Page 7 - Andreap Yates News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

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's pretty powerful testimony. >> dietz took it one step further and also presented a likely inspiration for andrea yates' actions. he testified that she had watched a "law & order" episode that week in which a woman to be free of her responsibilities drowned her children and got away with murder. >> the show we almost always watched was "law & order" and the ones that she watched, i watched with her. and so, you know, i heard about that testimony. and i'...

>> we, the jury, find the defendant andrea p. 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, all right, i -- i view her, and i know it's 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. >> yeah. i never thought about lo...

Wildfire. reporters and first responders swarm the area. frank stumpo was assigned to take andrea yates to jail. >> the news media were there en masse. they were there, 50, 60, 70 people. a mother could wipe out a family and becomes a star. and that's 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 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 yates t...

>> overwhelmingly, people were very harsh in their assessment. the community of psychiatric workers, doctors were horrified that we would prosecute someone who had a legitimate mental illness, but that was a minority. >> andrea yates' actions were certainly incomprehensible. but did that mean she was insane? >> you can be mentally ill and the standard under the law is that if you know right from wrong, that's not a medical standard. that's a legal standard. >> there's no legal definition for what's right or wrong, and the law tells us that if there's no legal definition, then a juror is able t...

>> is someone burglarizing your house? i mean, what is it? >> the dispatcher assigned me that particular call for service being that it was in my zone of responsibility. another unit, david napp, he checked by with me, which is common practice, you know, day shift, slow, guys killing time, helping each other out. >> eight minutes after dialing 911 andrea yates calls her husband rusty yates and tells him it's time to come home. it's not yet 10:00 a.m. >> i couldn't imagine what had actually happened, but i was worried because andrea called me with a firm tone and said i needed to come home and ...