Father of drowned children says wife needs help

The father of five children killed by their depressed mother today wept as he spoke of his love for his children and said he wanted his wife to be helped.

Clutching a family picture, Russell Yates stood outside the home in Houston,

Texas, where his wife Andrea drowned their five children, aged from seven to six months, while suffering from post-natal depression.

Mrs Yates faces the death penalty after being charged with capital murder for killing the four boys and baby girl in the bath of the family home yesterday.

Today Mr Yates said he would stand by his wife and added: "What happened was just incomprehensible. She obviously wasn’t herself. Anyone that knows her, knows she loves the kids. She is a kind gentle person. What happened yesterday, it wasn’t her."

The mother-of-five had suffered depression following the birth of her fourth child two years ago. It set in again when their youngest child, Mary, was born six months ago.

She phoned emergency services, telling them she had killed her children, and after a search of her suburban home, they found the bodies of all five.

Mr Yates, a Nasa computer scientist, said: "Looking back I struggled with it all. I could not sleep last night thinking what could I have done.

"I want her to recover. It is going to be very hard for her to deal with this. Andrew, if you see this, I love you."

Mr Yates said his wife and children, Noah, John, Paul, Luke and Mary were "a good family".

"Ask anyone who has seen us, in the store, in the street. We are a good family. My mum said last night she was just glad to have known them and that is the way I feel. They were precious, precious kids.

"We did things other families did. We used to go out here and shoot baseball,’’ he said, pointing to the neatly cut lawn behind him.

Mr Yates said his wife had been on medication for depression after the birth of their daughter, but had given no indication that she could do anything to harm her children.

"No. There was nothing," he said, choking back tears and adding that he had yet to speak to her.

"One side of me blames her because she did it. The other side of me says that she did it because she wasn’t in the right frame of mind. She loved our kids."

He said his wife had been receiving help to look after the family from her mother-in-law and he also did what he could to help.

"To her it was her job. We pretty much went into the marriage thinking we would welcome however many children came along."

He said his wife had attempted suicide after suffering depression after the birth of their youngest son, but had been successfully treated and got over the illness.

"The first time it took several months for her to become depressed. This time it was three weeks. It was very fast.

"We were all hopeful that she would respond to the same medications that she did the first time, but she never did."

As he spoke, neighbours left flowers and teddy bears on the lawn in front of the house where the tragedy occurred.

Postnatal depression affects up to 20% of mothers, researchers say.

Dr Lauren Marangell, a psychiatrist who leads the Baylor College of Medicine’s mood disorders research programme, said such depression is treatable and rarely results in violence to others.