Page 26 - Rusty Yates News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

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

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...

Conservative. >> rusty had been serious about religion since college. she introduced andrea to the unconventional preachings of michael woroniecki. >> his family traveled around the country or certainly around texas in a bus prost te tizing i think mostly on college campuses. >> the female student that is they were going to hell because they were studying and learning in a material world when they should be out there reproducing. >> the dilemma with his message as i understand it is that if you think you're saved, if you think you're a christian, if you think you're going to heaven, then that ...

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'...

And with the psychotic episodes, they tend to get worse. >> after you drew the bath water, what was your intent? what were you about to do? >> drown my children. >> andrea yates never denied that she killed her children. but was she cold blooded or desperately ill? 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...