In the 25 years since Texas mom Andrea Yates drowned her five children, we’ve had a lot of conversations about moms and mental health. Years after Yates was convicted in the deaths of her children, her case was reexamined. Yates was suffering from severe postpartum depression after the birth of her last child. Paired with her deep ties to a religion that was deemed cultlike, Yates killing her children felt almost inevitable. This time, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Now, her ex-husband is speaking out and revealing that despite everything, he doesn’t harbor any ill will toward her.
Rusty Yates, 61, recently participated in the ID documentary The Cult Behind the Killer: The Andrea Yates Story, which is available to stream on HBO Max. Because of his participation, he spoke with People about the current state of his relationship with Andrea.
“I try once a year to visit in person and we text back and forth some and talk on the phone some,” he told the magazine. “Andrea and I always got along. That’s a time of our life that we both cherish and she’s the only person I can talk to about it. She and I are the only two who can get together and reminisce about what it was like to enjoy those years together.”
On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates called 911. She told dispatchers that she had drowned her five children in the bathtub: 7-year-old Noah, 5-year-old John, 3-year-old Paul, 2-year-old Luke, and 6-month-old Mary.
In March 2002, Andrea was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. Years later, her conviction was overturned and her case was retried. In 2006, she was found guilty by reason of insanity NBC News reported. She was then committed to a state mental hospital. Although she could be examined to see if she was still a threat, the woman, who is now in her 60s, has chosen to stay there.
“When I realized she only did this because she was mentally ill, then I was done,” Rusty told People. “I didn’t blame her.”
But just because he doesn’t blame his ex-wife, who he divorced in 2005, doesn’t mean feelings about the loss are gone. “It’s still super painful. That’s a pain you can’t go around, you got to go through that. But as far as blaming Andrea, no.”
“She’s not a monster,” he went on to say. “I hope people can know that about her — that she’s just a wonderful, accomplished person, caring, loving, who suffered immensely because of this.”
After her arrest, Andrea Yates told doctors that her children needed to be killed to keep them from Satan, the Texas Tribune reported in 2014. She had previously attempted suicide before the drownings and had been hospitalized.
“She believed that the children would be tormented and perish in the fires of hell unless they were killed,” jail psychiatrist Dr. Melissa Ferguson testified in 2002, according to the Midland Reporter-Telegram.
Andrea Yates was allegedly influenced by the teachings of preacher Michael Woroniecki. The religious leader, who has also been characterized as a cult leader, allegedly asserted that children wouldn’t go to hell if they died before age 12, the Houston Chronicle reported.
According to Rusty, now, Andrea “spends a lot more time going over old videos of our family, looking through old pictures — that sort of thing — because her mind is still sort of stuck there.”
“She’s kind of stuck because she has this extremely hard time forgiving herself,” he said, per People. “It’s like, how do you take something that significant and get past it in life? Or do you get stuck there? And that’s where you’re stuck and that’s it.”
