NO THANKS

Mom Who Drowned Her Five Kids in Bathtub Waives Right to Be Considered for Release Every Year

Andrea Yates, who was eventually found not guilty of the 2001 murders by reason of insanity, annually declines a review to see if she is competent to leave a Texas mental facility.

More than two decades after she drowned her five children in a bathtub, Andrea Yates continues to be confined to a Texas mental health facility—and she’s just fine with that, according to a report from People magazine. Yates, now 57, was 36 when she drowned her children—Noah, John, Paul, Luke, and Mary—in 2001 while suffering from postpartum depression, psychosis, and schizophrenia. She believed killing her children was the only way to save them from eternal damnation, she told authorities when she called 911 repeatedly to report her crime. After a convoluted trial process marred by false expert testimony, Yates was eventually found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2006 and sent to a Kerrville hospital. Each year she is offered a hearing to determine if she can be deemed competent for release; each year she declines the review. “She's where she wants to be. Where she needs to be," her defense lawyer told an ABC News affiliate in Houston last June. “And I mean, hypothetically, where would she go? What would she do?”