Defence lawyers today launched efforts to save Andrea Yates from execution after she was convicted of murder for drowning her five children in the bath.

Andrea Yates, the 37-year-old housewife who admitted she drowned her five children, has been convicted of murder by a US jury that rejected her claim of insanity.

A jury was today sent out to deliberate a 37-year-old mother was in her right mind when she drowned her five children in the bath.

Andrea Yates sobbed during her murder trial yesterday as prosecutors showed the jury in Houston, Texas, a picture of four of her drowned children on a bed and a video-tape of her fifth child floating face down in a bathtub.