In 2001, American mum Andrea Yates killed her five children, Mary, six months, Luke, 2, Paul, 3, John, 5 and Noah, 7, by drowning them one by one in the family bathtub.
She chose to murder her children at breakfast, when they would be distracted. Her son Noah almost managed to escape when he walked in and found the body of his newborn sister floating in the water, but Andrea snatched him and murdered him last.
Phil Archer, a KPRC reporter at the time, recalled the horrifying events during a segment on Today.
“Cops were crying. Her clothes were still wet, and her hair was still wet from the bathtub.
“And they brought her out and she looked like a zombie. There was a sort of wildness in her eyes.”
She was found guilty of murder but later appealed on grounds of insanity as her attorneys said Yates suffered from repeated episodes of postpartum depression that sparked psychotic delusions.
She’s currently living out the rest of her life in a low-security mental health facility in Texas. During a rare interview with The Today Show, her attorney George Parnham has spoken out about how Andrea still thinks about the lives she took.
George, who is one of the only attorneys that is still in contact with Andrea, said:
“There's not a day that goes by where she doesn't care for, talk about, is happy about her children's lives before June the 20th and grieves for her children.”
He then added that she spends her days making crafts that are sold anonymously to charity and is doing ‘remarkably well’.
“She has excellent care.
“The hospital where she is, there are no razor wires, there's no bars, there's no armed guards, no fences.”
The lawyer, who speaks to Andrea on a weekly basis, still thinks that there is no chance that she will ever be released – especially as she never asks for that possibility in her yearly reviews.
It’s been 15 years since the atrocious crime.