Husband of mother who drowned children takes stand
Andrea Yates and her husband sobbed and mouthed words of encouragement to each other in court while a video-tape was played of their children.
‘‘She’s wonderful. She was so involved with the children,’’ Russell Yates tearfully described his wife to the jury in Houston, Texas.
Yates faces the death penalty for drowning her five children while her husband was at work.
Russell Yates calmly described how his wife had tried to commit suicide with sleeping pills two years before drowning the children.
She was treated and released but three weeks later he found her holding a knife to her throat.
Defence lawyers are trying to prove Yates loved her children, but was so mentally ill that she did not know right from wrong when she drowned them.
Andrea Yates is charged with murdering seven-year-old Noah, five-year-old John and six-month-old Mary. Charges could be filed later in the deaths of Paul, three, and Luke, two.
Russell Yates smiled at his wife as he entered the courtroom, and then told jurors the two decided to have a fifth child despite her bout with postpartum depression. He said he thought she was cured.
The husband, who sometimes rocked nervously on the witness stand, described what he thought were his wife’s nervous habits, such as picking at her hair and constantly carrying around their latest baby.
At the time, Andrea Yates was being treated by psychiatrist Eileen Starbranch. Starbranch testified earlier yesterday, saying she remembered Yates being ‘‘warm and loving’’ with her four sons, but that she warned the couple against having more children to avoid future psychosis.
‘‘She said if we did have any more children she would like to start Andrea on an anti-depressant early,’’ Russell Yates testified.
A medical chart note from August 18, 1999, the day Starbranch gave the advice, reads: ‘‘Apparently patient and husband plan to have as many babies as nature will allow!’’ the psychiatrist wrote. ‘‘This will surely guarantee future psychotic depression.’’
