Andrea Yates

Andrea Pia Yates (born July 2, 1964) is a woman from Houston, Texas, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity in her retrial after previously being sentenced to life imprisonment for methodically drowning her five children (ages six months to seven years) in a bathtub on June 20, 2001. She contends that she was suffering from a severe case of recurrent postpartum psychosis, after having had her fourth 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. She immediately called 9-1-1 after the deaths and was arrested shortly thereafter.

Yates, a native Houstonian who attended Milby High School, married Russell "Rusty" Yates and moved to southeast Houston in the community of Clear Lake City.

Yates confessed to drowning her children and her defense asserted postpartum psychosis as the reason she committed the killings. Although the defense's expert testimony agreed that Yates was clearly psychotic, Texas law requires that in order to successfully assert the insanity defense, the defendant must prove that he or she could not discern right from wrong at the time of the crime. In March 2002, a jury rejected the insanity defense and found Yates guilty. Although the prosecution had sought the death penalty, the jury rejected that option. The trial court sentenced Yates to life imprisonment with eligibility for parole in 40 years.

On January 6, 2005, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the convictions because prosecution witness Dr. Park Dietz, a Califonia psychiatrist, had given false testimony during the trial. Dietz stated that shortly before the killings, an episode of Law & Order had featured a woman who drowned her children and was acquitted of murder by reason of insanity. It was later discovered that no such episode existed; the appellate court held that the jury may have been influenced by his false testimony and that thus a new trial would be necessary.

Some believe or believed that her husband, an employee of the Johnson Space Center, was responsible for creating the conditions that culminated in the drownings. Andrea's psychiatrist, Dr. Eileen Starbranch, 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." )

On January 9, 2006, Yates again entered pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity. On February 1, 2006, she was granted release on bail on the condition that she be admitted to a mental health treatment facility. Currently, her retrial is set for June 26, 2006, 6 days after the 5-year anniversary of the deaths. The trial was re-set due to scheduling conflicts. On July 26, after three days of deliberations, the jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity.

Her ex-husband remarried on March 18, 2006, two days before her first scheduled re-trial.

On July 26, 2006, Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity, as defined by the state of Texas. She will be submitted to a mental hospital.

Influence of Michael Peter Woroniecki

Background on Woroniecki- Michael Peter Woroniecki, (A.K.A. Michael Warnecki, Worneki, Mike War and Shabar Ben), born February 4, 1954, is the self-ordained, itinerant, verbally abrasive, "fire and brimstone" preacher of Andrea Pia Yates, the Texas woman who drowned her five children in a bathtub on June 20, 2001. His relationship with disciples is firmly documented by many professional media sources as being psychologically abusive.

On June 20, 2001, one of Woroniecki's disciples for the previous nine years, Andrea Pia Yates killed all five of her children. Eventually, Woroniecki surfaced in the media when evidence was admitted in court implicating Woroniecki's teaching in a newsletter called The Perilous Times as having negatively scripted Andrea's psychotic mind. Andrea had delusively believed that she was a horrible mother who couldn't give Jesus to her children and that because of her, her children would become spiritually damaged and end up in hell.

Letters from the Woroniecki family were found by investigative author Suzy Spencer that berated Andrea over her unrighteous standing before God. His 1995 video taught that it was better for parents to commit suicide than cause their offspring to stumble and go to hell. (This is based upon the famous Bible verse about a millstone (see Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 7:2). Only two months after receiving the harsh letters from the Woroniecki's, Andrea was hospitalized twice for two separate suicide attempts.

On his 1995 video, Woroniecki demanded that unless his disciples lived a jobless life prophetically preaching the gospel, that their children would consequently not be trained in the Lord and would end up in hell. The "husband goes to work, wife just exists" Christian lifestyle (like the Yates were living) would certainly guarantee that their children would not be trained properly, according to the video.

An audio tape from Woroniecki that Andrea possessed suggested that children were not accountable until the age of twelve, and that babies were better off aborted than growing up in the households of "witches and wimps," under which circumstances they would be certain to face judgment in hellfire.

Feeling the weight of hopelessness infused by Woroniecki's condemnation and her inability to get saved so she could in turn save her children, Andrea psychotically reasoned that it would be better for them to drown in their innocent years, be trained instead by God and go to heaven rather than grow up damaged and be sent to hell because of her "bad mothering" according to her prison psychiatric interviews.

Woroniecki's psychologically negative influence is not isolated to the case of Andrea Yates. Several ex-disciples claim to have become depressed or anxious to the point of contemplating or attempting suicide. Woroniecki freely admits on one of his teaching tapes that many of his disciples have psychologically "snapped" as a result of his message, but he blames this phenomenon on their refusal to submit to his rebukes.

In 1989, when confronted with the reality that one of his followers was hospitalized for attempting suicide as a consequence of his persistent condemning rebukes, Woroniecki countered on a teaching tape saying that "suicide is the greatest self obsession." Woroniecki dismissed the suicidal Texas A&M student for projecting blame onto his gospel message and for refusing to accept responsibility for his own emotional state.

David De La Isla of Houston Texas claimed on national television that he also became suicidal as a result of Woroniecki's beratings. Woroniecki dismissed De La Isla on ABC Good Morning America saying that he only knew him for "fifteen minutes in a McDonalds fifteen years ago," despite the disciple's possession of a stack of letters he received from him over a period of twelve years, ABC host Charles Gibson pointed out.

Woroniecki's wife said on a March 27, 2002 interview of ABC's Good Morning America that the greatest problem they have with disciples is that "they try to emulate their lifestyle without coming to Jesus," suggesting that their disciples mistakenly choose to place themselves under the "yoke" of the Law of God, consequently crushing themselves under its burdensome weight.

However, Woroniecki teaches that "the Law is a tutor to bring you to Christ." His disciples are told by him that they must enter this "cocoon" of suffering under the Law in order to be transformed into the regenerate "butterfly" of a child or God, yet remarkably, Woroniecki has never confirmed any of his disciples as having achieved this salvation except his immediate family, even after being subjected to this "cocoon" for decades.

It is the "moving target" nature of this Catch 22 gospel that some of his former disciples believe played a significant role in motivating Andrea's homicidal and suicidal ideations. If she couldn't save herself so she could in turn save her children, she would commit them to God's instruction in heaven before their age of accountability. It was the only viable alternative to saving them within the doctrinal cosmology provided to her by this preacher.

Woroniecki denies that he had anything at all to do with negatively influencing Andrea Yates. He claims in a letter postmarked October 24, 2002 to author Suzanne O'Malley that Andrea's motive for killing her children was based on a deep and intense hatred for her husband that he [unclear antecedent to "he"] learned from prior ministerial conversations with her and that she and the media conspired to use "religious rhetoric" to cover up her true motive. Only five months earlier, Woroniecki told the Leslie Primeau Show at CHED AM 630 in Edmonton, Canada that he had "no idea" what Andrea's true motive was, according to a recorded excerpt of the broadcast at an ex-follower's website.

Despite Woroniecki's contributions, there were many factors that were involved in both determining and hastening the outcome of the Yates tragedy. Although Woroniecki may have influenced the nature of her delusive actions according to defense psychiatrist Dr. Lucy Puryear, there is strong evidence indicating the origin of Andrea's illness was hereditary.

Even so, Puryear stated that many of the lifestyle choices the Yates received from Woroniecki exacerbated her condition. Without the religion of Michael Woroniecki, Puryear said on an ABC affiliate KTRK interview re-broadcast on Good Morning America, she didn't "believe that Andrea would have ever, ever killed her children."

Andrea's husband, Rusty Yates, contends that her psychiatrist, Dr. Saeed, was the one at fault. He says Saeed had prescribed a "triple max dose" of antidepressants days before the killings and abruptly removed her from her antipsychotic medication only two weeks earlier. He says Saeed also reduced her antidepressant beyond the recommended rate from the manufacturer a day before the killings, a change that has the potential for creating dangerous swings in mood. Rusty claims that the responsibility for recognizing her psychosis rested with Dr. Saeed, not himself.

Although Rusty metioned in the early days following the tragedy that he would pursue a malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Saeed (Spencer, p. 289), he never did, allowing the two year statute of limitations on the case to expire. Some observers believe his lawyer advised against it because Rusty had by ommission misled Dr. Saeed into thinking she was being watched around the clock (Spencer, p. 18; O'Malley, p. 23).

Without informing the doctor of his plans, Rusty announced to a family gathering the weekend before the tragedy his decision to leave Andrea home alone for an hour in the morning and evening, so that she would not become totally dependent on him and his mother for her maternal responsibilities (Spencer, p. 300).

Andrea's mother, Jutta Karin Kennedy, expressed shock at such a plan, insisting vehemently to Rusty that he not leave her alone. Mrs. Kennedy added that Andrea was not safe to leave alone with the children, citing that Andrea had recently fed her toothless infant Mary solid food which could have choked her (KTRK NEWS, Houston), something Andrea was meticulously careful about when she was mentally lucid, Mrs. Kennedy said.

According to medical records revealed at the trial, Rusty was also advised by Dr. Eileen Starbranch, Andrea's first psychiatrist in 1999, that having more children would "guarantee future psychotic depression." Despite this medical advice, Rusty Yates decided to continue their Woroniecki inspired pursuit of "having as many children as nature allows," and Andrea submissively followed her husband's wishes in accordance to the teaching given to her by Woroniecki, lest she be considered by him to be a "contentious witch" like Eve who, according to Woroniecki, usurped the authority of her husband, Adam, and consequently damned the entire human race.

On July 26th, 2006 in Houston Texas, Yates was found Not guilty by reason of insanity. She will now more than likely be put inot a half-way house or mental institution, but she will not return to prison.

References

• Bienstock, Mothers Who Kill Their Children and Postpartum Psychosis, (2003) Vol. 32, No. 3 Southwestern University Law Review, 451.
• Keram, The Insanity Defense and Game Theory: Reflections on Texas v.Yates, (2002) Vol. 30, No. 4 Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 470.

External links

• Suzy Spencer writes the Andrea Yates book: "The Breaking Point"
• The Andrea Yates Trial
• Andrea Yates: More To The Story Time By Timothy Roche March 18, 2002
• Court TV Examines the Yates Tragedy