Father buries five children `drowned by their mother'

The father of five children allegedly drowned by their mother choked with grief as he spoke at their funeral service.

Russell Yates placed a blanket next to each body before the caskets were closed.

The white caskets were arranged in an arc, each with a ribbon bearing a child's name. After a service of about 75 minutes, they were wheeled slowly from the church for the brief procession to a cemetery.

"I can't possibly tell you everything there is to know about each one of them," Mr Yates told some 500 mourners at the Clear Lake Church of Christ in Houston, Texas. "But I can give you a glimpse of who they were."

Six-month-old Mary was dressed in a pink babysuit. Her three-year-old brother Paul was to her left and two-year-old Luke to her right.

Noah, seven, wore a multicoloured sweater emblazoned with a truck. John, five, wore an orange and black sweater.

"If the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, that's exactly what he's done," Mr Yates said. "He gave me all these children and now he's taken them away."

The children's mother, Andrea Yates, remains in jail under a 24-hour suicide watch.

She was said to be suffering from post natal depression at the time of the killings.

She has been charged with the murder of the children.

Police were called to the Yates' Houston home on June 20, when they found the bodies of the four youngest children still wet under a sheet on a bed.

Noah was found in the bath. Police say Andrea Yates confessed to the killings.