80 replies to this topic

[Bobby]

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But the fact is that it was SHE who stopped taking her medication that kept her condition under control...So IMO she CHOSE to kill her kids. She knew what not taking it could result it.

As other posters have pointed out she kept asking for help but the quack doctor didn't listen.  She wasn't in a right state of mind so she couldn't be relied on to take her medication.  Her judgement was impaired by her illness.  As her husband, being close as husband and wife are supposed to be, he should have noticed how bad off she was.  And seeing that he should have watched her take her medication.  I hope he does better by his new wife than he did by the old one.  In sickness and in health...

Edited by Life for Rent, 28 July 2006 - 12:04 PM.

[Mel]

trikay, on Jul 28 2006, 08:04 AM, said:

The family did file a complaint against the doctor but I don't know what was done if anything to him

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Andrea Pia Yates' family filed a complaint Wednesday with the district attorney's office about the psychiatrist treating her at the time she drowned her five children.

The complaint alleges Dr. Mohammed Saeed, former medical director at Devereux Texas Treatment Network in League City, did not properly manage her medication and released her from the hospital when she was dangerously delusional.

"We feel that Dr. Saeed's actions of excessive, harmful treatment, and his lack of action to warn about the endangerment of the children, made him negligent in his duty to protect the children," states the complaint signed by Yates' brothers, Brian and Andrew Kennedy, and her mother, Jutta Karin Kennedy.

This info is from an article written April 11, 2002.  I'm not sure where else to look for any results of this action as it isn't included in any of the timelines or articles that the Houston Chronicle has linked to from the history of the case

The link to this article is in my previous post #35

I don't know but I think they can possibly have a case for malpractice but nothing more

I read somewhere, but I can't remember where and I don't know how reliable it was (how's that for documenting a source   ?) that their case against the psychiatrist could have been harmed by the fact that Rusty Yates apparently lied to/misled him into believing she was supervised at all times.  Whether that's true or not, it's possible Yates didn't want his role in this dragged through the courts in a civil suit.  I'm surprised a civil wrongful death (is that what it's called?) case hasn't been filed by someone in all this mess.

[Mel]

LORD of the SWORD, on Jul 28 2006, 11:53 AM, said:

trikay, on Jul 26 2006, 08:12 PM, said:

I am so glad to see someone else who feels like Rusty Yates is just as responsible for what happened to his children.

But the fact is that it was SHE who stopped taking her medication that kept her condition under control...So IMO she CHOSE to kill her kids. She knew what not taking it could result it.

If the doctor wouldn't give it (the Haldol) to her, what was she supposed to do?  Rob a pharmacy?  If the stuff on the internet is accurate, she wanted it, he (the doctor) said she didn't need it.

[Eskaminzim]

LOTS:

She didn't stop taking her meds.  Her doctor took her off of them.  SHE begged that SAME doctor to have her committed to a mental institution not more than a week before she killed those children.  He refused!

How's SHE to be blamed?  She knew what her illness was telling her to do.  She begged for help. She begged to be placed behind locked doors away from her children not more than a week before she finally gave in to her illness!  Where does the culpability lie with her?  No one would listen to her, even though they all knew she was dangerously ill!

[Lin731]

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I know he took her off the Haldol, but it was my understanding that he had kept her on other meds that weren't helping.

Either way, it's a total case of malpractice and I hope the asswipe fries.

Amen to that, me too. I think ole Rusty and her doctor ought to be behind bars right now.

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How's SHE to be blamed? She knew what her illness was telling her to do. She begged for help. She begged to be placed behind locked doors away from her children not more than a week before she finally gave in to her illness! Where does the culpability lie with her? No one would listen to her, even though they all knew she was dangerously ill!

It really doesn't get more clear cut than that and given that it's next to impossible to win an "innocent by reason of insanity" claim in Texas and that she did win, that ought to say it all.

[Tricia]

LotS.....

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Puryear said Saeed's greatest error was taking Yates off the antipsychotic drug Haldol two weeks before she killed her children.

Saeed was Andrea's psychiatrist.  He took her off a medication that she needed.  

Now I do not know if he took her off the medication slowly or cold turkey...either way there have been studies in recent years that show that taking a person off any meds for a mental condition, whether it is anti-psychotics or anti-depressants,  can cause a  reversal to the behavior or state that caused the meds to be prescribed to begin with.  So they need to be carefully monitored during this time.  Obviously Andrea was not.


Especially if that person is still experiencing the hallucinations and hearing voices amongst other things.

Edited by trikay, 28 July 2006 - 04:41 PM.

[Cheile]

okay if the DOCTOR supposedly refused to have her committed, why the hell should Rusty be held responsible??  if y'all are blaming the doctor, why do you think he would listen anymore to the husband of his patient if he supposedly ignored the concerns his patient was directly voicing??

[Eskaminzim]

Because, Cheile, he was the sane one.  He knew, KNEW that his wife was actively homicidal, and he left his children home alone with her.

He could have taken them and gone to a hotel.  To a relative.  To another state.

He could have stayed at home.

Instead, he left her with those innocent children, knowing she was psychotic and knowing that voices were telling her to murder them, and knowing that her doctor had taken her off the only medication that had kept her from doing it.

How can you NOT blame him?

[gsmonks]

H'm . . . some say "justice", but I hear "revenge".

[Lin731]

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okay if the DOCTOR supposedly refused to have her committed, why the hell should Rusty be held responsible?? if y'all are blaming the doctor, why do you think he would listen anymore to the husband of his patient if he supposedly ignored the concerns his patient was directly voicing??

Let me ask you something, I think it will answer your question for you. If you had recently found your spouse standing in the kitchen with a butcher knife in hand (while no food was being prepared) knowing how seriously unstable she currently was, would you have left your children in her care? Rusty did that. He'd found her only days before the killings standing in the kitchen with a butcher knife in hand and a vacant look on her face. He knew she was hearing voices, he knew what the voices were telling her to do and still he left those children alone all day in her care.

You also mentioned in an earlier post that she should have been on the pill or had her tubes tied but I don't recall a reply when I asked why he (the sane one) hadn't had a vasectomy or used condomes to prevent another pregnancy from occurring. The simply answer to that question is that ole Rusty didn't want to stop having children. In fact ole Rusty lied about Andrea being supervised at home with the children. Ole Rusty believed in popping out as many children as possible (that's not speculation) that's based on an interview I saw with him talking about his desire to have as many children as God saw fit to give him. The fact that Andrea became nuts after just about every pregnancy and wasn't ever truly mentally stable be damned. So again, If you knew the dangers of concieving anymore children with your mentally unstable spouse, would you continue to breed or would you take it upon yourself to insure that no further pregnancies occurred?

[Tricia]

I can give you a story or two as an example of what Rusty Yates did not do....

I have a friend whose husband suffered from PTSD.  He was a vet and the VA and its programs did not seem to help him.  He tried to commit suicide numerous times.  She took him around to psychiatrists one after another to get him help.  If one approach did not seem to help after x amount of time or he got worse under that doctor's care, she found another doctor.  Anything to help him.  

They did not have children because she did not want to bring a child into that situation until or unless his condition improved.  It never did.  He passed away---not a suicide but from a heart attack.  But she did everything she could.  

Of course that is a personal story and some may not accept it at all.

Just because Rusty Yates did not believe that Andrea would actually harm her children even when she said the voices were telling her to....he believed she would hurt herself first before harming those children....did not mean that he should not have taken precautions.  

To use an extreme example (and I know that being drunk and being psychotic are two different things)----if your husband (or wife as the case may be) got stinking drunk, would you let them get in the car with your children and drive them somewhere? Granted they may make it there okay or they might end up dead in a car crash....but to allow your children to be placed in a dangerous situation is not right.  

As a parent, you have the responsibility to not only protect your children from the dangers of the outside world but those in their own home---and that includes the other parent if you know they are dangerous, even if you think only to themselves.

I am sure that Rusty Yates wishes he could go back and change the way things turned out.  I really want to believe that he was living in denial of how bad the situation really was.

[Rhea]

ScottEVill, on Jul 26 2006, 02:01 PM, said:

LORD of the SWORD, on Jul 26 2006, 04:52 PM, said:

Caesar of the Stars, on Jul 26 2006, 04:49 PM, said:

If she's nuts, as the jury believed and the time in institutions seems to indicate, I don't think she should be in prison.  In a mental institution, for sure, I don't think she needs to be walking around unattended.  She has to really seperate from reality to be able to drown five kids, especially her own.

Any person that did what she did HAS to be nuts to begin with....But those children deserved justice...And shrinks are the easiest people in the word to BS....She could be out in no time at all.

Justice, or vengeance?  

And if (as you stipulate) she IS, indeed, "nuts," then why would any shrink BS'ing be necessary in the first place?

What Zack said. This woman is, by everyone's admission, just plain old crazy. She needs to be in a mental hospital, not a prison. As far as I'm concerned the person who SHOULD have been charged was Rusty Yates. He wanted a lot of children, he didn't listen to his wife when she threatened to kill them, and he was the sane one in the family. He should have protected his children.

His wife was diagnosed as psychotic. He should have done better, for her and the kids. If he had, they might be alive right now.

Edited by Rhea, 30 July 2006 - 07:24 PM.

[Nonny]

Lost Cause, on Jul 27 2006, 02:14 PM, said:

What's scary about all this is that the crazy woman knew more than the sane people and the sane people wouldn't do a damn thing about it.

Crazy is not the same as stupid.  Sane is not the same as intelligent.  

Nonny

[waterpanther]

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okay if the DOCTOR supposedly refused to have her committed, why the hell should Rusty be held responsible?? if y'all are blaming the doctor, why do you think he would listen anymore to the husband of his patient if he supposedly ignored the concerns his patient was directly voicing??

Here's two things ol' Rusty could and should have done:

1.  Find his wife a competent psychiatrist; and/or

2.  Take her to the Harris County Attorney's office and walk her through a voluntary commitment.

Since he made no effort to do either, the a$$hat bears a large share of the responsibility for his kids' deaths.

[Rhea]

Nonny, on Jul 30 2006, 09:52 AM, said:

Lost Cause, on Jul 27 2006, 02:14 PM, said:

What's scary about all this is that the crazy woman knew more than the sane people and the sane people wouldn't do a damn thing about it.

Crazy is not the same as stupid.  Sane is not the same as intelligent.  

Nonny

What Nonny said. Having a mental illness doesn't lower your IQ - you just have a mental illness.

[Lord Martock]

People are stupid....Period.

Why do people always do the opposite of what they are told?  People are told not to continue having kids....so they do.  People are told to stay behind the yellow line...and they don't.  People are told not to touch a hot stove...so they do.  People are told to use protection during sex...and they don't.  Then....

BAM......

you have kids, burns, STD's, and get hands chopped off by machinery.  Then everyone looks around confused as to why things happened the way they did.

The Doctor's were probably worried about a Malpractice suit if they continued her meds...or even locked her in an institution.  People will bring in law suits for any reason, just to make money off of someone else's pain.
She killed her kids...period.  Her husband didn't...she did.  The only thing he is guilty of is being a bad father and letting a killer get to his kids.  They should neuter him and hopefully he won't father any more children.
That whole Insanity plea is a cop-out and she will be out of the institution in 15-20 years.

[The Oncoming Storm]

Rhea, on Jul 30 2006, 07:50 PM, said:

Nonny, on Jul 30 2006, 09:52 AM, said:

Lost Cause, on Jul 27 2006, 02:14 PM, said:

What's scary about all this is that the crazy woman knew more than the sane people and the sane people wouldn't do a damn thing about it.

Crazy is not the same as stupid. Sane is not the same as intelligent.

Nonny

What Nonny said. Having a mental illness doesn't lower your IQ - you just have a mental illness.

I know.  It's just that she, being in her condition, understood the depths of it fully and how dangerous she was (though she wasn't receiving much in the way of help at all), while her husband and the shrink, who had 3rd Person POV's, should've seen a little better than what they did.  In reality, she was a person who knew she had a problem and admitted as much, despite the fact she didn't have much of a support system to help her out.

[Tricia]

Lord Martock, on Jul 30 2006, 11:21 PM, said:

That whole Insanity plea is a cop-out and she will be out of the institution in 15-20 years.

She might very well be out in any number of years tho it is extremely doubtful due to the way the system is set up in this circumstance where a crime was committed even if it was influenced by mental illness.

And how can it be a cop-out when the facts of her mental health history are well-documented?  

It's not like she did this and had no prior history.  She didn't just wake up one day and say 'hey, I'm gonna kill my kids and pretend to be psychotic'  She had been on meds and diagnosed as schizophrenic for at least five years or more before she murdered her children.  

As to Rusty Yates....like I said I hope he looks back and sees what he did not do right. Regret and 'what ifs' can be torture too.  Maybe he hurts too and we just don't see it.  

(okay now I have myself feeling somewhat sorry for him)  

[Nonny]

trikay, on Jul 31 2006, 07:18 AM, said:

As to Rusty Yates....like I said I hope he looks back and sees what he did not do right. Regret and 'what ifs' can be torture too.  Maybe he hurts too and we just don't see it.  

(okay now I have myself feeling somewhat sorry for him)  

He's like that father in Dead Poet Society who drove his kid to suicide.  I was sitting there thinking, he'll understand now and he'll feel really really bad, but instead he blamed it on the teacher.  No, Randy will never get it.  He'll never see his own responsibility, and he'll remain the self-satisfied, self-righteous pr!ck that he is.  His pastor and his fellow church members will make sure of it.  

Nonny

[Nonny]

Lord Martock, on Jul 30 2006, 10:21 PM, said:

People are stupid....Period.

Many are....semicolon....however, as long as the stupid are in charge of everything, there's not much the intelligent can do to change anything.  

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Why do people always do the opposite of what they are told?  People are told not to continue having kids....so they do.

Cuz the bible tells them so.  

Consider what happens to women who try to stop having kids.  Back in the bad old days in my neighborhood, the priest went around to visit all the moms while the kids were in school, and any woman who wasn't popping them out at least biannually, he would counsel for her "problems" and get her back in the program.  Oh, you mean women whose health problems make them bad candidates for pregnancy and childbirth?  I ended two pregnancies to save my life.  The last head of that church came to my country and announced that he wanted to end abortion in my hemisphere, on my turf, and he said not one word about exceptions for the mother's health or rape or incest or anything else, being the anti-woman bigot that he was, and I doubt the new guy is any better.  The kind of church that the Yates belong to makes the church I grew up in look open-minded.  

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People are told to stay behind the yellow line...and they don't.

Curiosity?  

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People are told not to touch a hot stove...so they do.

Can't help you on that one.  

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People are told to use protection during sex...and they don't.

Cuz the priests and preachers that interpret the bible for them tell them so.  

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She killed her kids...period.  Her husband didn't...she did.  The only thing he is guilty of is being a bad father and letting a killer get to his kids.

How about accessory to murder?  How about forcing a killer to remain a killer and forcing a killer to kill her kids, no matter how hard she tried to get away and get help?  I'd like to see the whole lot of them, the ones that stopped her from getting the help she begged for, nicked for accessory.  

Nonny