Detailed testimony about children's deaths presented in Yates' trial

  

(6/28/06 - HOUSTON) -- The state rested its case against Andrea Yates Wednesday after a medical examiner testified that bruises on her children's bodies indicated they struggled as she slowly drowned them in the bathtub.

The judge then ended court for the day so prosecutors could question a few defense witnesses outside the jury's presence. Defense attorneys, who say Yates suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and did not know that drowning her five children was wrong, will begin presenting evidence Thursday.

Prosecutors called 12 witnesses in Yates' capital murder retrial that started Monday. It stems from an appeals court overturning her 2002 conviction last year because of some erroneous testimony.

Harris County Medical Examiner Luis A. Sanchez testified Wednesday that 7-year-old Noah, the oldest of the Yates children drowned that day in 2001, struggled so hard in the tub that his small fists remained stiff and over his head even several hours later. Noah had extensive rigormortis, or stiffness, because of intense movements right before his death, Sanchez told jurors.

Noah also had deep bruises consistent with someone holding him down hard, as did 6-month-old Mary and 5-year-old John, Sanchez testified.

He also said their brains, which were significantly heavier than normal children their ages, indicate they had been held under water for minutes rather than seconds. The 9 inches of water was murky from the youngsters' bodily secretions, Sanchez said.

"It was a slow death; it was not quick," Sanchez told jurors.

Yates is being tried only in the deaths of Mary, John and Noah, a common practice in cases of multiple slayings. Ruling in favor of the defense, state District Judge Belinda Hill did not allow prosecutors to show autopsy photos of 2-year-old Luke or 3-year-old Paul, who also were killed that day.

Late Tuesday, one of Yates' former cellmates testified that Yates said Mary was the easiest to drown and that she got mad when Noah fought with her.

Felicia Doe, who was in Yates' cell block in the Harris County Jail for about a week in 2002, said that when the women would talk about their kids, Yates brought up details of the 2001 drownings.

"(She said) ... once they're in the water, it takes a long time for them to stop moving and that's surprising," Doe, 28, told jurors.

Doe said she contacted Houston police last year after she found out Yates would be retried.

"I called because I knew something that mattered," said Doe, who was convicted for failure to stop and render aid. "I didn't want to live with that."

Under cross-examination, Doe acknowledged that she has lied about unrelated matters. She also said Yates told her that she dressed the dead children in "their Sunday best" and that Yates referred to her then-husband as Russell. The youngsters were left in their pajamas, and Yates in a police interview after the slayings called her husband Rusty, the nickname Russell Yates goes by.

Also Tuesday, jurors heard a detective's 17-minute audiotaped interview with Yates a few hours after the death. In a monotone voice, Yates answered Sgt. Eric Mehl's questions mostly with a quick, flat "yes" or "no."

Yates told the detective her children's names, ages and birthdays, how many years she was married and when she had graduated from high school, college and nursing school.

She said all of the children struggled "a couple of minutes" as she drowned them face down. She said Noah struggled the most violently and even escaped from the tub, but "I got him."

When Mehl asked why she drowned them, there was silence for 15 seconds.

"Was it because the children had done something?" he asked. "No."

"You were not mad at the children?"

"No."

Then, after Mehl asked how long she had been thinking of drowning them, she finally answered.

"I guess I realized I had not been a good mother to them," she said.

"What makes you say that?" Mehl asked.

"They were not developing correctly."

Later, when Mehl reminded Yates that she said she had thoughts of harming her children for about two years, he asked what had triggered those thoughts.

"It was time to be punished," she said.

"What do you need to be punished for?" Mehl asked.

"For not being a good mother."

"Do you want the criminal justice system to punish you?"

"Yes."

Yates, who turns 42 on Sunday, again has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.

If convicted, Yates will be sentenced to life in prison because prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. After the first jury rejected death, prosecutors could not seek execution again because they did not find any new evidence.

Prosecutors said that during the trial's rebuttal phase, after the defense presents its case, they will call Dr. Park Dietz, the psychiatrist whose testimony inadvertently caused Yates' conviction to be overturned.

Dietz, also a consultant to the "Law & Order" television series, told jurors in her first trial that one episode depicting a woman who drowned her kids in a bathtub -- and was acquitted by reason of insanity -- aired before the Yates children died.

But no such episode existed, attorneys learned after Yates was convicted but before jurors sentenced her to life in prison.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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