Friend: Yates 'scary' before drownings

[Judi Lynn]

July 12, 2006, 2:05AM
Friend: Yates 'scary' before drownings
Defense rests after jury hears how defendant had neglected hygiene and stopped eating


By PEGGY O'HARE and DALE LEZON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

~snip~
Yates — normally a "very calm, sweet, loving" person, Holmes said — turned into a "zombie," jurors learned. Holmes said she begged Yates' husband at the time, Russell Yates, to get help but didn't see much improvement.

..."There was no hygiene," Holmes, 46, told the jury. "She was not taking care of herself, she was not eating and drinking properly. She was dehydrated.
"Her teeth were gummy and gooey, as if she hadn't brushed them in days. Her feet were black. Her body stunk. Her hair was matted and greasy. This wasn't normal for her."
(snip)

Adding to the mix was the family's religious preference. Holmes said that Yates and her husband often received religious tracts from a "cult" led by Michael Peter Woroniecki, an itinerant campus preacher Russell Yates had met. Woroniecki's tracts, Holmes said, preached "condemnation."

Defense attorney George Parnham displayed an enlarged print of a sketch in one of the tracts, which Holmes said showed a woman and children jumping in and out of a river.

She quoted a poem from the tract to the jury that included: "Modern mother worldly very, very lazy," she said. "Her children drive her crazy. Modern mother worldly cast into Hell. Now what becomes of the children, such a Jezebel."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4040952.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Woroniecki is arrested at Brigham Young University in 1994 for preaching without a permit and harassing students with vicious name calling. The BYU article can be found at this address: http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/37644



This image taken from a video sent to followers in 1996, Michael Woroniecki emphatically warns followers who are parents that unless they abandon their "husband goes to work, wife just exists" Christian lifestyle, quit their job and take up his prophetic, itinerant lifestyle, their children would not be properly trained "in the Lord," reach accountability and "perish in hellfire." He also added that because of Mt. 18:6 the parents would suffer the "most severe judgment" for allowing an innocent child to stumble in this way. Andrea and Rusty Yates received a copy of this video.

Photos taken from Wikipedia article on the minister, at this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Peter_Woroniecki

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looks as if they had their own personal Rasputin, doesn't it?

[Binka]

1. Why Didn't She Help Her Friend?

..."There was no hygiene," Holmes, 46, told the jury. "She was not taking care of herself, she was not eating and drinking properly. She was dehydrated.
"Her teeth were gummy and gooey, as if she hadn't brushed them in days. Her feet were black. Her body stunk. Her hair was matted and greasy. This wasn't normal for her."

:wtf: WHY DIDN'T ANYONE HELP THIS POOR WOMAN?

[justice1]

2. People prefer putting someone down, rather than helping them up.

[LostinVA]

7. She tried to help Andrea, she didn't try to "put her down"

Strange thing to say about a concerned friend, who's even know pleading on the stand to help her friend.

[sandnsea]

4. This one tears at me too

The article says the Holmes woman didn't know Andrea was being left alone between the time her husband went to work and the mother-in-law came. So maybe she thought the mother-in-law was helping. The whole thing just makes me so angry, she hasn't been treated right by anybody in years and years. This article was also the first time I'd heard her father had recently died, maybe he was some sort of hope that she hung on to. I hope they sentence her to a mental institution this time, she doesn't belong in prison.

[Bridget Burke]

9. Andrea Yates' father died of Alzheimer's

And she spent more time caring for him than any of his other children. (She had been trained as a nurse, giving up her career after her first child was born.)

www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jul2001/yate-j02.shtml

Following the birth of her fourth child, in June 1999, she tried to commit suicide. According to the Houston Chronicle, “the attempt took place in her parents’ southeast Houston house—and she tried to kill herself with an overdose of her father’s Alzheimer’s medication.” Despite this, Yates became pregnant again in early 2000 and gave birth to her fifth child in November. Her father died in March.

[lynne]

5. The article states that she tried to help -

- "Holmes said she begged Yates' husband at the time, Russell Yates, to get help but didn't see much improvement."

Honestly, there is little more that a friend can do. The authorities will only act at the request of the next-of-kin for medical intervention until such time as a crime has been committed. IMO Russell Yates is as guilty as his wife as he chose to ignore his wife's deteriorating condition.

[TheDebbieDee]

10. I agree....I've always wondered why Russell Yates

wasn't arrested for "depraved indifference" or "negligence" or some other term you hear on "Law & Order" all the time.

Andrea Yates is and was mentally ill at the time of the killings.

Russell Yates was SANE and should have been punished for not doing enought o protect his children!

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fleshdancer]

23. I know Texas is fun to bash, but your statement is ridiculous

It has nothing to do with Texas. I bet you could find Rusty's running around all over this country. It's not like one state has a stranglehold on the nutcase asshole husband population.

[Lisa]

11. and friends can be subjected to intimidation or even legal action

... for trying to help. Of course I am just commenting in general, since I don't know the particulars of this case -- but it's not unheard-of for a friend to be accused of "interference".

One woman I know became a virtual recluse after she got married, and some of us at her former workplace became concerned that she had suddenly stopped communicating with us. When we tried to invite her out for a lunchtime get-together, her husband showed up and berated the organizers for "butting in", and told us that he had forbidden her to associate with us (no reason given). We were astonished, because she had been an outgoing, professional person who had distinct feminist politics -- and the very thought that she would marry someone who would order her around like that was quite bizarre. But as you say, there really wasn't much we could do, except for monitoring things indirectly and making some contingency plans for calling in official help if it looked like he was harming her physically. (And even in definite spousal abuse cases, when the victim simply refuses to press charges, the legal options are limited if one is not a family member.)

[EFerrari]

18. Because it was all in her head.

:(

[Penance]

24. It's not that easy

Anyone who has ever dealt with someone that is disturbed in some way or has themselves seriously contemplated suicide knows how hard to help someone like that. Depressed people can make awful pests of themselves crying out for help ofent driving everyone away or they will try their hardest to pretend that everything is OK. Sometimes a person will act strangely but not show obviously suicidal/homicidal tendancies. They will often try to hide their true feelings. Hindsight is 20/20. If you had a friend who started to lapse into poor hygene, would you automatically think that he/she was about to kill his/her children? You would be worried about this person, but would you have called say a suicide crisis center at that moment? Had Holmes confronted her and asked what the problem was, I guarantee she would have said "Nothing" and slammed the door in his face.

Don't be too hard on this guy. You can't always know what's gong on in someone else's head.

[EFerrari]

32. There's a difference between "helping" someone and

recognizing a lethal situation.

Look at the list of things the friend reports. She wasn't a shrink but she recognized enough to make a professional get off their @ss.

We pile on Rusty Yates for a lot of things and maybe he deserves some of them.

He did better than the doctor. He took his wife to get help. The doctor just sent her HOME.

[Veronica.Franco]

26. Because to reach out and help would have meant getting involved

Getting her hands dirty ... people are shallow and superficial ... it's easy to talk about helping her and pointing OUT that she needed help ... doing something is muct too much trouble ... it wasn't her problem ... she told the husband and walked away from those children ... just water off a duck's back ...

[brentspeak]

27. People also make snap judgements

based on a few lines they read in an article.

[Veronica.Franco]

30. Too bad the friend didn't decide to err on the side of caution

For the sake of those kids ... talk is so much easier, isn't it? ... I've seen women beaten bloody with broken bones and their families and friends believe it's none of their business and walk away ... just like yates' "friend" ...

Type a few condescending words on a page and the hell it ... not your problem? ... must be great to be a big strong man ... you'll never know that kind of fear ... easier to believe someone is "jumping to conclusion" ... "lynch mob" ... then you don't EVER have to do a thing ... predictable ... you've made their reality non-existent ... simple ...

[murielm99]

3. My daughter had a brush with the Woronieki person.

He came to Iowa State when she was there. He was not welcome, to say the least. There was publicity about him in the school newspaper. Security kept a close eye on him.

He was not there long. I don't think he made many converts. The Yates connection was mentioned prominently.

WTF is wrong with people?

[LostinVA]

6. The article states she did try to help

She couldn't legally do a thing, but she talked to Russell Yates and urged him to help Andrea... again, legally there was nothing else she WAS about to do.

[EFerrari]

15. The thing is, "legal" in this situation is interesting. Legally,

she could raise hell with anyone one who would listen to her. The police. The nearest ER. Andrea's doctor. His office or the clinic or whatEVER it was or both.

Legally, she could make so much noise that the liable parties would know SOMEONE WAS PAYING ATTENTION. She could legally GIVE information. She didn't need a release for that, did she?

There's a lot you can do, legally, but you have to be paying attention and you have to be on the more stubborn than God side.

[Lisa]

16. ... and persist even if your family and friends think you've lost it ...

As you say, you have to be very, very stubborn, even if people think you have developed an "obsession" or "monomania", and those who are close to you get scared and embarrassed, and beg you to quit.

I agree, sfexpat2000 -- it can be done -- but there is often a pretty high price. And after having seen what a couple of my friends went through when trying to deal with an unjust situation (one of them still hasn't managed to clear her name after she was accused of being "paranoid", "unstable", and "out for revenge" when she complained about a potentially-hazardous situation) -- I find it hard to condemn someone for not getting more involved. I doubt I'd have the resources (emotional or financial) to go through the process you laid out. (And if something like this happened, I'd be forever thinking about what I might have done.)

[EFerrari]

17. It's no picnic, that's for sure.

And you know, this lady is probably only one among -- several? -- who all knew something really wrong was happening but, they didn't have a clue what to do about it.

I sure don't blame her. The point is, mental illness is not treated like it's real. If you see someone choking, you probably know what to do. If you see someone in a psychotic state, most of us probably don't -- in a way that is safe and more or less reasonable.

And, even if we did, the system would fight us tooth and claw.

I used to get, "Divorce him" for my trouble. As if that was an answer to an immediate and dangerous situation. (Slaps forehead.)


/slaps keyboard, too

[Lisa]

19. you point out some very important things, in post #14 ...

I'll bet you're right about there being others out there who noticed something, but didn't know what to do, or were afraid to get involved.

As you say, a lot of people, even as schoolkids, were taught about things like CPR, but psychological disorders don't get the same level of exposure.

Even though there is more information out there about mental illness (and treatment options), it's still common for pretty well-educated people to think that these are only "imaginary" ailments, which are synonymous with laziness, contrariness, or the desire for attention. Diagnosed with chronic depression? Well, then the onus is on you to "cheer up" and "get a better attitude" (as one of my co-workers was told). They wouldn't accuse a diabetic of "just being lazy", but they regard mental illness as something else entirely.

Family relationships can be complicated at the best of times, and when illness is added to the mixture, the results can be frightening. One of my relatives is currently caring for her son, who has had psychological problems for a number of years ... and as you describe, it's been just draining. A while ago, there was an incident -- and both of them ended up in hospital. Pretty "real" for them -- and yet some acquaintances just shrugged and blamed it on "the kid has never been taught discipline".

[EFerrari]

21. I hear you. It can get real and concrete.

I hope they have some real, concrete support.

[Vogon_Glory]

8. Woroniecki: Clerical Malpractice

I personally consider this Woroniecki creature to be as much responsible as hubby Rusty Yates for setting up Andrea Yates for her psychotic break and its deadly consequences. Had either of the Yates wised up earlier, all of the Yates children would still be alive.

While I would be concerned about the side effects of legislation permitting civil action for clerical malpractice, I believe that Woroniecki would be a legitimate target for plaintiffs and prosecutors.

I hope that a merciful and loving G*d puts Woroniecki someplace where he won't leave such wreckage in his wake.

Re-incarnation as a sea sponge for several hundred lifetimes might be just barely safe enough.

[superconnected]

13. Sounds like Andrea isn't the only one that belongs in the Mental institute

Russell and Woroniecki belong there too.

[EFerrari]

14. Respectfully, this is about massive ignorance re mental illness

not about religion.

When you see deterioration that is that marked, something big is happening. You don't try to talk to the person unless it's to get them to go into a quiet room and lie down. Then you pull out the stops and get them some H E L P. You don't wait for "someone" to do it. YOU do it. You no more walk away from this than you walk away from your neigbor's house on fire.

You don't have to charge in yourself, but man -- don't you call the effen FIRE DEPARTMENT?

The Yates believed they were getting the problem treated and this major @SSHOLE let them both down:

"(The doctor) denied making any additional notes in her case file after her children were killed, insisting his remarks that Yates "denied any psychotic symptoms" were written at the time of their last appointment, two days before the drownings."

(He's expecting Andrea to report psychotic symptoms. Now, that's a good idea. :sarcasm: )

Mr. Doctor didn't bother to even send her in for observation. HE SENT THEM HOME. That's INSANE.

How many people here have ever lived with a family member in this condition? It's effen exhausting. The doctors blow you off and when anything goes badly, you're the first one to be fingered as if that helps somehow. It's silly when it doesn't turn into tragedy.

In that condition, she could have just as easily killed Yates and herself as those kids. Which is to say, Yates was probably exhausted and not thinking very well. Ditto for his mom. Because neither of them acted as if they were in danger, either. It's no surprise they didn't think of the kids. If they had been thinking straight themselves, they would never have allow Andrea to be sent home in that condition because anything could have happened to any of them.

[SoCalDem]

20. How many of her "friends" said:

"Andrea, I'm here at your door...I'm taking the kids so you can relax a bit"

"Andrea, I'm coming over to take you to lunch, our friend "???? is babysitting for you"

or

"Dumbshit Husband of Andrea,`YOUR WIFE IS IN SERIOUS TROUBLE..TAKE HER TO A HOSPITAL"...AND TAKE THE KIDS TO GRANDMA'S HOUSE"..


(personal story)

when I was suffering from a major depression, my friend Connie CAMPED OUT AT MY HOUSE and bugged the hell out of me.. SHE drove me to the shrink appointments, SHE filled my prescriptions, and SHE called my doctor when I refused to get out of bed.... (my husband was working out of town, and was not home regularly...and my kids were in cahoots with her)

She (and my kids) may have saved my life.....

[EFerrari]

22. Exactly!

:applause: :applause: :applause:

[auntAgonist]

25. thank God for Connie.

I am so glad she was there for you. Not many have true friends like that.

:hug:

and a :hug: for Connie too.

aA

[Lisa]

29. Hurrah for Connie -- and great job by the kids, too!

It is so inspiring to hear stories like this.

[brentspeak]

28. Good grief, it's like a lynch mob on this thread

A woman friend of Yates' is quoted in a few lines, and people have already condemned the friend as almost a co-conspirator.

[auntAgonist]

31. sad isn't it? People can only try as hard as they know how to..

It's a horrid situation, one that might have been prevented. I think the friend tried the best she knew how to.


aA

[Judi Lynn]

33. If you haven't read much about the preacher's ideas, this may be

worth checking:

Influence on Andrea Yates (located around half-way down the page)

On June 20, 2001, one of Woroniecki's disciples for the previous nine years, Andrea Pia Yates killed all five of her children. Eventually, Woroniecki surfaced in the media when evidence was admitted in court implicating Woroniecki's teaching in a newsletter called The Perilous Times as having negatively scripted Andrea's psychotic mind. Andrea had delusively believed that she was a horrible mother who couldn't give Jesus to her children and that because of her, her children would become spiritually damaged and end up in hell.

Letters from the Woroniecki family were found by investigative author Suzy Spencer that berated Andrea over her unrighteous standing before God. His 1995 video taught that it was better for parents to commit suicide than cause their offspring to stumble and go to hell. Only two months after receiving the harsh letters from the Woroniecki's, Andrea was hospitalized twice for two separate suicide attempts.

On his 1995 video, Woroniecki demanded that unless his disciples lived a jobless life prophetically preaching the gospel, that their children would consequently not be trained in the Lord and would end up in hell. The "husband goes to work, wife just exists" Christian lifestyle (like the Yates were living) would certainly guarantee that their children would not be trained properly, according to the video.

An audio tape from Woroniecki that Andrea possessed suggested that children were not accountable until the age of twelve, and that "babies were better off aborted than to grow up in the households of "witches and wimps," grow up and face certain judgment in hellfire."
~more~

http://www.answers.com/topic/michael-peter-woroniecki

[EFerrari]

34. I wonder how many of these poisonous people are out there

preying on vulnerable people like Andrea Yates and her family. :nuke: