Andrea Yates

I am not sure as to what I think she should get. but I do not think she should be let back into the free world.

I think she needs a mental hospital for the rest of her life. Obviously she had some serious mental issues. A small part of me feels sorry for her because I really do think she is honestly crazy and that's just sad.

She at least needs life in prison...she can go be some nasty's butch's girlfriend. They don't like people like her in prison anyways

i haven't fallowed the story and such but she should never be able to be in the free world

I think she should suffer the same fate she bestowed upon her children.

I second this, people who hurt (or kill) children need no sympathy.

I think she should be sterilized, and confined to a mental hospital for the rest of her life. She obviously needs help, and I wouldn't want ANY risk that she could bring another victim into the world.

Jannie--I am SO with you on this one!!

Crazy or not, she still murdered five innocent people. She belongs in jail for life or the crazy house with Charlie Manson.

She should never be free again. I don't know if she is crazy or not. I don't care where she is locked up--prison or a mental hosptial, as long as she is never free again.

What a bloodthirsty bunch!

I get that infanticide is unbelievably horrifying to imagine and perhaps even unforgiveable, but post-partem psychosis is VERY real and VERY serious. And I have to question if Andrea Yates was not also a victim here. From Wikipedia:

[Andrea Pia Yates] was suffering from a severe case of recurrent postpartum psychosis, after having had her last baby. She may have been suffering from additional mental illness for some years, since a pattern of such disorders is said to have run in her family.
Some believe or believed that her husband…was responsible for creating the conditions that culminated in the tragedy. Andrea's psychiatrist…testified that she urged the couple not to have more children, to prevent future psychotic depression, but the procreative plan taught by the Yates' spiritual mentor, Michael Peter Woroniecki, a doctrine to which Rusty Yates subscribed, insisted she should continue to have "as many children as nature allows".
Yates told her jail psychiatrist, "It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren't righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell." (This is consistent with Woroniecki's teachings, which are best characterized as "hellfire preaching.")

While I agree that this woman needs to pay for what she did...IMO, I think both the “spiritual mentor” and the husband should be bent over behind bars, ya know? She was coerced through religious brainwashing to have children she could neither care for nor protect-- not from her mental illness, and not from the harsh and emotionally abusive teachings of her church.

I have no sympathy for her at all. I hope she gets life in prision and rots.

The thing is, regardless of religious teachings or spiritual mentors, Andrea had free will, and she chose what she did to her children. Her spiritual mentor used bad judgement in mentoring and advising them, but I seriously doubt he saw to it that they were not using birth control or that they were actively trying to have more children. In addition, he didn't murder those kids. I think Rusty should have been more attentive to Andrea's condition and recognized his own selfishness, but again, he didn't commit any crime.

I think with PPD as badly as she had it she lost her free will. She shouldn't be free but I think that an eye for an eye isn't excatly right in this case either. Her husband isn't completely blameless either. Being brainwashed loses your free will as well. Sometimes not doing anything is just as big of a crime as the actual criminal commits.

I think that her husband (now ex) should also be held liable also for not making sure she was being treated, and for continually allowing her to get pregnant knowing that she was in this condition. I think she needs mental care, but I think it should be done in prison. They way she committed those murders was awful! Those poor kids deserve justice.

If she was or is psychotic, she had something worse than severe PPD. I didn't say her husband wasn't blameless, I just said he didn't commit a crime.

Andrea Yates should be punished for what she did and I honestly believe that she grieves everyday for her children and is paying every day for what she did to them.

Before having children, I thought she should be sentenced to death. Now that I've had children and went through a period of depression after having one of my children (and nothing near as bad as what Andrea Yates went through), I really have a lot of sympathy for this woman. From all that has been told in the media, her psychosis/PPD/whatever what she has is classified as, came upon her slowly and swiftly and took away her "free will". While she is the one who ultimately took the lives of her children, I believe she honestly thought she was doing what was best for them. I believe if her husband had taken to heart what was being advised about them not having more children, if he'd let her fill and take the medication that was prescribed for her PPD and simply paid more attention to his wife and what she was going through, how her demeanor was changing, etc., then those children would have been protected. I put A LOT of the blame on her husband and hate that there was nothing that could be done to him.

There is so much documentation about what many, many women have gone through after having children and how hard it is for them to admit that they need help and then to actually get the help they need. Many have said they had thoughts about killing their children and managed to fight off those thoughts and seek help. I believe Andrea Yates did that for many years until she just couldn't fight anymore and those thoughts and feelings overcame her.

So I feel much sympathy for her and hope that she is now getting the help she needs. I honestly don't know what her punishment should be but I don't think killing her is what needs to happen.

I cant imagine the horror these children went through when their mother was killing them. The thing that sticks in my mind the most is reading about how she chased her older son around while he was screaming and she got ahold of him and took him to the tub and drowned him to. For that child to see his mother kill his siblings and then have her chase him and probably know she was going to kill him is heartwrenching. This is the women who they loved unconditionally and trusted her. Only to have her murder them. I feel no sympathy for her. I feel for the terror those children went through in the last moments of their lives, to have those lives taken by their mother. She had other means to deal with her depression other than murdering her childern.

Well said, Jenn!
I, too, had PPD for MONTHS after Emily was born. In fact, I had it for almost a year after she was born. Sadly, my friends were not much support because they all work and many of them do not have kids, so they could not relate. I was home alone with Emily MOST of the time. Kyle couldn't relate. I realized I had a problem and sought help. My doctor offered me medication, but it would have meant no longer breastfeeding Emily, so I didn't go that route. I found a support group and leaned on the ladies there.
I don't know what Andrea Yates' diagnosis is, and it doesn't matter to me. I just don't have any sympathy for her. I don't believe she was brainwashed. Do I think she was a weak person who was obviously subserviant to her husband? Yes. Does that earn her any sympathy? No. I don't think much of her husband either, but I also don't know how sane I believe he is either.

I have NO sympathy for her...PPD or no PPD, brainwashed or not brainwashed. What she did was disgusting and she should live her life in jail. I don't care if she was crazy or not. I don't believe in letting any murderers go free!!

I remember seeing Andrea on national television with those crocodile tears lying to America. It's just horrible and my heart goes out to those children and all children who become victims of their own parents stupidity or sickness.

I think you might be confusing Andrea Yates with Susan Smith. Andrea confessed to the police immediately when they got to her house. It was Susan Smith (who drowned her kids by pushing her car into a lake while her kids were in their car seats) who lied and said her kids had been abducted in a car jacking.

If she is psychotic (and I think she might be), then I am all for her being in a mental hospital. Rusty Yates said on TV yesterday that if she is found not guilty by reason of insanity, she will be hospitalized for many years and she can't be released until a panel of doctors says she is stable enough to go back into society, and after that a judge has to okay her release. The problem I have with that scenario is that she could be released. I believe that if the doctors say she is stable and the judge agrees, then she should go from the mental hospital to prison for the rest of her life.

Seeing the interview with Rusty Yates yesterday was very eye opening. It shed a lot of light onto mistruths and misinformation regarding their lives and this case in general.

I stand by what I said before. Even if she does get therapy, and is deemed stable enough to be reintroduced into society, she should be sterilized. I can't see how it's worth the risk for her, or any other babies. She KNOWS she has a problem with PPD/PPP. Sterilization is one step to preventing the reoccurence.

Oh yeah..Tammy...you're right. That was Susan Smith. Sorry about that. I was getting those two mixed up.

I still think Andrea should be locked away for life. (BTW...does anyone know what happened to Susan??? Did she get life in jail? I don't remember).

Cheryl, I googled Susan Smith, and of all things, I found a personal ad she placed online for penpals through a service that gets penpals for prisoners. In her ad, she listed herself as a Christian! I hope that is true for the sake of her soul. It just cam a little too late for her kids. Oh, and yes, she did get life in prison.

I can't get this out of my head, the fear those children must have felt, the terror in knowing that was their mother, and one by one to see that happen. It just gives me goosebumps. I feel sad for those children and their last moments, I don't feel it at all for Andrea or her husband.