Friday's Internet Edition, November 21, 2008.
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The three, along with a brother and a baby sister, left the gray brick house for the last time Wednesday in body bags, presumed drowned in a bathtub. Their mother was charged with capital murder after telling police she killed her family in a matter of an hour.
“It is just rather unimaginable,” Houston police spokesman John Cannon said. “It’s difficult to deal with when you are talking about five little kids who were killed, probably systematically.”
Andrea Pia Yates, 36, was charged with multiple counts of capital murder late Wednesday and was being held in the Harris County jail. Yates had called police to her home and was wet when she answered the door, police said.
“At that time she said to the officer, `I killed my children,’ ” Cannon said.
Cannon said the woman then led the officer to a bed in a back bedroom. Found under a sheet were the wet bodies of Mary, 6 months, and three of her brothers, Luke, 2; Paul, 3; and John, 5. The fifth child, Noah, 7, was still in a bathtub.
Authorities gave no motive for the slayings, but the woman’s husband told police she had been on medication to treat postpartum depression for the past two years, since the birth of their fourth child, Luke.
Cannon said Yates called her husband home Wednesday morning shortly after calling police. He arrived about the same time police officers did and was not allowed into the house.
The father had left for work only an hour or so before she called police around 9:50 a.m. CDT.
Andrea Yates was led away in handcuffs from the one-story Spanish-style home in far southeast Houston, near NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The children’s father works at NASA as a computer specialist.
Judy Hay, a spokeswoman for Children’s Protective Services, said records indicate the woman attempted suicide two years ago on June 18, 1999. Five days later, CPS was called because mental health officials worried the woman’s children didn’t have proper care.
“We found them at their grandparents with their father,” Hay said. “It was never assigned because there was no abuse or neglect.”
The three oldest boys attended a party over the weekend at the home of Raymond Rivera, whose grandson Rocky celebrated his first birthday. The children smacked a pinata, ate cake and appeared to enjoy themselves along with their father on a video the family made.
“(The father) said his wife didn’t want to come because she was depressed from having her baby, or something like that,” Rivera said.