important, because it will be the future. an unspeakable crime, an unlikely criminal, the ultimate tabloid murder. >> your thoughts on the andrea yates story? it is a horror. >> this is the ultimate madonna and child story turned upside down. >> five young children murdered at the hands of their mother. was she simply cold-blooded or was something else to blame? >> if you commit a crime and it is a terrible crime you will probably never leave a texas

prison. >> it was a terrible, personal tragedy that became a white-hot media spectacle. captivating and horrifying people from coast to coast. >> she did not show remorse. she did not show regret. she believed that she had arranged for her children to go to heaven. >> the murder case that shocked the nation. and cast a harsh new light on the very nature of motherhood. >> i view her as a victim, i don't view her as a criminal. >> the state of texas versus andrea yates next.

>> are you ill? or what? >> yes, i'm ill. >> do you need an ambulance? >> no, i need a police officer. >> the woman on the phone is andrea yates. she is living the american dream, a house in the suburbs, an rv in the back yard. >> what is the problem? >> i just needed some help. >> they all seemed so happy, five healthy children, a loving mother and a successful dad who worked for nasa. >> is your husband there? >> no. >> well, what is the problem? >> i need them to come. >> it is a tuesday morning, just after 9:00 a.m. yates has just fed the kids. then, she draws the bath. >> what is the problem?

is someone breaking into your house? i mean, what is it? >> the dispatcher assigned me for that particular call to service, being that it was my own responsibility. another unit, david nat, he checked by with me, which was a common practice, slow time, killing time, helping each other out. >> eight minutes after dialing 911, andrea yates calls her husband and tells him it is time to come home. it is not yet 10 a.m. >> i was worried, andrea called me with a firm tone, said i needed to come home and so i di did. >> i moved into the house, and david approached me right at the hallway. and i said what is going on? and he looked at me, and he said it is a homicide.

so i looked to my right, and there was yates. just sitting there, she never looked at me. i walked into the room and i was expecting to find a man on the floor, a body. and i was looking around, looking around, and i seen this little tiny head. and it was looking right at me. and the little head was about ten or 15 feet from me at the edge of the bed. and i said what in the world? i thought it was a doll. and i looked at the tiny head, i touched it. put my finger on it. i said what? i picked up the blanket, the little tiny body was a human being. and as i continued to pick up the blanket, there was one body after another. one, two, three, four. i walked back down the hallway, made a right turn into the bathroom, and there i found the oldest one floating face down in the tub. >> a devout christian, dedicated to having as many children as

god would allow, andrea yates had drowned her own kids, one by one in the family tub. >> we didn't know what to do. we just looked at each other. and there was this moment in time where all the training, you know, all the scenes that you have made, everything that you have been taught and learned and instinct went right out the window. >> police were there in my yard. i wanted to go inside. they wouldn't let me inside. they told me what happened. and you know, i just -- i remember laying in the grass just bawling. >> and the husband showed up, and he started screaming, andrea, you finally did it. andrea, you really did it. she just sat there and just stared at the door with this blank look on her face. it was just like void of anything. but everybody was affected, and anyone that says they were not, they're not telling the truth.

>> the story spread like wildfire. reporters and first responders swarmed the area. frank stumpo was assigned to take andrea yates to jail. >> the news media were there, 50, 60, 70 people, a woman who could wipe out five kids, her whole family and become a star. and that is what she was. and i told her that, i said now you're a celebrity. and i brought her into the homicide division, brought her upstairs and said that was it. >> a mother killing her own child is unthinkable. a mother killing all five of her children is completely unimaginable. how can we begin to comprehend the circumstances that brought andrea to that point? >> she was a perfectionist, she does very well in high school. she was valedictorian of her high school class.

grades were very important to her, being a good daughter was very important to her. she went to nursing school and went to a very prestigious school in texas. did very well in nursing school. and then married and started to have children. and her goal was to be a wonderful mother. >> they met in 1989. they were both 25. four years later, they married. almost immediately, andrea was pregnant. >> i think the thing that surprised us was how fast that happened. she used to joke, she wouldn't like me saying this, she called herself fertile myrtle, yeah, it wasn't hard. >> they would give each child a biblical. >> i know rusty believed that they would have as many kids as god would permit. >> the yates family was very religious. >> from the religion standpoint, i would say we were both pretty

conservative. >> rusty had been serious about religion since college. he introduced andrea to the unconventional preachings of a man named michael warnecki. >> warnecki, his family traveled around texas, in a bus, pro proselytizing on campus. >> the students would be going to hell, because they were studying in a material world when they should be out reproducing. >> the message, as i understand it, if you think you're saved. if you think you're a christian, or going to heaven, then that proves you're going to hell because that is prideful and only god knows who is going to heaven. you sort of got painted in a corner in that way of thinking. >> by 1996, the yates had two children. noah and john. and a short-term job opportunity

in florida. rusty opted not to be burned by owning another house. >> going into an rv was kind of more of an experiment for us. and what we did was rented our house that we had here. and bought a 38-foot travel trailer and pulled it to florida. and lived at the camp ground in florida during the course of that assignment. >> at the time, andrea was again pregnant. she miscarried just after the move. in 1997, the yates returned to houston, where their third son is born. in 1998, they trade in an rv for a renovated 350 square foot bus, a bus they bought from michael warnecki. baby number four arrives a few months later. >> i went on the bus. it was a bus, it was small. and there was a trap door that lifted up. and you look down in the luggage

compartment, and there were pall pallets on the floor where the children slept. >> mrs. yates was overwhelmed. she had begun home schooling, and she just couldn't handle it. >> you can imagine, home schooling. >> a, b, d, e -- >> she was changing diapers 24/7. washing diapers. not permitted to use pampers. had to use cloth diapers because they were more basic. they were the salt of the earth. return to you know, dissociative from materialism. return to the basics. >> so there is no question that she was stressed. >> andrea yates' life had begun to unravel. >> she seemed perfectly fine

until after we had luke. >> after her fourth child was born she actually struggled with the thought of killing her child. and she made a suicide attempt rather than risk harming her child. >> and there was one psychiatrist who saw her and told her and rusty, don't have anymore children. you need to stop. >> and here we are, on our way home. what does it say, boys, congratulations rusty and andrea, it is a boy. that is so cute, giving us a little welcome home. >> just a year later, the yates were expect iing their fifth child. at farmers we make you smarter about insurance,

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>> 36-year-old andrea yates shows no emotion, minutes after admitting to murdering her five children. number two, rusty yates was very forthcoming with the press and very willing to speak. so a confluence of factor came

together to make it not only a national case but an international case. given the circumstances, it was almost inevitable that andrea yates became a household word, and post partum depression a part of that. >> it is only no about a thousand births, often a woman is very psychotic, hallucinations, usually so severe it requires hospitalization. >> in june, she showed the police the bodies of her children, noah, luke, mary. >> i had no idea what was going on. i had no idea about mental illness or post partum depression or psychosis. >> if you have more and more children, the risk that you will

have more of these episodes is higher. and with the episodes. it was worse. >> andrea yates never denied she killed her children, but by all accounts she was a devoted mother. but her defense doctors say she became more desperate and secretive with each pregnancy. the crisis point came in 1999, after the birth of her fourth child. >> there were two suicide attempts in these pregnancies. and what she said to me was she didn't want to hurt her children. she wanted to hurt herself. >> andrea yates was hospitalized after both attempts. the second time, she was put on the powerful psychotic drug, haldol. and it worked so well that she

and rusty were soon talking about a fifth child. >> you know, the decision to have more children in 2001 was based on information we had gotten from the doctor, because we successfully treated it in '99, because if it happened again we knew how to treat it. thinking again, if it happens at all it would be a relatively short spell. she would be down at worst, for a while. >> for the yates, adding to the family outweighed the risks. to ensure a healthy pregnancy, andrea yates went off all of her medication. >> if you're on medication and you come on and off of it a lot, we think that it does something to your brain. and then if you get sick you often get sicker, and then it becomes harder to treat the second, third, fourth time. >> following the first hospitalization, the yates had moved out of the bus and into a new house. in november, 2000, they welcomed their fifth child and first

girl, mary. >> this is our little girl that was born today. >> everything seemed fine until the following march when andrea's father died. >> andrea is such a wonderful, caring person, we cared deeply for her father, felt such a responsibility because she was the nurse in the family. come march 31st, she is taken by rusty to the hospital. he is concerned about her. andrea was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, post-partum. >> but by that time, hospitals were not educated about post-partum illness, psychiatrists were not educated about the illness. >> after 2001, andrea began to see the hospital psychiatrist was an out-patient but was not put back on haldol.

and rusty hesitated to question the doctor. >> you know if i were to challenge him and say the medicine worked in 2009, why isn't it working now? >> rusty flew his mother out to houston to help andrea with the kids. what she saw frightened her. >> her mother-in-law, rusty's mother was in the house and said andrea, why are you filling the tub at 4:00 in the afternoon. and andrea gave a vague answer, i might have use for it. that so concerned rusty's mother that they then arranged for her to be hospitalized within 24 hours. >> when andrea was sent home from devereux the second time she was just as disoriented as before. rusty took her back. >> rusty said i took her back, she is not responding to the

antidepressant medication. rusty said the doctor's response was, andrea you have to think happy thoughts. two days after that, in 2001, andrea drowned her children one by one. and then patiently waited to be arrested. >> when i saw her in the jail that first time, i would ask her questions and she would answer it in nonsense. she heard the tv talking to her. and she was picking her scalp, which i saw her do later to learn that the belief that the number 666 had been branded into her scalp. >> as irrational as andrea's symptoms sounded, at least one expert had a scientific term for her condition.

cacodemoniamania, literally believing one is possessed by a demon, and a phenomenon that occurs within people with religious delusions. >> she loved her children, and the message that she was getting from the tv was that she was a bad person, she was satan. >> once she became psychotic it tied in with her religious believes at the time. >> at least some of those believes seemed to have been influenced by the writings of michael warnecki, the preacher that the couple once followed. >> the one that stands out in my mind is a pamphlet that showed a mother and children and said something like jezebels are going to throw their children in the river and destroy them. >> she believed one son was going to become a killer, one son a proostitute.

and she had these fantastic believes that her children were going to end up evil in some way and would literally go to hell. >> i didn't know that someone's believes, someone's thoughts, that they become delusional that they believe things that were not own true or believe or see or hear things that were not even there. >> maybe you saw some clues? >> i just felt like he was inside me giving me directions. >> what directions. >> that i would kill them. >> i asked her, do you believe you were possessed by a, devil, or the one and only satan. and she said the one and only satan i believe was literally within me. what makes a sleep number store different?

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adela >> today is february 26th. >> seventh. >> seventh. >> let's do that interview. >> the last one was her oldest son. he was strong and a big kid. he resisted most of being drowned. that he got his head above water, and he said like mommy, i'll be good. as if he believed he was being punished by being drowned. then she took each child and placed the child on their bed, the master bed, in the master bedroom. an one of the children was a particular good big brother, i believe it was john. and she took the baby, 6

month-old baby girl and put it in the crook of john's arm so he could look after her in the after life, as he had been a good big brother during their lifetime together. >> it promised to be the trial of the century in houston, texas, there was no question regarding the basic facts. on the morning of june 20th, 2001, 36-year-old andrea yates syst systematically drowned her children. the defense attorney knew that the only course was to plead guilty by reason of of insanity. but the public opinion grew. >> the opinion about andrea was negative, to say the least.

people did not understand mental illness. >> overwhelmingly, people were very harsh in their assessment. the community of psychiatric workers, doctors, were horrified that we would prosecute somebody who had a legitimate mental illness. that was a minority. >> andrea yates' actions were certainly incomeprehensible. >> there is no legal definition of what is right or wrong, and the law tells us if there is no legal definition then the jurors can use the every day common meaning of the use. whatever the legal words, the public was stunned by the way rusty yates reacted to the

murders and the surrounding media circus. >> the woman here is not the woman who killed my children. she obviously was not herself. >> i am just -- completely surprised that people think that well, because i defend andrea as being a wonderful mother that she shouldn't be punished. that somehow i'm condoning her actions. her actions were almost indescribably terrible to my family. >> he took it as a badge of honor, on tv, giving interviews. which was macabre. and at the funeral, he actually had a slide show of his kids. >> the funeral took place one week after the murders and sealed the public's view of rusty yates. >> i think people want to assign blame, how did it happen? why did it happen, how do you assign fault? and if you believe that andrea yates was ill, then you say okay

it was not her fault, she was sick. okay, it must be rusty's fault. i think what turned people off is that he smiled a lot. >> he didn't show the kind of emotion that was expected. and once he was kind of type cast without emotion, no matter how much he showed after that, that is how he was viewed. >> rusty's demeanor so upset the houston community that some people believed he was complicit in the murders. >> the district attorney's office received inquiries if he was liable, if you talk to people on the street, there were a lot of people that expressed he did do that. >> did i do everything i could to help andrea and protect our children? and i would say that is the case. i really didn't know much of what else to do. i mean, she was sick. we went to the doctor. you know, we followed the doctor's orders. >> no one ever said to him, your

children might die because of your wife's illness. nobody said you know, the risk is with post partum psychosis that your children are in danger. >> i certainly did not see rusty as such a bad guy. i think he cared deeply for his wife and children. >> in the end. the rusty yates controversy was simply a side show. his wife was the main event. and the state was going to try the case to the fullest extent of the law. seeking nothing less than the death penalty. >> she is going to say that noah got his head up a couple of times and that she was able to push him down and control him. and force him under that water. until he lost control of his body. high fructose corn syrup from yoplait original and light, we were like, "sure. no problem!" and you were like, "thanks, but what about thick & creamy and whips!" and we were like, "done and done!

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actually asserted and litigated. >> there is a small number of persons who are found excused because their mental illness is so severe it causes them either not to know what they're doing or not to know the wrongfulness of what they are doing. >> people often ask me, well, listen, why didn't she kill herself instead of drowning her children? the kids would still be alive. the problem is she becomes more and more ill with each pregnancy. the sicker you become, the less alternatives that are available to you. >> while waiting for trial, andrea yates was placed in the jail's medical facility and treated for psychosis. >> from the time of the trial, she improved to the point where she was not having wh

hallucinations. >> yates was deemed competent to stand trial. the prosecution planned to argue that andrea's motive was to get back at her husband for perceived wrongs, like living in a bus, home schooling, and the inconveniences of living in a simpler life-style. the defense knew better than to bring rusty into the equation. >> had i gone after rusty as people wanted me to do, then the jury could be told by the prosecutor in summation or at the end, she in effect, by killing the kids, she was getting back at rusty for the various things that he had done. and would give her an ulterior motive. >> the trial began in february, 2002, both sides brought in psychiatrists to testify. dr. philip reznik led for the

defense, and his counterpart was known for testifying in the john hinkley case. on several points, the experts agreed. >> we both agreed that she had a serious of incidents when she drowned her children. we both agreed she believed she was doing what was in the best interest of the children. and we both agreed she knew what she was doing was against the law. where we differed on was whether it was knowing it was against the law. the prosecution contended there was more method and madness. >> she said satan was telling her this. and if you are a religious person and satan is tell iing y to do something, you start out with something that is wrong, that it is bad conduct. so starting from that simple proposition, we knew that she knew that it was wrong. and she had expressed that she

knew it was wrong. >> so dr. dietz testified that mrs. yates knew it was wrong, not just against the law but against society and against god. that is pretty powerful testimony. >> dietz took it a step further and also presented a likely inspiration for andrea yates' actions. he testified that she had watched a law and order episode that week in which a woman, to be free of her responsibilities drowned her children and got away with murder. >> the show where you almost always watched it was law and order. and the ones she watched, i watched with her. and so i heard about that testimony. and i'm like, i don't think that happened. you know? >> but there was nothing solid to refute dietz' testimony, and after three weeks of trial the jury deliberated for just under

four hours. >> and the jury came back, and i knew when i saw that jury what that verdict was going to be. >> we the jury, find the defendant, andrea yates, guilty of capital murder, as charged in the indictment. >> i was devastated. >> knowing how much andrea loved our children and how much they loved her, and knowing that she would never have harmed them had she not been mentally ill, right? i view her -- and i know it is hard for people to see this, but i view her as a victim. i don't view her as a criminal. >> in the punishment phase of the trial, the jury sided with the defense and rejected the death penalty. andrea yates was sentenced to life in prison. >> i never thought about losing, i went back in the back withdraw draw. and she said what happens now?

and i said don't worry, andrea, you will be fine. patted her on the knee, and then came back and heard the rumbles in the courtroom about the testimony. and the law and order testimony. >> the sentencing phase was barely over before questions a rose about the part of dietz's testimony. word was spreading that the testimony didn't exist. suddenly, the defense had new hope. >> we were in the office looking at scripts, coming up with titles and a show that existed, and a woman that drowned the kids, and could find any. >> never did find this. >> susan o 'malley, one of the reporters, had written episodes, she put them in touch with the show's reporter, dick wolf. >> and he said i can guarantee

you i had great respect for him, but no such show ever aired nor had it ever been planned. >> parnun immediately filed for a mistrial. the motion was denied. >> what does that testimony have to do with it? that had nothing to do with overturning this conviction. she got the idea from a tv show and the tv show never existed. so you are going to overturn the conviction of a person that kills five children? that is absurd! at farmers we make you smarter about insurance,

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>> say daddy, mommy? >> say mama. >> mama. >> on march 20th, 2002, andrea yates was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her children. she was incarcerated at the mountain view unit, a state psychiatric prison. >> in a hospital for the -- called the criminally insane, you are locked in with people who have committed violent crimes, and they're mentally ill. they are not places you want to be. >> naturally, the defense was gunning for a reversal of the

verdict. among the many points of argument was the questionable testimony given by the lead psychiatrist for the prosecution. >> there has never been an episode that is law and order, the part he testified about. we confronted him about it. he said he was mistaken. >> the appeals process would take months of meticulous preparation for multiple arguments. but in the end, everything hinged on the dietz testimony. >> we had 19 points and only one point was ever addressed. and that was point number one. and that was his testimony. and the case got reversed. so we started back to trial. >> i thought it was great that mrs. yates would have another opportunity to have her case heard, dr. dietz, in my view, made an honest mistake. >> the reversal, although a

major victory, was only the start. the defense team pressed for an outright dismissal of all charges, arguing that a second trial would constitute double jeopardy. finally, in january of 2005, some three and a half years after the original conviction, the texas state supreme court issued an opinion. double jeopardy did not apply, but andrea yates would be granted a new trial. >> tonight, she drowned her five children, was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison, but recently, a texas appeals court overturned andrea yates' conviction. pending the trial, she was moved to the state hospital. >> how is she being treated? >> i think she is treated well. >> for the defense, they did all

they could to change perceptions of both andrea yates and mental illness. >> there were six victims, and one was andrea yates herself. >> by the second trial, there had been research articles and talks and it became much more in the public vernacular, particularly post partum depression. >> five years after the month of the tragedy, andrea yates' second trial commenced. the defense kept their arguments very specific. >> we focused on wrongfulness, mental health, and post partum wrongfulness, more in the second than in the first trial. we were learning. >> i think the defense felt that because of the time that had passed, perhaps people were a little more sensitive to the issue. >> by the time we had the second trial, i think that there was a

measurable opinion, i think it had swung to like maybe neutral. and neutral in the sense that she should be convicted and go to jail. but the tire behind the car and dragging it through the streets crowd had gone away. >> after a month of testimony, the jury deliberated for 13 hours over three days. >> the jury after three days of deliberation wanted to see the pictures of the children. and about 30 minutes later, we had two buzzers. and they had reached a verdict. and some of the jurors were crying and the reason they asked for the pictures, they took two minutes in silence. of each child in memory of that child's legacy. i thought that was probably the most powerful moment that i have

experienced in the courtroom in 45 years of doing this. you know. >> the court has been advised that the jury has reached a verdict. ñc

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and now the jury must decide. did yates know right from wrong when she drowned her five children in the bathtub. >> all rise for the jury please. >> the court be advised that the jury has reached a jury. we the jury find andrea p. yates not guilty -- not guilty -- not guilty by reason of insanity. >> juror number 15? >> yes. >> juror number 37? >> yes. >> juror number 52? >> yes. >> it had been five years, one month, and six days since the tragedy. >> we're all, you know, thrilled with the verdict. you know, last time the judge said, you know, find the defendant guilty, and we just thought she left out the word not, and this time we heard it. so we're happy. >> andrea yates was placed under the jurisdiction of the department of state health services. she currently resides at kerrville state hospital.

there is no timetable for her release. >> i don't think that any judge will ever sign a paper that says andrea yates can be completely free from supervision. >> i don't think andrea believes she will ever be free. she lives with the memory of her children. she misses them terribly. >> this didn't happen to andrea yates because she's an evil criminal, bad person that needs to be killed. this happened to andrea yates because she has a biologic illness. called psychosis. we don't understand it very well. we can't predict who is going to get it and why. >> i can't forgive her. in many respects i never blamed her. yet i could never live with her again. >> rusty yates divorced andrea after the first trial. he enrolled in law school and is now remarried with a young son.

he remains in contact with andrea. >> i can say that coming to a decision to divorce andrea was really difficult decision. and it took me probably more time than it should have. but i finally came to the understanding that there is a difference between forgiveness and consequences. >> i talked to her, andrea, probably four times a week. i long ago crossed the line from professionalism to personal involvement. and she is -- she is a daughter, basically. and that's the way i treat andrea. >> george parnham and i and the mental health association of houston and some other people started the yates children's memorial fund. in honor of the five yates children who are the real tragedy of this story. >> ours was an extreme case. you know, we lost our family,

and andrea was charged with capital murder and it was a big case because she didn't get adequate mental health care treatment. so from that facet of my life, i'm doing my best to try to redirect and say move in that direction to where i can help mentally ill people. >> hello. >> hi. >> how are you today? how many is that? >> four. >> four? >> one, two, three, four. >> i think if we can take the andrea yates, the generic andrea yates, the whole story of her kids and we can move forward in the area of mental health care, i think we will have accomplished a lot. >> not everyone agrees. >> one of the things i want to do is every june 20th, i wanted to send her a postcard of her kids, wherever she was.

but i says what does that solve? that doesn't do anything for me. and it certainly do anything for that woman. so i didn't do that. i wished i had a third trial. >> i find her quite sympathetic, and not only do i think that she is not criminally responsible, but the fact that she has to live with what she has done and live childless and so forth, that's the tragedy in its own right. >> in the eyes of the state, andrea yates is now simply a patient. she is no longer considered a criminal. only andrea knows if she can ever forgive herself for her actions.

there is no country on earth that spends as much money on education as we do. so you would think that our students would be at the head of their class. >> the future belongs to the nation that best educates its people. >> but according to an internationally administered test given to kids from 65 countries all around the world, the u.s. is ranked just 15th in reading. only 23rd in science, and 31st in math. some say the problem is we've made education all about testing, relying more and more on the data, and less and less on our teachers. today american kids are stuck on the mediocrity merry-go-round, with one in four students not even graduating from high school. something seriously wrong with