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Andrea Yates case: Prosecutors say Yates knew right from wrong

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Editor's Note: As part of CNN.com's new Crime section, we are archiving some of the most interesting content from CourtTVNews.com. This story was first published in 2006.

(Court TV) -- Shortly after Andrea Yates was arrested for methodically drowning her five children in the bathtub, she told an investigator that she was a bad mother who had doomed her young to eternal damnation, and the only way she knew to save them was to kill them.

Yates' attorneys are now trying to save the former nurse and Texas housewife from a life in prison as they make the case for a second time to a new jury that Yates is not guilty of murdering her children because she was insane at the time of the June 20, 2001, killings.

"There was no question she was psychotic, not depressed, but absolutely psychotic," defense attorney George Parnham told jurors Monday during his opening statement.

Yates, 41, stood facing the jury Monday with her hands clasped behind her back as a prosecutor read the indictment, accusing Yates of two counts of murder for drowning three of her five children with "a deadly weapon, namely water."

She wore a green cotton dress that flowed down to her shins and tan flats. Her dark bangs rested on her gold-rimmed eyeglasses, and she wore her long dark hair in the same plain style as in her first trial four years ago.

How do you plead?" The judge asked.

Yates answered "not guilty" in a small voice, her attorney resting a hand on her shoulder.

Connecting the dots

Yates has a history of mental illness leading up to the killings.

Records show Yates had twice attempted suicide, once holding a steak knife to her own neck. She was diagnosed with recurrent postpartum depression and had been hospitalized several times for psychiatric care.

Before the drowning, her physician took her off antipsychotic medication and changed her dosages of antidepressants. Her husband, Russell "Rusty" Yates, had arranged for his mother Dora to help with the care of the five children because Yates' mental condition was so unstable.

But in the hour between Rusty's 9 a.m. departure that Wednesday morning to his job as a NASA engineer and Dora's expected 10 a.m. arrival to see her grandchildren, Yates used all her strength to cut their lives short.

"I think she appeared kind of worn out," an officer testified Monday. "But she had just finished drowning five children. She probably was worn out."

When detectives first asked Yates why she did it, she had no answer, she was unable to "connect the dots," defense attorney Parnham told jurors.

But in the next 24 hours, she was put on anti-anxiety medication, Parnham said, and she began to tell a doctor, who is expected to testify, the reasons for her act.

"She talks about a prophecy," Parnham said. "These children of hers needed to die in order to be saved because Andrea Yates was such a bad mother that she was causing these children to deteriorate and be doomed to the fires of eternal damnation."

Parnham said that Yates believed she had the sign of the devil, 666, burned on her scalp, and she begged therapists to look at her head.

What they found, Parnham said, was not the sign of the beast, but scabs from where Yates had tried to pick away the numbers she thought were there. Yates believed that if she were punished by the state for what she did, then Satan too would be slain.

Defense experts are expected to testify that "knowing that something is illegal does not mean that you know something is wrong," according to the attorney.

But prosecutors say Yates understood exactly what she was doing when she pinned each child to the bottom of the tub until they were unconscious and then laid their lifeless bodies side by side in her bed before calling 911, and then called her husband to tell him to come home.

"She knew it was wrong," Assistant District Attorney Kaylynn Williford said during opening statements.

Jurors listened to Yates' 911 call Monday, they viewed the children's clothing, and they heard from prosecution witnesses who say that Yates was calm, unemotional and matter-of-fact about her chilling actions.

Prosecutors say her demeanor illustrates that Yates knew right from wrong that morning, and therefore, by Texas law, should not be found legally insane.

But defense attorneys say evidence will show she suffered from flat affect and severe psychosis.

Yates stared at her hands in her lap Monday as Williford described her confession to investigators, when she said she called her children one by one into the bathroom to kill them.

She started with Paul, 3, then Luke, 2, John, 5, Mary, 6 months, and ended with Noah, 7, who, she later told investigators, asked "What's wrong with Mary?" when he saw his baby sister floating face-down in the urine- and feces-tainted water. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

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