February 22, 2002

Confession Heard in Drowning Trial

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 6:24 a.m. ET

HOUSTON (AP) -- Andrea Yates had only one question for a police sergeant after she confessed to plunging each of her five children face down in a bathtub full of water until they drowned.

``She wanted to know when her trial would be,'' Sgt. Eric Mehl testified Thursday, on the fourth day of the 37-year-old woman's capital murder trial for the deaths of three of her five children in June.

In her taped confession to Mehl, played before the jury Thursday, Yates says her intent was to suffocate the life out of her children.

The state was expected to rest its case on Friday, and Yates' attorneys were expected to begin their defense. They planned to argue that Yates, who has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, didn't know right from wrong when the children were drowned.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

In the taped confession, Yates details for Mehl how she chased her oldest son, 7-year-old Noah, before forcing him into the same water she used to drown her four younger children.

``How long have you been having thoughts about wanting, or not wanting to, but drowning your children?'' Mehl asked during the interview.

``Probably since I realized I have not been a good mother to them,'' Yates responded.

``What makes you say that?'' the police officer asked.

``They weren't developing correctly,'' Yates said.

She recounted the details of the deadly morning to Mehl in a flat, monotone voice. Yates also told him that she had filled the tub two months earlier with the intention of drowning the children, but didn't go through with it.

Defense attorneys claimed during opening statements earlier this week that Yates filled the tub the first time while suffering a delusion that had caused her to become concerned about the family's water supply.

Unlike earlier Thursday, when Yates sobbed as photos of her dead children were shown to jurors, she showed no emotion as the tape was played.

Yates explains on the audiotape how she filled the tub 3 inches from the top and then began calling her children into the bathroom.

Six-month-old Mary was on the floor crying as three of her older brothers, one after the other, struggled to keep from being held beneath the water's surface.

Yates told Mehl she first called 3-year-old Paul into the bathroom. Once he was dead, Yates placed him on a bed in a back bedroom, covering him with a sheet.

She did the same with 2-year-old Luke, then 5-year-old John.

When she called her oldest child, Noah, into the bathroom, her infant daughter's body was still floating in the tub.

Noah struggled the most, gasping for air as his mother forced him beneath the surface.

Yates took Mary's lifeless body to the bed where her three brothers lay, leaving Noah floating face down in the tub.

Then she dialed 911.

Dr. Patricia J. Moore, a medical examiner who performed autopsies on John and Mary, testified the children's heads had small bruises, likely from someone holding them under water.