Dr.: Mom Said Drowning Was
'Best Way'
HOUSTON,
Feb. 25, 2002
Andrea Yates considered stabbing her five children but decided it was too
bloody and that drowning was a better way to end their lives, a psychiatrist
testified Monday.
Dr. Melissa Ferguson also said that Yates ruled out
drugs to kill her children, but believed drugs were possible for suicide.
Ferguson interviewed the Houston mother in jail the day after her children were
drowned in their bathtub June 20.
"Do you remember her making a
statement, 'After thinking about my options, I decided drowning would be the
best way to end their life'?" prosecutor Kaylynn Williford said in
cross-examining the defense witness.
Yates said "something about
drowning, that drowning was the way," Ferguson replied. Asked by Williford if
she recalled Yates saying, "I decided a knife was too bloody," Ferguson said
yes.
Ferguson testified Yates told her she thought about killing her
children for at least three months and thought about it the night before the
children were drowned.
John Bayliss, a jail nurse who has observed Yates
since her arrest, followed Ferguson to the stand Monday and said Yates requested
her hair be cut in the shape of a crown the day after the deaths.
Bayliss said Yates appeared to be "internally occupied" and thought she
may have been hearing voices in the weeks after she was jailed. "She was a
person who wasn't connected with reality at all," he said.
Yates'
demeanor in jail has improved dramatically over the last few months since she's
been taking medication, he said.
Ferguson, elaborating on her earlier
testimony when she described how Yates believed she had been marked by Satan,
said Monday that Yates told her killing her children was the right thing to do.
"She was convinced that the children were going to be tormented for the
rest of their lives and that they were going to perish in the fires of hell,"
the psychiatrist said.
Dr. George Ringholz, a neuropsychologist, also
testified Monday that Yates told him she felt Satan's presence shortly after the
birth of her eldest son, Noah.
"She heard Satan's voice tell her to pick
up the knife and stab the child," Ringholz testified, adding Yates' comments
were typical of schizophrenia.
Ringholz said Yates had suffered from
schizophrenia since childhood and that her condition was aggravated by the birth
of Noah, and again by the birth of another son in 1999.
Outside the
jury's presence, Ringholz told prosecutors he was prepared to testify Yates was
insane when she drowned her children.
Other testimony this week is
expected to include doctors who treated Yates before the killings.
Yates
is on trial for two counts of capital murder for the deaths of three of her five
children. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the deaths of 7-year-old
Noah, 5-year-old John and 6-month-old Mary. Charges could eventually be filed in
the deaths of Paul, 3, and Luke, 2.
Yates' attorneys contend the former
nurse turned stay-at-home mother is innocent by reason of nsanity.
Prosecutors had finished their case Friday after four days of testimony
from police officers, homicide detectives, a crime scene specialist and the 911
operator who took Yates' call.
Prosecutors presented an audiotaped
statement Yates made to police. In it she detailed how she waited until her
husband left for work to fill the tub. Jurors also viewed photos of the
children's bodies.
In Texas, a person is presumed sane, and it is up to
the defense to prove a defendant is insane.
Defense attorneys have said
that Yates' self-defeating attitude was a symptom of her severe mental illness,
which left her unable to know if drowning her children was right or wrong.
Prosecutors spent most of last week laying out their criminal case, and
later will get the chance to respond to Yates' insanity claims.
During
opening statements, prosecutors said Yates knew what she was doing was a sin
and, therefore, that it was wrong.
They showed jurors pictures taken at
the family's home. One showed 7-year-old Noah's body floating face down in the
tub, where each of his siblings was drowned. Another showed the four youngest
children lying on a wet bed.
Yates medical records from 1999 detail two
suicide attempts following Luke's birth and a doctor's warning that she should
think twice before having additional children.
They also include a
mention that Yates had her first homicidal thought following Noah's birth.
Ferguson testified Friday that Yates thought cartoon characters were
telling her that she was a bad mother and that she heard a human voice telling
her to get a knife. Yates also said she saw Satanic teddy bears and ducks in the
jail's walls.
If jurors determine Yates was insane, a separate hearing
will be held to determine if she will be released or involuntarily committed.