Andrea Yates; An 'Unspeakable Crime'

Abstract

On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates took the lives of all five of her children, drowning them in the bathtub of their home in Houston, Texas. The children, Noah, John, Paul, Luke, and Mary were aged from seven years to 6 months. At the time of the murders Andrea Yates stated she had killed her children to “save them from the devil and to punish herself as a bad mother”(Denno2003). The public reaction to her crime polarised America, with some painting her as a cruel and heartless woman who had committed “an act of evil” so against nature and biology that it was both incomprehensible and irredeemable. Yet to others Andrea Yates was a loving mother of faith – who also happened to be a vulnerable, depressed mother with a long history of mental illness.