Ex-wife drowned 5 children but husband still visits her and says ‘we have lovely chats’

Andrea Yates drowned her five young children in 2001 during severe postpartum psychosis. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2006. Her ex-husband, Rusty, has continued to visit her in a mental health facility

A man has revealed why he still visits his former wife, despite her killing their five young children.

On June 20, 2001, NASA engineer Rusty Yates set off for work as normal at the Johnson Space Centre/ Rusty’s wife, Andrea Yates, who had been battling a serious bout of postpartum psychosis and schizophrenia, waited for her husband’s departure before committing an unspeakable act.

The ex-nurse drowned Noah, seven, John, five, Paul, three, Luke, two, and Mary, six months old, in the bath, before placing them on a bed and covering them with a sheet. Following her call to emergency services reporting her children’s deaths, Yates then telephoned Rusty, instructing him to return home.

When police arrived at the property in Clear Lake, a Houston suburb in Texas, Yates confessed, “I just killed my children.”

In what became one of America’s most harrowing cases, Yates faced five charges of capital murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. Nevertheless, her legal team successfully contended that, considering her acute depression and psychosis after giving birth to her youngest daughter, Mary, psychiatric care would be more suitable than imprisonment in this instance, reports the Mirror.

In 2002, following her conviction for capital murder, Yates received a life sentence with the prospect of parole after 40 years. Her legal team launched an appeal that successfully overturned the ruling, and when the case went back to court in 2006, she was declared not guilty by reason of insanity.

This remarkable case has recently been examined in a fresh HBO documentary.

Yates spends her time at a mental health institution in Kerrville, Texas, where she allegedly continues to harbour delusional beliefs, even confiding to officials that she had contemplated murdering her children for two years, believing she was rescuing them from what she perceived as “eternal damnation”.

According to court records, Yates confided to her prison psychiatrist: “My children weren’t righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell.”

Yet remarkably, Yates’ ex-husband continues to visit her – despite their 2005 divorce – and maintains she remains “loving and devoted”.

Speaking openly to People magazine, Rusty, now 61, revealed: “I try once a year to visit in person, and we text back and forth some and talk on the phone some. 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.”

He went on to say: “I mean, it’s nice to reminisce. Honestly, I never imagined anything like this could happen, especially with her, especially how caring and loving and devoted Andrea is.”