Crime Scene
Suzanne O'Malley, the author of Are You There Alone? The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates, talks about mental illness, postpartum psychosis, and Rusty Yates.
On the morning of June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates, 36, sat down for breakfast with her five children, Noah, John, Paul, Luke, and Mary. Andrea's husband had just left their modest suburban home outside Houston for his job as a computer engineer at NASA; her mother-in-law would soon arrive at the house to baby-sit the five children, ages six months to seven years. Time, Andrea felt, was running out.
Instead of clearing the cereal bowls from the dining table, Andrea drew a bath in the guest bathroom of her Clear Lake home. Within the next hour, she would methodically drown all five of her children. She then called 911 to demand that the police come to her home, but refused to explain why. The operator asked Andrea a question that would later echo throughout a Harris County courtroom: "Are you there alone?"
These chilling words supplied the title for a new book by investigative reporter Suzanne O'Malley, Are You There Alone? The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates. O'Malley, who was raised in Texas, spent two years covering the aftermath of the Andrea Yates tragedy. Here, she discusses Andrea Yates's battle with mental illness and her deterioration into a state of postpartum psychosis, plus the inevitable legal struggle that followed her appalling crime.
texasmonthly.com: Why did you decide to write a book about Andrea Yates?
Suzanne O'Malley: I had no intention of writing a book about her when I set out as a reporter, and investing two years in this project didn't even occur to me. But as I spent more time following Andrea Yates through the legal system, I was bothered by how few facts about the case were being revealed to the public despite an unprecedented volume of press coverage. A gag order, imposed almost immediately upon all the case witnesses by the presiding judge, had caused an information drought during the trial. Even after the verdict was delivered, many facts remained untold. I wanted to share what I had learned through my time in the courtroom because people were still interested in Andrea's story, and rightfully so—it involves the struggle between good and evil, and how we as a society are going to deal with that struggle.
texasmonthly.com: After Andrea Yates's imprisonment, you spent fourteen months corresponding with her through letters—you are one of the only reporters to gain access to her from behind bars. Why do you think she decided to talk, and what does she want people to know?
SO: Andrea has had very little awareness or access to information about how her family has been portrayed by the media. Especially during the trial, she had no idea what kinds of information, and misinformation, were being published. Now, as she gains more awareness, she wants the opportunity to counter this negative image of her family that has been so prevalent in the press. She wants people to know that prior to the tragedy, her five children had a happy home life and that they all loved one another. She wants to set the record straight for her husband, Rusty, for his family, and for her own mother and family, all of whom have been affected by her crime.
texasmonthly.com: Your book details Andrea Yates's long history of mental illness, suicide attempts, hospitalizations, and professional psychiatric care prior to the murders of her children. You also suggest that some crucial mistakes were made in her diagnosis and treatment—can you talk a little about what you think went wrong?
SO: There were many factors, small and large, that led up to the tragedy. The fact that Andrea was not diagnosed completely, or even accurately, by her doctors in the years before the murders is a big factor. It's understandable, since the diagnoses of brain diseases in general and neuro-hormonal diseases in particular are art as much as science at this point. The current consensus is that Andrea was suffering from postpartum psychosis, brought on by the births of her last two children, at the time of the murders. Also, it is now thought that she has a baseline bipolar condition where she vacillates between maniacal behavior and severe depression, though this diagnosis wasn't made until Andrea had been in prison for a year.
Prior to the murders, Andrea's psychiatrist was treating her for major depression, not for a bipolar disorder. The medication she was taking in the days before she murdered her children was a mixture of Remeron and Effexor, the drug combo doctors sometimes call rocket fuel because of its powerful ability to boost people out of depression. But if you happen to be bipolar, as Andrea Yates is, rocket fuel can boost you into an incredible mania. Doctors have told me that they've seen bipolar patients on rocket fuel throw desks across the room and pull radiators out of walls. Suddenly the mystery of how a woman could drown five children in less than an hour is solved.
texasmonthly.com: How did the prosecution prove that Andrea Yates was sane at the time she murdered her children?
SO: For a defendant to plead insanity in Texas, the person must not know the act is wrong at the time of commission. Andrea's delusion was that she needed to kill her children while they were young because she was a bad mother and her negative influence upon them would prevent them from ever going to heaven. Therefore, she would sacrifice their lives here on earth, and perhaps her own eternal life with God, so that her children could be in heaven. Implicit in her reasoning is that she knew murder was wrong in the eyes of the Bible and the law, and this fact ultimately made her ineligible for an insanity plea, although professional psychiatric witnesses on both sides testified that she was possibly delusional at the time of the crime and suffered from severe mental illness—one psychiatrist even went so far as to describe Andrea Yates as one of the five sickest patients she had ever treated, and she had treated six thousand patients throughout the course of her career.
texasmonthly.com: Can you remind us what the verdict was, and what sentence Andrea received?
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