TX - Two Mothers Who Killed Children Form Bond

Wasn't sure where to file this, under Yates, Schlosser, or here:waitasec: ...

POSTED: 1:10 pm PDT October 8, 2006


DALLAS -- Two Texas women who killed their young children in cases that drew nationwide attention have formed a friendship at a state hospital, a newspaper reports.

Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in the bathtub, and Dena Schlosser, whose baby died after she severed the girl's arms with a kitchen knife, became roommates at the Maple unit of the North Texas State Hospital after each was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

"We talk about our past, we talk about our memories, our fun memories, the things that our kids did," Schlosser told The Dallas Morning News. With the support of her family, Schlosser agreed to be interviewed several times by phone.

Yates did not want to come to the phone. But her ex-husband Rusty Yates, who still regularly visits her at the hospital in Vernon, 174 miles northwest of Dallas, said Schlosser has become a friend.
The two women will probably be in the state's care for years, remaining at Vernon or another hospital until their doctors and judges agree they can be released.


Conversations between the women often revolve around their young daughters - Mary Yates was 6 months old and Maggie Schlosser was 10 months old when they died.


Schlosser's parents, Connie and Mick Macaulay of Canada, said their daughter once tearfully called after talking with Yates.


"They'd talked a lot about Mary and Maggie," said Mick Macaulay, a mental health counselor. "They were feeling guilty, remorseful and sad."


Schlosser, 37, was already at the hospital when Yates, 42, arrived this summer. Yates drowned her children at her family home in suburban Houston in 2001 and Schlosser cut off her daughter's arms in her family home in suburban Dallas in 2004.


The women have much in common. Both were married, stay-at-home moms who followed out-of-the mainstream religious leaders. Both suffered from postpartum depression and psychosis after the birth of their daughters.
more at link:http://www.ktvu.com/news/10029063/detail.html

LinasK said:

Wasn't sure where to file this, under Yates, Schlosser, or here:waitasec: ...

POSTED: 1:10 pm PDT October 8, 2006


DALLAS -- Two Texas women who killed their young children in cases that drew nationwide attention have formed a friendship at a state hospital, a newspaper reports.

Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in the bathtub, and Dena Schlosser, whose baby died after she severed the girl's arms with a kitchen knife, became roommates at the Maple unit of the North Texas State Hospital after each was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

"We talk about our past, we talk about our memories, our fun memories, the things that our kids did," Schlosser told The Dallas Morning News. With the support of her family, Schlosser agreed to be interviewed several times by phone.

Yates did not want to come to the phone. But her ex-husband Rusty Yates, who still regularly visits her at the hospital in Vernon, 174 miles northwest of Dallas, said Schlosser has become a friend.
The two women will probably be in the state's care for years, remaining at Vernon or another hospital until their doctors and judges agree they can be released.


Conversations between the women often revolve around their young daughters - Mary Yates was 6 months old and Maggie Schlosser was 10 months old when they died.


Schlosser's parents, Connie and Mick Macaulay of Canada, said their daughter once tearfully called after talking with Yates.


"They'd talked a lot about Mary and Maggie," said Mick Macaulay, a mental health counselor. "They were feeling guilty, remorseful and sad."


Schlosser, 37, was already at the hospital when Yates, 42, arrived this summer. Yates drowned her children at her family home in suburban Houston in 2001 and Schlosser cut off her daughter's arms in her family home in suburban Dallas in 2004.


The women have much in common. Both were married, stay-at-home moms who followed out-of-the mainstream religious leaders. Both suffered from postpartum depression and psychosis after the birth of their daughters.
more at link:http://www.ktvu.com/news/10029063/detail.html

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Oh isn't that special that they both have a new friend It's too bad that their children...WHO THEY MURDERED...will never have the opportunity to have friends.

I am just glad they are having a good time. I just can not understand why they are not in jail. Schlosser, I can buy that one but yates? come on drowning kids one by one. Have you ever tried to hold down a 6 month old, let alone big kids? I will stop now, i am in the wrong forum with my ramblings.

well, at least they feel remorse. i guess the only think left they can do to atone for the sins and prove their remorse is kill themselves- i'm sure that would make a lot of people happy. doesn't it mean anything to anyone that these women don't just go around ramdomly preying on and abusing children? they were by all accounts good mothers before these crimes, loving and caring (not neglecting or beating them) until they started going psychotic and snapped. it's not like they killed the kids for the insurance money, or out of revenge becaue their boyfriend or husband was mean to them, or because they didn't make the cheerleading team.
they were found to be insane by a court of law, and therefore sentenced to a hospital instead of jail.. because obviously they were very sick. is there anyone here who disagrees that they were very sick? esp. in andrea's case, she had a long DOCUMENTED history of serious mental problems. it's not like she just woke up one day and decided "oh, i think i'll become mentally ill today so i can kill my kids in cold blood and get away with it."

the question is, does remorse (or lack of remorse) help prove someone was mentally ill when they committed a crime? lack of it would probably mean sociopathic tendencies (and being a sociopath doesn't ncessarily mean you're a 'raving lunatic', usually these people act quite sane and normal).. or else they were so crazy they didn't even know or care they murdered their kids.
yet if they show remorse, that might lead people to believe they are more sane than insane.
people angrily accuse them of sanity because they called 911. would you rather they had NOT called 911? would it fit everyone's definition of insanity if they had taken the childrens' bodies and hid them somewhere, and made up a lie about it? that seems far more sociopathic to me than psychotic.
a person can completely lose their mind and still know to call 911, through the haze of their psychosis.

i don't know what the answer is.. but i do know that whatever was done with them, people are going to argue "they should be put to death" "no, they should be made to live and suffer"... so no matter what happens, people will never be satisfied.

you prove a good point but I feel like there was def. a double standard here, if Rusty had drowned the kids he would be sitting om death row, mentally ill or not.

Both of these women need to be shoved off a cliff

2sisters-- hhmm... interesting point, do you think? i wonder if that's true. i think previously-loving fathers who kill their children and have a recorded history of obvious psychosis with delusions and hallucinations- they probably are deemed insane also & sent to a hospital. but for some reason, dads who go nuts & kill their kids usually kill themselves also (and their wives). gotta love that testosterone.

question-- did either of these women have court-ordered sterilization.. and if not,, why not? is there even such a thing anymore? if not, when did it become illegal and why?

reb said:

2sisters-- hhmm... interesting point, do you think? i wonder if that's true. i think previously-loving fathers who kill their children and have a recorded history of obvious psychosis with delusions and hallucinations- they probably are deemed insane also & sent to a hospital. but for some reason, dads who go nuts & kill their kids usually kill themselves also (and their wives

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In some cases, yes. but you have to admit there is a double standard though when a man commits this kind of crime. In some of the caseslike that people rarealy say ' well, he was a little touched in the head, lets get him out of jail" most, myself included are ready to burn him at the stake.I recall the Riley Fox case where most of us thought Kevin killed his child, nobody questions whether he was depressed or psychotic jsut that he was a horrible monster. It really doesn't matter b/c Andrea yates, whenther she is in jail or not will be punished until the day she dies. Nobody is going to let her live comfortably, even if she is released one day.

Peter Hamilton said:

Both of these women need to be shoved off a cliff

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I agree , here they are able to form friendships and their children never will be able to.:furious: :furious: :furious: :banghead:

They are both not guilty by reason of insanity. If any of you think that spending what will most likely be the rest of their lives in a state run mental hospital is a picnic, you've seriously got another thing coming. Most people have said they'd rather be on death row. BOTH of their husbands KNEW that they were loosing their minds and BOTH of their husbands left them alone with small children. If you read about Schlosser, you'll learn that more than a few times, he begged mental hospital staff to release her and PROMISED that with his help and the help of their extended family, he would MAKE SURE that she took her meds and attended her counselling. Even as his lips were moving, he knew that it was a lie because their church did not believe in any of it. He simply wanted her at home, mentally deranged or not. Yates wasn't much better. The only thing that prevented those children from being murdered much sooner than they were was his mother being there some of the time. Unless and until society stops BLAMING those who are mentally ill and starts accepting the fact that a great many people need psychiatric help for whatever reason and removes the stigma from them, more children will die needlessly.

Jeana (DP) said:

They are both not guilty by reason of insanity. If any of you think that spending what will most likely be the rest of their lives in a state run mental hospital is a picnic, you've seriously got another thing coming. Most people have said they'd rather be on death row. BOTH of their husbands KNEW that they were loosing their minds and BOTH of their husbands left them alone with small children. If you read about Schlosser, you'll learn that more than a few times, he begged mental hospital staff to release her and PROMISED that with his help and the help of their extended family, he would MAKE SURE that she took her meds and attended her counselling. Even as his lips were moving, he knew that it was a lie because their church did not believe in any of it. He simply wanted her at home, mentally deranged or not. Yates wasn't much better. The only thing that prevented those children from being murdered much sooner than they were was his mother being there some of the time. Unless and until society stops BLAMING those who are mentally ill and starts accepting the fact that a great many people need psychiatric help for whatever reason and removes the stigma from them, more children will die needlessly.

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I agree with you. There is a difference. Those two women were mentally SICK, not evil. IMO. Now Susan Smith is an EVIL beyotch and I'd push her a$$ off a cliff myself.

SadieMae said:

I agree with you. There is a difference. Those two women were mentally SICK, not evil. IMO. Now Susan Smith is an EVIL beyotch and I'd push her a$$ off a cliff myself.

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I couldn't agree with you more~!!

Jeana (DP) said:

They are both not guilty by reason of insanity. If any of you think that spending what will most likely be the rest of their lives in a state run mental hospital is a picnic, you've seriously got another thing coming. Most people have said they'd rather be on death row. BOTH of their husbands KNEW that they were loosing their minds and BOTH of their husbands left them alone with small children. If you read about Schlosser, you'll learn that more than a few times, he begged mental hospital staff to release her and PROMISED that with his help and the help of their extended family, he would MAKE SURE that she took her meds and attended her counselling. Even as his lips were moving, he knew that it was a lie because their church did not believe in any of it. He simply wanted her at home, mentally deranged or not. Yates wasn't much better. The only thing that prevented those children from being murdered much sooner than they were was his mother being there some of the time. Unless and until society stops BLAMING those who are mentally ill and starts accepting the fact that a great many people need psychiatric help for whatever reason and removes the stigma from them, more children will die needlessly.

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This should be repeated, and thank you for your post Jeana.

Gozgals

Gozgals said:

This should be repeated, and thank you for your post Jeana.

Gozgals

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Welcome darlin!

Peter Hamilton said:

Both of these women need to be shoved off a cliff

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I'm with you.

Who cares whether they were mentally ill, they KILLED their children, that's the bottom line.

I'm all for removing the stigma of mental illness, but giving these women a pass is wrong wrong wrong.

Chopping your kids arms off and or drowning them is evil, whichever way you look at it.

narlacat said:

I'm with you.

Who cares whether they were mentally ill, they KILLED their children, that's the bottom line.

I'm all for removing the stigma of mental illness, but giving these women a pass is wrong wrong wrong.

Chopping your kids arms off and or drowning them is evil, whichever way you look at it.

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No you're not. You're not at all for removing the stigma of mental illness if you think pushing them off of a cliff is the proper course of treatment. Where do you get the idea that spending your life in a state run mental institution is a "pass"??? When a person becomes mentally unstable, they are NO LONGER in control of their actions. So, how can we execute them them for someting they had absolutely no control over? Its like punishing a baby for crapping in his pants. If we're not willing to accept that this is what mental illness is, how can we "remove the stigma"??

...that clear cut....My Dad, who is a mental health professional who has been an expert witness many times in criminal cases involving sanity determinations, has said over and over again that very few people meet the legal definitions of insanity. Most harcore violent criminals are mentally ill to some extent as evidenced by the nature of what they are doing....at the very least they have violent tendencies and conduct disorders, but THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING....THEY KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG, and choose wrong.

My Dad has said that about the only people he has encountered who meet the legal definitions of insanity would be hardcore schizophrenics, paranoid schizophrenics for example.

Andrea Yates is an interesting case because I don't know if all of her religious is a cover for her extreme anger at her situation and her husband's control, or if she is in the paranoid schiz. category...

If you had mental health folks go into any prison tomorrow and evaluate the inmates there, nearly 100% would have some type of Dx. So the quesiton becomes, which mentally ill folks are not aware of the difference between right and wrong...The folks who are truly so mentally ill as to fall within the legal definition and who are that out of touch with reality are probably less than half a percent of all people coming through the criminal justice system...

Edited to add that the vast majority of people with mental illness commit no violent crimes, whatsoever...

Jeana (DP) said:

They are both not guilty by reason of insanity. If any of you think that spending what will most likely be the rest of their lives in a state run mental hospital is a picnic, you've seriously got another thing coming. Most people have said they'd rather be on death row. BOTH of their husbands KNEW that they were loosing their minds and BOTH of their husbands left them alone with small children. If you read about Schlosser, you'll learn that more than a few times, he begged mental hospital staff to release her and PROMISED that with his help and the help of their extended family, he would MAKE SURE that she took her meds and attended her counselling. Even as his lips were moving, he knew that it was a lie because their church did not believe in any of it. He simply wanted her at home, mentally deranged or not. Yates wasn't much better. The only thing that prevented those children from being murdered much sooner than they were was his mother being there some of the time. Unless and until society stops BLAMING those who are mentally ill and starts accepting the fact that a great many people need psychiatric help for whatever reason and removes the stigma from them, more children will die needlessly.

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You make a VERY good point, Jeana . the husbands should have done more. and you are right that a state run mental facility is no picnic. plus the fact they have to live with what they did.

Jeana (DP) said:

No you're not. You're not at all for removing the stigma of mental illness if you think pushing them off of a cliff is the proper course of treatment. Where do you get the idea that spending your life in a state run mental institution is a "pass"??? When a person becomes mentally unstable, they are NO LONGER in control of their actions. So, how can we execute them them for someting they had absolutely no control over? Its like punishing a baby for crapping in his pants. If we're not willing to accept that this is what mental illness is, how can we "remove the stigma"??

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Don't tell me what I am or what I'm not Jeana.
I happen to have quite a few friends that suffer from mental illness and like I said I am all for removing the stigma.

These women might have got off on reasons of insanity, but were they really insane?
You and I might say yes, you'd have to be to do that....but we also know that is not always the case.
It's alot easier for these women to plead insanity than it is to face the reality of their actions.
They are alot safer in a mental institution than they are in jail and they know it.

....Jeana, in Wisconsin, where I am very familiar with the State mental health institute and the prisons (not becuase I was an inmate, but because I was a state employee, LOL!), given the choice, a mna, for sure would much rather be in the mental health institute any day. They even have an entire self-contained educaitonal system in there, where you can take classes, etc. etc.

Now for women in WI, the prison is actually more like a college dormitory, so it might be a toss-up, except that the MHI is far safer. However in other areas, yeah, you bet women would choose the MHI over prison, any day...