Andrea Pia Yates (née Kennedy; born July 2, 1964[2]) is an American woman from Houston, Texas, who confessed to drowning her five children in their bathtub on June 20, 2001.

[9] Yates and her husband, a devout evangelical Christian, announced that they "would seek to have as many babies as nature allowed" and bought a four-bedroom house in Friendswood, Texas.

Their first child, Noah, was born in February 1994, just before Rusty accepted a job offer in Florida, causing them to relocate to a small trailer in Seminole.

Yates was hospitalized the next day after a scheduled doctor visit; her psychiatrist determined she was probably suicidal and assumed she had filled the tub to drown herself.

Prior to her second trial, she told Dr. Michael Welner that she waited for Rusty to leave for work that morning before filling the bathtub because she knew he would have prevented her from harming them.

The trial court sentenced Yates to life imprisonment in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice with eligibility for parole in forty years.

[17] On January 6, 2005, a Texas Court of Appeals reversed the convictions, because California psychiatrist and prosecution witness Dr. Park Dietz admitted he had given materially false testimony during the trial.

[20] The appellate court held unanimously that the jury might have been influenced by Dietz' false testimony, and therefore a new trial would be necessary (Law & Order: Criminal Intent did air an episode two years later based in part on Yates' case).

However, Rusty began leaving her alone with the children in the weeks leading up to the drownings for short periods of time, apparently believing it would improve her independence, despite her doctors' instructions.

[13] Rusty had announced at a family gathering the weekend before the drownings that he had decided to leave Yates home alone for an hour each morning and evening, so that she would not become totally dependent on him and his mother for her maternal responsibilities.

[25] Andrea Yates' brother, Brian Kennedy, claimed during a broadcast of CNN's Larry King Live that Rusty expressed to him in 2001, while transporting her to a mental treatment facility, that all depressed people needed was a "swift kick in the pants" to get them motivated.

She warned and counseled them against having more children, and noted in the medical record two days later: "Apparently patient and husband plan to have as many babies as nature will allow!

"[31][32][33] However, Yates revealed to her prison psychiatrist, Dr. Melissa Ferguson, that prior to their last child, "she had told Rusty that she did not want to have sex because Dr. Starbranch had said she might hurt her children."

[34] O'Malley highlighted Rusty's continuing sense of unreality regarding having more children: During the trial, he'd successfully maintained the position that Yates would be found innocent.

He worked his way through various fixes for their damaged lives, such as a surrogate motherhood and adoption (horrifying her family, attorneys, and Houston psychiatrists), before giving in to reality.

[35] He claimed that, despite his urging to check her medical records for prior treatment, Dr. Saeed had refused to continue her regimen of the anti-psychotic Haldol, the treatment that had worked for her during her first breakdown in 1999: The real question to me is: How could she have been so ill and the medical community not diagnose her, not treat her, and obviously not protect our family from her ... Rusty testified that he never knew that she had visions and voices; he said he never knew she had considered killing the children.

But after a few weeks, he took her off the drug, citing his concerns about side effects ... though her condition seemed to be worsening two days before the drownings, when Rusty drove her to Dr. Saeed's office, he testified, the doctor refused to try Haldol longer or return her to the hospital.

[36][1] Rusty and his relatives claimed a combination of antidepressants improperly prescribed by Dr. Saeed in the days before the tragedy were responsible for Yates' psychotic behavior.

[37][25] According to Dr. Moira Dolan, executive director of the Medical Accountability Network, "homicidal ideation" was added to the warning label of the antidepressant drug Effexor as a rare adverse event in 2005.

[38][39] Dr. Lucy Puryear, an expert witness hired by Yates' defense team, countered this contention regarding the administration of her antidepressants, saying the dosages prescribed by Dr. Saeed are not uncommon in practice and had nothing at all to do with her re-emergent psychosis.

[37] The oral form of Haldol takes 4–6 days after discontinuation to reach a terminal plasma level of under 1.5%—a medical standard for "complete" elimination of a drug from the body.

[40] Media outlets alleged that Michael Woroniecki, an itinerant preacher whom Rusty had met while attending Auburn University, bore some responsibility for the deaths due to certain teachings which were found in his newsletter titled The Perilous Times, which the Yateses had received on occasion, and which was entered into evidence at the trial.

"[43] While in prison, Yates stated that she had considered killing the children for two years, adding that they thought she was not a good mother and claiming that her sons were developing improperly.