Inside Andrea Yates

Andrea Yates was found Not Guilty by reason of insanity in the murder of her five (?) children-and this is one time this has happenned that I think it's an appropriate verdict. There have been times when insanity pleas are not. But I followed this case from it's inception, and in all the photos and films of Andrea that I saw, it was obvious not so much that there was no one home. The wiring had short-circuited. This happens when there is too much load on the circuits. It can blow, with dire and catastrophic results.

Andrea Yates was not so much a wife to her husband Russell Yates as she was a fuck machine, and a baby making machine, and a cooking machine, and a house cleaning machine, and a baby sitting machine, and a home school teaching machine.

A discerning person had but to look in her eyes, and you could tell that she was running on auto-pilot, and simultaneously, on fumes. She had long ago sublimated her true self to her unconscous drives. That was the only way she could cope.

Unfortunately, the subconscous mind, and the unconscous mind, are powerful things, and yet fragile; complex organisms, and yet simple. They think in amazingly simple ways. One of those ways is, if you are trapped in a situation from which there is no other way seemingly of extricating yourself-you quite simply and logically eliminate the problem. In this case, all five of them.

Russell Yates was a religous person, one of these with a very devout yet simplistic view of life and religion, and was well aware of his wifes problems. Or so he thought. Because of his religous beliefs he didn't allow her to take any medication to deal with her mounting post parnum depression. Instead, he believed the correct response was to fill her days with work, work, work. Responsibility. God would see her though it. He, however, had to go to work, as a NASA engineer. The children, their care, their education even, was solely Andrea's responsibility.

And so this obviously insane, it should have been apparrent, woman, with the ever more disintegrating and fragmented personality began to hear voices from the depth of her subconscous, which devised a simple yet foolproof plan to rid itself of this horrific problem which it was confronted with the task of solving.

The children must die for their own good. And so they were, by drowning in the bath tub, in what in retrospect seems eerily like some kind of bizzarre baptismal ritual.

Andrea Yates was eventually found guilty,and probably would have been sentenced to death had the case not garnered the attention of feminists nationwide. She was spared this fate. Eventually, the initial verdict was overturned.

Now, she might be out at some future date. Her husband, who soon after the trial divorced her, and then remarried, was happy at the latest outcome, and congratulated the jury for their ability to see beyond the obviously horrendous nature of the crime. Understandable, perhaps, that he could not do the same.

At any rate, Andrea Yates might one day be a free woman. She will be reviewed as to her progress periodically. Hopefully, she will not be released unless she is truly ready to be. But if that time ever comes, she should be.

She did not ask for the breakdown which ruined her life and destroyed the lives of her children. Her husband, who is every bit as responsible, more so actually, than she is, has gone on with his life. She should be given the same opportunity, provided that she is able to do so.