Southwest
Killer mom Andrea Yates speaks with ex-husband about murdered children on regular basis: report
Rusty Yates, whose ex-wife Andrea Yates drowned their five children one by one in 2001, has reportedly forgiven the notorious killer mom and even speaks with her on a monthly basis.
Yates, 59, regularly calls Kerrville State Hospital in Texas – a facility for criminals who are deemed incompetent to stand trial or found “not guilty by reason of insanity” – to speak to his 60-year-old ex-wife, who was deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial, the New York Post reported.
According to the newspaper, the former couple talks about their slain children – Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and Mary, 6 months. Were it not for their mother’s actions, all five would be adults now.
Rusty Yates could not be reached for comment.
MASSACHUSETTS CLANCY KILLINGS: MOTHERS’ MURDERS ‘UNLIKE ANY OTHER TYPE OF HOMICIDE,’ ANDREA YATES’ LAWYER SAYS
This undated family photo shows four of the five children of Andrea Yates, 36, who confessed on June 20, 2001, to murdering her children by drowning them in their home in Clear Lake, a suburb of south Houston, Texas. The children shown are, from left, John, Luke, Paul and Noah. (Yates Family/Getty Images)
Rusty Yates divorced Andrea Yates in March 2005, three years after she was sentenced to life in prison on two murder convictions for drowning her children in a bathtub in the Houston neighborhood of Clear Lake.
An appeals court later overturned those convictions based on mistaken testimony by a psychiatrist – she was found not guilty by reason of insanity at her 2006 retrial.
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Rusty Yates had another child, but that marriage also ended in divorce. He is still employed as a NASA engineer – the job he held when his then-wife chased their children down and drowned them systematically.
“Andrea was a wonderful mother,” he told NewsNation in an interview last year. “When someone acts so out of character like that, it’s a flag that something else is going on. As far as forgiveness goes, it’s kind of a start.”
ANDREA YATES: A TROUBLED HISTORY
Rusty Yates photographed on Jan. 5, 2002 in Houston, Texas, before his divorce from Andrea Yates. (Pam Francis/Getty Images)
“If I were driving our Suburban down the street and had a heart attack and swerved into oncoming traffic and everyone in the car died but me, would they prosecute me for capital murder and rub my face in crime scene photos? Of my children?” he rhetorically asked in the interview. “I don’t think so. But to me, it’s 100% exactly the same.”
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Andrea Yates attempted suicide at least four times before taking her children’s lives. After the birth of her fourth child in June 1999, she tried to overdose on pills, then held a knife up to her neck and begged her then-husband to let her die shortly after her hospital release.
After attempting suicide two more times that summer, she was diagnosed with post-partum psychosis.
Her first psychiatrist, Dr. Eileen Starbranch, testified in court that she urged Andrea and Rusty to stop having children – regardless, they conceived their fifth and final child seven weeks after that discharge, Fox News previously reported.
ANDREA YATES CRIES IN COURT AFTER SEEING VIDEO OF DEAD CHILDREN
This undated family photo shows Mary, the youngest of the five children of Andrea Yates. (Phillippe Diederich/Getty Images)
Rusty Yates was also advised not to leave the children alone with his wife.
Andrea Yates’ family also previously told Fox News that Rusty didn’t do enough to help his spouse or their children. Her mother, Karin Kennedy, said her son-in-law told her after the birth of their fourth child that he had never changed a diaper.
“When they came to my house, that was the first time I told Rusty, ‘Luke needs changing,’” Kennedy said. “He says, ‘Well that’d be a first. I have never changed a diaper before.’”
After the children’s murders on June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates would tell her prison psychologist that she had considered killing her children in a delusional bid to save them from eternal damnation.
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Andrea Yates sits with her attorney, George Parnham, after the not guilty by reason of insanity verdict was read in her retrial on July 26, 2006, in Houston. (Brett Coomer-Pool/Getty Images)
“My children weren’t righteous,” she told her prison psychiatrist, according to court documents obtained by The Post. “They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell.”
Last month, Yates declined a hearing that would have determined whether she was competent to be released from the mental hospital, the New York Post reported. She is eligible to undergo a review for release each year, but has repeatedly declined.
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A 23-year-old man from Long Beach is in custody following a deadly hit-and-run crash in Riverside County Saturday.
The crash happened around 8:09 a.m. near the intersection of Dinah Shore Drive and George Montgomery Way in the city of Rancho Mirage, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
Deputies responded and found one of the involved drivers, 57-year-old Teresa Bowlin of Cathedral City, dead at the scene. The other driver, Tyler Conant of Long Beach, ran from the scene of the crash, according to the sheriff’s department.
“During the investigation, it was determined that Conant was under the influence of alcohol [at the time of the crash],” the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said.
Conant was arrested and booked into the John Benoit Detention Center for murder and felony hit-and-run.
The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information about the crash is asked to contact Deputy Bret Meservey at (760) 836-1600.
Long Beach will hold a pride festival this weekend after the one they originally had scheduled was canceled.
Long Beach city officials said the celebration was nixed after the nonprofit that organizes it, Long Beach Pride, failed to submit the required information for an event permit.
It was supposed to start on Friday and last through Sunday.
“Despite continued collaboration and multiple deadline notices, the City did not receive the required documentation needed to complete safety reviews, inspect critical event infrastructure, such as the stage, electrical systems and tent, and emergency exiting plans to ensure compliance with public safety standards,” the city of Long Beach said in a statement. “With event programming scheduled to begin on May 15 at 5 p.m. with Teen Pride and essential information still outstanding, there is no longer sufficient time to safely permit the festival this year.”
Officials noted that they were working to see if a “shortened event” could be held this weekend, and indeed, an agreement was reached to stage a one-day gathering on Sunday.
Billed as “Canceled? Never Heard of Her!” and emceed by comedian and drag queen Jewels, it will still bring the city’s LGBTQ community together after Sunday morning’s Long Beach Pride Parade, which was not canceled.
“Long Beach Pride weekend is a culmination of celebrations put on by our community, including our many vibrant restaurants, bars and businesses, and that will never change,” Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said in a press release issued late Saturday night. “Along with the Pride Parade, we are proud to join the party with this new event that reaffirms what this City has always stood for: that every person belongs here.”
“The festival may have been canceled, but Long Beach drag artists don’t cancel joy,” added Jewels Long Beach.
The one-day “Canceled? Never Heard of Her!” festival will take place at Bixby Park from noon to 7 p.m. Sunday. A free event, it will include music by several performers and a drag show.
More information can be found here.
Los Angeles, Ca
L.A. Jewish institution among targets of foiled terrorist attack, U.S. officials say
A Jewish institution in Los Angeles was among the locations targeted in a recently foiled terrorism plot, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton announced this week.
The thwarted terrorist attacks were the result of the recent arrest of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, an Iraqi national and senior member of Kata’ib Hizballah, U.S. officials said.
“Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, a commander for the terrorist organization, Kata’ib Hizballah, faces serious charges for his role in numerous attacks against U.S. interests across the globe, including his efforts to kill on U.S. soil,” Clayton said. “As alleged, for years, Al-Saadi committed himself to furthering the terrorist goals of Kata’ib Hizballah and the IRGC, two terrorist organizations dedicated to harming the United States and its allies.”
Al-Saadi recently attempted to carry out attacks in the U.S., officials said, including attacks at Jewish cultural places of interest in New York, Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Ariz.
“Al-Saadi attempted to disrupt American society through intimidation and violence,” a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office reads. “… Those who engage in or support terrorism against Americans and on U.S. soil should take note: the whole of the federal government is committed to dismantling terrorist organizations and bringing their members to justice.”
In a three-month period, Al-Saadi allegedly directed 18 terrorist attacks throughout Europe, including bombings, arson, and assaults targeting American citizens and points of interest. Prior to his arrest, national security officials say he was planning similar attacks on U.S. soil. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said that Al-Saadi “presented a serious threat to our national security.”
The European attacks included the bombing of the Bank of New York Mellon, an American bank, in Amsterdam on March 15. On April 29, two Jewish men, one of whom was a dual U.S.-British citizen, were stabbed and seriously injured in London.
In 2020, Al-Saadi took to social media, calling for others to attack and kill Americans in retribution for the deaths of Iranian military officer Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi military commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, U.S. officials said. In more recent months, Al-Saadi allegedly used social media to encourage the killing of Americans and Jews to further the terrorist goals of Kata’ib Hizballah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“In or about February 2026, for example, AL-SAADI posted on one of his social media accounts a message in Arabic, which read in part, ‘Do not abandon the blood of your Imam of the time, oh Shiites of Iraq. Kill everyone who supports America and Israel. Do not leave any of them remaining. Civil and military targets, as well as voices of discord, kill them everywhere.’” U.S. officials said.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch confirmed that one of the U.S. targets was a Manhattan synagogue. On April 3, Al-Saadi allegedly spoke to an undercover law enforcement officer whom Al-Saadi believed could carry out attacks in the U.S. That same day, Al-Saadi allegedly texted the undercover officers photographs and maps showing the exact location of a prominent Jewish synagogue in New York City.
Officials have not said what specific locations in L.A. and Arizona were targeted by the terrorist group.
Al-Saadi now faces numerous charges for these crimes in U.S. court. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
The case is under investigation by the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is comprised of investigators and analysts from the FBI, the NYPD, the FBI Washington Field Office, Counterterrorism Division, and more than 50 other federal, state, and local agencies. Investigators also received help from the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section, the Office of International Affairs of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
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