Husband of Andrea Yates Really Should
Have Been Smart Enough to Avert That Tragedy
September 10, 2001
The more I read about the case
of Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children, the more I think the husband
shoulders blame for not averting the tragedy.
These are the warning signs
he had available to him, as reported
in The New York Times:
- his wife's suicide attempt
in June, 1999, about 6 months after the birth of her fourth child
- diagnosis: post-partum
psychosis and depression
- signs of stress from
having to take care of her father, who had Alzheimer's disease
- less than a month later,
the husband finds her holding a knife to her neck
- she describes hearing
voices
- she says she had a
vision about getting the knife
- she says she first had
such a vision after the birth of her first child
- she had stopped taking
her medicine
- the birth of the couple's
fifth child, and also possibly the death of her father, cause additional
episodes of depression and psychosis:
- between March and May
she spends four stints at a psychiatric hospital
- at one point her
physician seeks involuntary commitment because she is catatonic and
has scratched bald spots into her head
Even without knowing anything
further, this is not the type of person a rational person would leave five
young children with. But the husband's contribution to the tragedy is
more causative than just ignoring warning signs:
- the husband, described as
"controlling" by one doctor, allows her only "two hours
of personal time a week"
- after the birth of their
fourth child and his wife's two suicide attempts, he doesn't change the
decision with his now obviously mentally ill wife to have as many babies
as nature will allow
- despite his wife's mental
problems, the husband doesn't have them change their plans to home
school their children
- the decisions to have more
children and to home school the children come despite their
psychologist's warning that these courses of action would not be in Mrs.
Yates' best interest
- at one point during her
hospitalizations, the husband puts pressure on her to leave the
hospital, claiming that she was 90-95% normal, while she reports 70-75%
- he allows her to be
discharged from the hospital for the last time prior to her murdering
her children, even though records indicate that at the time she is still
depressed and suicidal
A rationally thinking man
would not have additional children with a wife who is obviously incapable of
caring for even the four they already have. A rationally thinking man
would not foist the home-schooling of five children on a woman like Andrea
Yates. A rationally thinking man would not leave five young children
alone with her.
The severely mentally
incapacitated state of Andrea Yates meant that decision-making fell by
default to her husband, and he made some egregiously bad ones. |
