Yates not guilty by reason of insanity

2

Comments

  • _Crazy_Mary_
    _Crazy_Mary_ Posts: 1,299
    chiefojibwa wrote:
    and you KNOW this how?

    the same way you do
    I really screwed that up. I really Schruted it.
  • hippiemom
    hippiemom Posts: 3,326
    _Crazy_Mary_ wrote:
    the same way you do
    How? How could you possibly know what she knew or was thinking? How do you know that she knew it was wrong? How do you know how she even perceived it at the time? I don't know that it's possible for anyone to know that, maybe not even her.
    "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 1963
  • JaneNY
    JaneNY Posts: 4,438
    _Crazy_Mary_ wrote:
    If you have to tell yourself this to feel better, go ahead. Yates isn't just "capable of harming others due to her illness." She murdered her children. She knew what she was doing, crazy or not.

    Why this kind of talk? What do you mean 'telling myself' - I am telling you what I think, not myself. I already know what I think. She did murder her children. Will we murder her? What does that solve? Does that make the world better? Or would it be better to understand? To know as much as possible so the next person in this situation is prevented from doing similar acts and some other childrens' lives are saved? I guess we may have to agree to disagree. And neither of us are decision makers in this specific situation, so we'll just have to watch what happens.
    R.i.p. Rigoberto Alpizar.
    R.i.p. My Dad - May 28, 2007
    R.i.p. Black Tail (cat) - Sept. 20, 2008
  • jeffbr
    jeffbr Seattle Posts: 7,177
    I don't know if she's insane or not, and I don't care, as long as she's locked away and never gets to be a participating member of society again. She forfeited that right by brutally killing those babies.
    "I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
  • JaneNY
    JaneNY Posts: 4,438
    jeffbr wrote:
    I don't know if she's insane or not, and I don't care, as long as she's locked away and never gets to be a participating member of society again.

    I agree with you there.
    R.i.p. Rigoberto Alpizar.
    R.i.p. My Dad - May 28, 2007
    R.i.p. Black Tail (cat) - Sept. 20, 2008
  • rightondude
    rightondude Posts: 745
    Well Jail aint gonna help this loonie bird one bit right now. Therapy might and will if anything. If not she always has a (not so) comfy cell to fall back on/in.

    So for all those kooks out there take solace that she'll have a life sentence jail term shadowing closely at her heels. How many of you would love to see her hang and kick from a noose? Injection perhaps?
  • dkst0426
    dkst0426 Posts: 523
    If Yates ever gets released from state mental health care, she should be released to the state penitentiary system.
  • Bu2
    Bu2 Posts: 1,693
    I think that she shouldn't be allowed out of the institution until she's reached menopause and can no longer bear children.
    Feels Good Inc.
  • jeffbr
    jeffbr Seattle Posts: 7,177
    rightondude wrote:
    Well Jail aint gonna help this loonie bird one bit right now. Therapy might and will if anything. If not she always has a (not so) comfy cell to fall back on/in.

    So for all those kooks out there take solace that she'll have a life sentence jail term shadowing closely at her heels. How many of you would love to see her hang and kick from a noose? Injection perhaps?

    I don't care about helping her. Safety is my concern, not her well-being or mental health. I take solace that she will be locked up somewhere and won't be able to do this again.

    But if you're so hot for her maybe you could start writing to her, marry her, and request conjugal visits.
    "I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
  • hippiemom
    hippiemom Posts: 3,326
    jeffbr wrote:
    I don't care about helping her. Safety is my concern, not her well-being or mental health. I take solace that she will be locked up somewhere and won't be able to do this again.

    But if you're so hot for her maybe you could start writing to her, marry her, and request conjugal visits.
    If we don't try to heal people like this, we will never learn how, and learning how is the only hope of preventing things like this from happening in the future. Killing her or leaving her to waste away in a cell would be a wasted opportunity to increase our knowledge.
    "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 1963
  • Abuskedti
    Abuskedti Posts: 1,917
    hippiemom wrote:
    If we don't try to heal people like this, we will never learn how, and learning how is the only hope of preventing things like this from happening in the future. Killing her or leaving her to waste away in a cell would be a wasted opportunity to increase our knowledge.

    I already know. I remember nights when the boys wouldn't sleep.. I definately wanted to kill them!
  • jeffbr
    jeffbr Seattle Posts: 7,177
    hippiemom wrote:
    If we don't try to heal people like this, we will never learn how, and learning how is the only hope of preventing things like this from happening in the future. Killing her or leaving her to waste away in a cell would be a wasted opportunity to increase our knowledge.

    Oh, I definitely want to learn from her. Absolutely. I just said my concern wasn't about helping her. I am not proposing that we lock her in a dank, dark dungeon and throw scraps of food under the door. But she should never be part of society again.
    "I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
  • comebackwoman
    comebackwoman Posts: 7,271
    Tragic. That's what comes to mind whenever I think about this case. What a tragedy on so many levels. The mental health system failed Andrea Yates, as did her husband and ultimately her mind. Unfortunately her children payed the price for that. From what I've read, it does sound like she had a psychotic break, a complete break from reality. Fortunately, most of us can't even comprehend what that's like. She needs treatment and hopefully her situation will help us learn how to prevent similar tragedies in the future. It's just a shame she didn't get the interventions she needed years ago.

    I do think there is a difference between this case and other cases where parents have brutally tortured and abused their children for years (locked them in cages, starved them, forced them to drink chemicals, adopted children only to sexually abuse them). Although there is often some form of mental illness present in those situations, there often is not a psychotic break as seems to have happened here. I'm not positive of this, but I don't remember hearing of any ongoing abuse to Yates' children. However, I'm sure there was some level of neglect given her illness. Ultimately, she killed them and we'll never know for sure what was going through her mind at that time. It's such a sad life she led up to this and a tragic end for everyone.
    There's a light when my baby's in my arms :)
  • rightondude
    rightondude Posts: 745
    jeffbr wrote:
    I don't care about helping her. Safety is my concern, not her well-being or mental health. I take solace that she will be locked up somewhere and won't be able to do this again.

    But if you're so hot for her maybe you could start writing to her, marry her, and request conjugal visits.

    The approach is wrong. Unless miracously jail heals her. Hopefully it does, if therapy cannot.

    Your last comment is a rather candid portrait that you appear to stroke. Did it give you tingles anywhere when you typed it? :D
  • suffragette
    suffragette Posts: 253
    Wasn't there some religion involved here? Wasn't she a follower of one of the religious out-there guys? I seem to remember some mention of demons. Or am I thinking of someone else?
  • jeffbr
    jeffbr Seattle Posts: 7,177
    rightondude wrote:
    The approach is wrong. Unless miracously jail heals her. Hopefully it does, if therapy cannot.

    Your last comment is a rather candid portrait that you appear to stroke. Did it give you tingles anywhere when you typed it? :D

    Well, as I said, I don't really care about her, so your first sentence is irrelevant to me.

    As far as tingling -- of course! Doesn't everybody tingle when they post? ;)
    "I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
  • denverfan
    denverfan Posts: 218
    proving mental culpability is such a mess...what ever happen to the reasonable person standard???
    "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity but they've always worked for me." Gonzo

    'If my fuckin' ex-wife told me to take care of her dog while her and her new boyfriend went to Honolulu, I'd tell her to go fuck herself." -The Dude

    Whisky Drinker, Non-Hunter from Denver.
  • Heineken Helen
    Heineken Helen Posts: 18,095
    suffragette wrote:
    Wasn't there some religion involved here? Wasn't she a follower of one of the religious out-there guys? I seem to remember some mention of demons. Or am I thinking of someone else?

    I think there was some religion thing too... well they had a weird way of life basically and something to do with her having asking for home help and the husband wouldn't get it? :confused:

    Well said comebackgirl, it's very very sad. Like, I believe Jane already said, I don't think ANY women in their right minds kill their kids. It's impossible. She was insane, she'd even been certified a few times, hadn't she? I read a quote today from her husband after the verdict yesterday when he waid something about how it took them so long to find out what he already knew, that she was psychotic :eek: so why the fuck didn't he do anything? Why did NOBODY do anything to help her?
    The Astoria??? Orgazmic!
    Verona??? it's all surmountable
    Dublin 23.08.06 "The beauty of Ireland, right there!"
    Wembley? We all believe!
    Copenhagen?? your light made us stars
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    What a different life
    Had I not found this love with you
  • comebackwoman
    comebackwoman Posts: 7,271
    suffragette wrote:
    Wasn't there some religion involved here? Wasn't she a follower of one of the religious out-there guys? I seem to remember some mention of demons. Or am I thinking of someone else?

    I remember hearing about some religious stuff too. I think that's the reason they kept having kids even though they were told she was likely to have more psychotic episodes with future pregnancies. I can't remember exactly, but I think her husband didn't believe in birth control or something. As she became psychotic she became more religiously preoccupied, which is very common. I think she said that satan was inside of her and was telling her to kill the children to save them from hell. I can't even imagine the horror of that - for her or her kids. It just all around makes me sad. :(
    There's a light when my baby's in my arms :)
  • suffragette
    suffragette Posts: 253
    There's a lot of religious fixation in MI. I have a friend who is a schizophrenic and he knows he's getting worse when he hears God. I naively said that God talks to me as well, but he corrected me and told me that it was different when God talked to him because of what "God" said. This is an incredibly intelligent guy and he speaks very well about his problems and has thrived despite of them, with much help, support and meds. I'm not equating him with Andrea Yates, but coping can be accomplished with the right support. That she didn't get that support, I think, is the saddest part of a sad sad story.

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