is disrespectful or offensive to anyone. I research and write. If that sounds good to you, let's carry on. Before we begin, I would like to add a disclaimer. We will be discussing mental health crisis and suicide. So if that is something that you need to skip, please go ahead and do so. Thank you. Episode 7: The case of Andrea Yates. This case takes us to Houston, Texas, June 20th, 2001. The victims are her son Noah 7, son John 5, son Paul 3, son Luke 2, and daughter Mary, 6 months. Andrea Yates was born Andrea Pia or Pia Kennedy on July 2nd, 1964, in Houston, Texas. Her dad was Andrew, and her mother was, and I apologize if I say her first name incorrectly, Judah, Judah, Karen, Kohler, Kennedy. By all accounts, Andrea grew up in a supportive, stable household. She grew up Roman Catholic and was the youngest of five children. As an academic, Andrea was described as exceptional. She was the valedictorian at Melby High School and the president of the National Honor Society. So honey was getting it in. Okay. She was just out here queen of smarts, and I love that for her. Just a little fun fact. The valedictorian one is the person of the graduating class with the highest GPA, which I'm pretty sure most of us knew that already. But if you didn't, that's what it is. And if you break valedictorian down into its Latin root, valet, uh, which I'm pretty sure I'm not like saying with its Latin pizzazz, but means farewell, and dictare means to speak. So the valedictorian gives the farewell speech or is the farewell speaker. And then the salutorian, uh, salut means welcome. So they give the welcome speech, and they are the person in the graduating class with the second highest GPA. So fun fact uh she was athletic as she was the captain of the swim team, and anybody who knows anything knows that the training for swimming is rigorous. Okay, you gotta have you gotta be in shape to be out here swimming. After graduation, Andrea earned her degree in nursing. Um, and this was in 1986. She went to the University of Houston and UT Health, Houston School of Nursing. For eight years, uh, she worked at Houston's uh medical Anderson Cancer Center, and she was rewarded to be dedicated and compassionate, which you would think so, because it seems like she knew immediately that she wanted to be a nurse. So if you know, probably during her high school year, you know, she knew she wanted to be a nurse, and then you graduate, you go straight into the program, and then you get a job after that. Like that's your purpose, is to be a nurse. And so she was we're just doing that, and she was great at it, and she probably loved it, she loved caring for people, and it breaks my heart to know what comes next, and you know, there's probably a part of me that's a little biased, right? And I might be looking into this with you know my own pers perspective, and I could be wrong, but I don't know. Anyways, we'll get into it in in momentarily, but here it is. So Andrea lived in the Sunscape apartments in 1989, and she was like I said, she was a nurse, 25 years old, and she had come across another resident, and this is going to be Russell Rusty Yates, and he is a 25-year-old engineer from NASA, and I think that's great for him at 25. You're an engineer, so these two together, they're just so smart. I love that. And so they link up real fast, all right. They um are both religious, and so I think that's the thing that links them, and so they, you know, kind of relate with the Bible, so they read the Bible together and they pray together, um, and then they move in very quickly. I don't know about that part. I don't know what they why they did that, but they live together for about two years and then um they get married in 1993. I cannot find anything about how their families felt about each other prior to the tragedy. Um, but once the tragedy occurs, Andrea's family definitely blame Rusty for everything that occurs. Not that they don't blame Andrea, but they definitely feel like Rusty could have done more to prevent what occurs. So, but you know, like I said, that's after the tragedy. How they felt prior to, I don't really know. After marrying, the couple left their apartment. They did live in the apartment for a little bit, but they left the apartment and they um move into a house. Like most people do, right? Get married, move into a house, everything's cool, whatever. So in 1994, they have their first child, Noah, and then in 1995, they have John, and you'll notice a pattern in the children's names because they are all names from the Bible. Um, and I thought that was funny, not funny in like a in like a bad funny way, but it's so funny because again, they're religious backing, so all of their children have like the biblical names. But I also thought it was funny because it's like, yeah, we're all named after people in the Bible, but then my mom is Andrea and my dad is Russell. It's just like I don't know why that's funny, but to me it's funny, so it is what it is. So after the birth of John in 1996, Rusty, I don't know what I was about to say, but anyway, Rusty accepts a job in Seminole, Florida, and so for six months the family moves down there and they are living in a 38-foot travel trailer. Um, and so that's all cool, all dandy. And during this time, Andrea conceives, and unfortunately, she miscarries, or fortunately, however you see that situation. And I say that because I think we all know Andrea murders her children, so that's why I say it that way. Uh so yep, they uh she miscarries in 1997. The family moves back to Houston. However, when they move back, they now live in a renovated bus. So while living in the trailer, Rusty comes across a newsletter by the evangelist Warrenicke. Warinaki. I think it's Nikki, but it could be Nacki. I would say I'm sorry for getting his name wrong, but I'm really not. Um, anyway, uh he was selling a 1978 GMC bus that was already converted because his family was living in the bus. And the reason why I give his full name is because he's important to the story. So Andrea and Rusty agreed to living in the bus. So it was a mutual decision for them because they were like, yo, we're already living in this trailer. What's living in a bus that's 350 square feet after living in a 300, not 300, sorry, 38-foot travel trailer, which I'm pretty sure one is smaller than the other, right? Am I dumb? I don't think so. So at this point in 1997, they have two boys and two adults. So it's only four people. So it seems okay, I guess. I'm not really sure what's happening in their brains, but the boys live in what's called the hole. And the hole is a door at the floor of the bus. You lift it up, and then they can go to the luggage compartment. Because the GMC bus is one of the um the uh greyhound bus. So you know how you you have that when you're standing outside the bus, they have that thing they can lift up and you can put your luggage in. There's an access to it and the inside of the bus, and that's how the that's where the boys sleep. So they're sleeping under the bus. Just in case y'all didn't, y'all needed a visual of what I was talking about. So yeah, and then in July of 1999, which, you know, just in case you needed to know this, that's when they moved into the home in which the tragedy occurs. Okay, so July of 1999. Now, I'm throwing out dates because these dates are important, but you probably already forgotten a lot of them. So we are where we are. So let's go on to the exact dates of everybody being born because that is very important to our story. Okay, very, very important to our story. So Noah, firstborn, is February 26th, 1994. John, December 15th, 1995, Paul, September 13th, 1997, Luke, February 15th, 1999, Mary, November 30th, 2000. Between Noah and John, there's a year, nine months and nineteen days. Between John and Paul, one year, eight months, twenty nine days. Between Paul and Luke, one year, five months, two days. Between Luke and Mary, one year, nine months, fifteen days. What we need to remember is that there are nine to ten months of pregnancy within those in betweens. This lady's body had no break. And I can only imagine she was breastfeeding. Okay. So we have to we have to remember those dates, okay, or those those gaps in between. Because her body had no break. It's crazy to think of how long or how much stress her body took and these what one, two, three, four years. It's crazy. It's crazy, and it's important to remember because spoiler alert, Andrea has a lot of mental health conditions. Okay, there's a lot of them. And when you are suffering from mental health conditions, a lot of your physical triggers can bring about or exacerbate those mental health conditions. All right, and I say this as a person who has both of these things. So, yes, there are certain things that Andrea was diagnosed with that I'm also diagnosed with. Okay, so yeah, there are certain times where I'm gonna say things and it's a bias. I know that. Now, do I agree with what Andrea did? Absolutely not. I don't, but but I can definitely understand where people failed her. Okay. I see where people failed her because Andrea, Andrea was calling for help. Andrea asked for help, and and people were not listening to her. So I will say that. I will absolutely say that. She did not just out of the blue decide this was gonna be a thing that she did and then decided to claim mental health. No, Andrea was asking for help and people failed her. Sorry. I really did just get mad just now. Okay, back to the back to the case, AJ. Think about it. Okay. Remember Warrenicki. Okay, here we go. So while in college, Rusty met Michael Warrenicki. So this is prior to the bus situation. So Warren Nicky is described as a street preacher, um, and he taught a fundamentalist form of non-dimensional Christianity. And some of the teaches included women shouldn't work or use birth control, and that their submission to their husbands is absolute. And what that means is when your husband says something, you have no ability to say anything against what he said. He says jump, you say how high. I am not a religious person. I'm just reading what I found on the internet. So if anything that I just said is wrong, let me know. But this is what it says. This is what he said, and this is what he is. Okay, so I don't know what a fundamentalist is, I don't know what a non-denominate don-denominational Christian is, but this is what it says he said. So sorry. Uh I believe that if two people consent to the boundaries or the confines of their marriage or relationship, then whatever happens within that is their business. You know, if it floats your boat, then go ahead. I just know that certain parts of what's being said, my boat is gonna capsize. All right. I will want to work, so I will work. Um, as far as the whole birth control thing goes, I don't want to just be out here having a bunch of children. So we gotta figure that part out. Okay, we gotta figure that out. Uh, and then the submission is absolute. I will submit to a man, but it's not gonna be absolute. I'm not going to submit to you just because you're a man. Shoot, even when it can't come to work, I'm not gonna submit to you just because you're the boss. You still have to give me reason behind what's happening. There should still be a logic to what's going on because I may have a better solution to the issue, because I'm I'm a human with a thinking brain. So we have to be able to collaborate. That's what I feel a relationship should be: a collaboration, two people who can bring different perspectives to a situation. So if my submission or yeah, my submission is absolute, then I'm just a body, and that's not something I'm willing to be. Uh, and the thing with Andrea that breaks my heart is because I don't know if in high school she already knew she wanted to be a nurse, but for you to go into nursing after graduation, for you to then be a nurse for eight years and for it to be described that you were just so good at your job, and then all of a sudden you're just not anymore, and you just pour yourself into being a wife and a mother. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's not all you you are, right? That's a title. You are a wife and a mother, and that's great, but you can be so much more than that, right? You have a whole personality, you have uh a whole thing you can contribute to society that's more than raising your children or taking care of your household, and so it's just like sometimes a lot of people get lost in what they're supposed to be doing, and men too, right? You get lost in being a father and in being a husband that you forget you are an individual, you yourself are a person, so you can have your own hobbies, you can have your own thing that you can contribute. You cannot give unto others if you have nothing to give. So take a step back and just think about that sometimes. Because if you don't, you get lost, and then what happens when you don't know what to do outside of that? You you trap your own mind and then it it sucks. So that's just my tidbit. That's my little tidbit on that. Anywho, so let's get back to the I'm so sorry. This case this case is hard because of course it's heartbreaking, it's the deaths of five children. What makes this even harder though, is the mental health aspect of the person who committed the murders because there's so much that played a part into what led up to it. Andrea had so many things wrong, and it's just this culmination, it was just like a uh what do they call it? It's like an avalanche, like there were these rumblings, and people could have heard them and moved people out the way. You know what I mean? It was like warnings, it was signs, and everything was ignored. Okay. So in 1999, Andrea was treated for postpartum depression and psychosis. So I felt like every like most people know what postpartum depression is, so I didn't write down the definition of that. But with postpartum psychosis, it's a rare, a rare, severe, and dangerous mental health emergency that occurs in about um one to two out of every thousand women shortly after giving birth. Some symptoms are hallucinations, delusions, mania, severe depression, and confusion. And some triggers are traumatic hormonal shifts, severe sleep deprivation, and physical stress of labor. Now, although she was diagnosed in 1999, that does not mean that she did not have these things occurring prior to. Okay, so postpartum psychosis typically lasts two to twelve weeks, but full recovery can take six to twelve months or longer. But again, she was pregnant every year or less because again, it takes nine to ten months to give birth. So, you know, she was pregnant a lot back to back. Uh, so one of the things that was going on was that Andrea believed that Satan wanted to harm her children. Um, and so there were a lot of episodes that Andrea had. I'm not going to put every episode that Andrea had in here because I would be on this podcast for hours. But Andrea's very first hospitaliz I need to slow down when I'm talking. Okay. Everybody remind me. Andrea was first hospitalized, June 18th, 1998. After suffering a depressive episode, um, and she attempted to OD on pills. At this point in time, she claimed, like I said, she claimed Satan wanted to hurt her kids um through her. So she decided that if she killed herself, then her kids would be safe because then she couldn't be the the conduit conduit that um was used to to um how do I want to say that? She wouldn't be the conduit that Satan used to hurt the kids. Um and so her hospital stint was from June 18th to June 24th. Her second hospitalization was from July 26th to August 10th. Uh, and she had attempted to slit her own throat, but Rusty was able to like go into the bathroom and intervene. Um, so she was unsuccessful in that attempt. That particular time she was um released with the official diagnosis of um major depressive dis nope. Major depressive disorder. And uh so it was major depressive depression. I have to breathe. Major depression disorder, severe recurrent with psychotic features. So this is where she and I are the same. I have this diagnosis. Um she had uh psychiatric outpatient appointments, which basically means that she would be in contact with her psychiatrist, but she was never in the hospital. So she would go see them and then she could go back home. A few months, this is crazy. A few months after having these appointments and taking her medication, she claimed, Oh, I'm better, everything's fine now. So she stopped taking her medication and she stopped going to her appointments. And although it was said to her, do not have more children. If you have more children, it is only going to get worse. Everything is going to go horribly wrong. Her and Rusty said we should have another child, and that's exactly what happened. They went on to have Mary in November, right? November 30th, 2000. Let me make sure. Yes, that's exactly what happened. Um, I do believe that part of the non-denominational situation was in the birth control thing, was that if God allowed you to have children, so if you could bear children, you should have children. So a lot of them just had like these huge families. Um, so Andrea's family. Let's just get into her family real fast. So Andrea's family they said they did everything that they could to try to get Rusty to understand that Andrea needed more help. So they were also like, hey, do not have more kids. Make sure she's on her medication, make sure she's going to see people, like, do these things. And Rusty um kind of believed that God was going to help Andrea get through. Um, but Rusty kind of says no. He did feel like some of the psychiatrists failed her, which I believe towards the end they did. But um, I definitely do believe that there are times where he definitely did relay or rely on faith to help her when he should have relied more on science. And I say that cautiously because I don't want people to feel like their faith shouldn't be relied on. Um, if you have, if you can use the power of prayer, then do that, right? If if you have a higher power, go ahead and ask them or or pray to them, or whatever it is that you do, then do that, you know what I mean? But also remember that there are medicines for purposes, right? And so sometimes I feel like faith and science can work together. Um, so it might not be that one thing can work without the other. Does that make sense? Um, and so that's just my little tidbit on that. Again, I'm not a religious person, but I don't want anybody to ever feel like your religion can't help, because it could. Um, but I also believe that science helps too. And I don't also believe that science helps all the time. I believe that sometimes you can do things naturally. So, you know, I do believe that there's things that naturally grow that can do better than some type of chemical process done in a lab. So, yeah, again, sometimes you just gotta do your own research and and weigh your own options. Ultimately, though, do what feels best for you. Um, so anyway, her family was like, Yay, do these things, you know, like do more for her. And the reason why they were relying on Rusty so much is because Andrea kind of isolated herself away from her family. She would go see them sometimes, but she rarely would let them come to her. Um, she did care for her um sick dad, so she would go to him again. She really didn't let her family come see her. I will say that Andrea's brother believes that Rusty should have been charged with something regarding the murders of his nieces and nephews, or his niece and nephews, um, because he feels wet that Rusty knew that Andrea shouldn't have another child. He knew that she should have been continuing her medication, he knew that she should have been continuing whatever types of programs that um the psychiatrist and therapist said that she needed to continue, and he knew that she shouldn't have been left alone with the kids. If Rusty needed to go to work, Andrea's family lived like 30 minutes away. So he could have very easily packed the kids up and took them over to Andrea's people's house. He could have even easily packed up Andrea with the kids and took them over to her people's house. But he decided to go to work, I believe. And this is where everything happened. So that happened. Um, okay, so let's go into oh gosh. Here we go. So Andrea's father, like I said, she was taking care of her sickly father. Andrea's dad unfortunately passed away March of 2001. So at this point, Andrea has five children. She has two suicide attempts. She has two uh hospitalizations, she's been diagnosed with postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. She has been diagnosed with major depressive depression disorder, severe recurrent with psychotic features. Um, and at this current time, she has no medication. Okay. So this lady is is going through it. Now she has, or not she, uh, what's her husband's name? Rusty. Rusty's mom goes to visit, and then she realizes that things are not good in the house, so she decides she's going to stay to help care for the children. Spring of 2001, Andrea was hospitalized two times, so she was admitted to Devereaux, Texas Treatment Network, and so she had like cents that she had to spend there, and she was prescribed the antipsychotic haul doll. Hell doll. I think. Howl doll? Perhaps. Um, and then and then I'm sorry for laughing, but this is where this is where Rusty says that she was failed by the psychiatrist. So I think he did try to sue the psychiatrist. Um, but June 4th, 2001, her psychiatrist discontinued her how howl doll um because of the side effects of the howl doll, but then kept her on an antidepressant. So instead of putting her on a different antipsychotic, they just continue to give her an antidepressant, which although an antidepressant can do things as far as like mood disorders, it doesn't do anything for psychosis. So I'm not sure what what they were what they were thinking. I don't I don't know what happened there. So that happened, and then this was June 4th that they that they stopped giving her the antipsychotic and then June 20th, 2001, Andrea drowned her children in the family's home in the family home's bathtub. And I'm at a loss for why they did not put her on a different antipsychotic. I I don't know why, but again, I don't want to go through every single um episode that Andrea had because I feel like that's going to take far too long. However, prior to her drowning the children, there are some things that are significant. Um, and so I just want to read this little blurb to you that I didn't want to write out. So it says, Mrs. Yates, which is Andrea, came to believe that her children were not developing right intellectually and were not righteous. Her children's manners were bad. She believed that her children would never be right because she had ruined them due to her defective mothering. She thought that her son Luke would become a mute homosexual prostitute, and her son John would become a serial murderer. She foresaw that her son Noah would die a tragic death, and that her son Paul would be hit by a truck. She was convinced that all her children will be punished and burned in hell. Andrea was focused on the biblical verse from Luke 17 2. It would be better for him of a mile of a millstone were hung around. I'm sorry, hold on, let me reread that. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown in the sea, than that he should cause one of the little ones to stumble. She related to this verse to her failure to make her own children respectful and righteous. She struggled back and forth in her mind for one to two months about whether to take the lives of her children. So these are her delusions. These are the things that she thought about her children. Again, going into her psychosis, going into her um the whole per postpartum psychosis and things like that, right? So I don't understand why the doctor were just like, well, here's your antidepressants. Because while they're boot stabilizers, they have nothing to do with psychosis. So on June 20th, 2001, um the Yates children from six months to seven um were again drowned in the bathtub. So Rusty went to work at 9 a.m. and Andrea um didn't expect for Dora, that was um Rusty's mom's name, to come back until 10 a.m. She reported that she drowned her five children in no particular order between 9 and 10. She placed the children on the double bed in the master bedroom and she placed Mary um in John's arm so that way he could protect her in their afterlife because John was a good big brother. She says that Noah was the most difficult to drown because he was the strongest. Again, Noah was the oldest. Um, and so he kept saying, I'm sorry, mommy. And she left him in the bathtub. Andrea called the police after she had murdered her children. And then she called her husband and she said it's time, referring to the biblical prop prophecy of revelations about Armageddon. She told the police that she had killed her kids and led them to where her children were. Um, and again, she believes that Satan was the cause of everything. And she said that she believed it was right to drown her children because she wanted to save their souls and didn't want them to be in the arms of Satan. So there was that. She, you know, again, she admitted to killing her children. So there, you know, they didn't have to investigate or anything like that. She pled guilty, all of that. So let's go to the trial. Um, real it um, okay, so trial 2002. The state wanted death penalty, um, of course, because she killed five children. Um, but she just so happened to be um given life in prison. But she was trying to do an insanity defense because, well, she has all of these, excuse me, all of these diagnoses, which I don't understand why she wouldn't be given insanity anyway. However, let me tell y'all, there was a doctor by the name of Dr. Park Beats. And um, this particular doctor says that there was an episode of Law and Order that was aired just days prior to Andrea taking the lives of her children, and that particular episode was of a mom who just so happened to drown her children in the bathtub. And that mom was able to claim postpartum depression and get an insanity defense. And Park was also the only doctor who said that Andrea knew right from wrong. Okay, so this is the this doctor, only one who said, nope, Andrea is guilty. She should be given life, she knew what she was doing. Da-da-da-da-da. So Andrea is found guilty and given life in prison. Well, well, well, well, well. I don't know why, but at some point in time, somebody decides to look up something, and they realize that Dr. Park Deats is a fucking liar. I didn't want to cuss, but I had to, because it was coming out, is a liar. And there was no such episode that came out. They were like, no, he, he, or she, I don't know. But anyway, they lied and it never aired. And so there was a second trial because they gave her a retrial. And so, in her retrial, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Um, and so she was sent to a Texas state hospital indefinitely. And like I said, all of the other, so there were six mental health professionals who were um called in this case. All of the other mental health professionals said that she could not tell right from wrong. She was literally acting off of what she believed to be true and thought that by killing her children she was she was saving their souls. So I was like, so did we did the jury only listen to um what is this doctor? Dr. Deeks. They were just like, yep, this one knows what what they're talking about. Because how how are we not listening to five other people? How the hell does that work? But yeah, this case was a lot. It was a lot because it just shows where um when it comes to mental health, people don't pay attention. People don't pay attention, people don't believe things to be true, people just kind of brush it off as like a yo, okay. But we really do need to, we really do need to pay attention to what people are are saying to us, right? Um, yes, I do bel I do not believe, I do know that some people play up the mental health thing. Some people even do pretend to have mental health issues, or they believe that having anxiety about something or being sad about something is the same as being depressed or being officially diagnosed with anxiety. Um, and it's not like I know when certain people are like, Oh, I'm you know, I have anxiety, and there's these like, well, everybody has anxiety. No, it's not the same. I'm sorry. I will be the person who tells you it's not the same. You being anxious about you getting a test result is not the same as you having anxiety about everything that happens in everything. Like, there's a different level of anxiety when it comes to the diagnosis of anxiety, or you having to take medication for anxiety. And that's why people don't think anxiety is a real thing. That's why people think depression isn't like a real thing, because everybody's like, well, everybody has some form of everybody also says everybody has some form of autism, but we're not sitting here not paying attention to people who have autism. Rightfully so, right? We we should definitely pay attention to people who have autism, so we shouldn't be sitting here like we shouldn't be downplaying people's mental health by saying, well, everybody blah because not everybody know pay the just listen to people. Just listen. Okay, stop trying to generalize people's feelings. First off, if somebody is coming to you with a problem and and you think that generalizing it makes them feel better, it fucking doesn't. It it makes them feel smaller and it makes them feel unsupported, and then it makes them not want to talk about it. And there's nothing more dangerous to a person than having to deal with their problems by themselves when they already can't. There's nothing worse than looking at your phone while going through something and realizing you have nobody. Don't generalize people's issues, just let them fucking talk. Because more often they're not asking you to do anything, they're not even asking you to say anything, they just want you to listen. Shut up and support them. And if they have to have medication, if there's medical advice saying they need to be seen and they have to keep up with these appointments, then make sure that they are doing that. If you have to call them and say, hey, did you take your meds today? Hey, did you eat today? Hey, how was your therapy session? Then fucking do that. Make them feel normal. Normalize it for them. Don't ostracize them. Just normalize it. Okay. That's the case of Andrea Yates. I hope I have satisfied you enough for you to come back for season two. Yes, this is the end of season one. Season two, we will be discussing con artists. Yes. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited for season two because I have some of the greatest episodes to discuss. Ah, some of the greatest things to discuss. And not all of them are necessarily going to be con artists, some of them are just going to be like scams um and scandals. But yeah. So, catch you our next episode. Be safe.