Where Is Andrea Yates Now? Inside Her Life 25 Years After She Drowned Her 5 Children

Andrea Yates killed her young children — Noah, John, Paul, Luke and Mary — in June 2001

Andrea Yates ; Four of Andrea Yates’ five children. Credit :Phillippe Diederich/Getty ; Phillippe Diederich/Getty

It’s been almost 25 years since Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub at her family’s home in a Houston suburb.

The Texas mom had a long history of postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis and was taken off a powerful antipsychotic weeks before the killings. After she drowned Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and Mary, a 6-month-old infant, she positioned their bodies in a bed like they were asleep and told police she had killed her children.

Initially, Andrea was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 40 years. But her lawyer, George Parnham, successfully appealed the 2002 verdict, and she was found not guilty by reason of insanity at her retrial four years later.

“She just loved those children,” the defense attorney told PEOPLE in March 2025. “And she, in her psychotic state, believed she was saving their lives, saving their souls.”

Andrea has resided in a mental health facility in Texas since 2007. Though she has an annual review that could allow her release, she waives her right to it, opting to continue treatment instead.

Her case became a media sensation overnight, as the tragedy sparked widespread debate about postpartum mental illness and questions about what — and who — may have influenced her. More than two decades later, many of those questions remain unresolved, and a 2026 Investigation Discovery docuseries revisited the case in search of answers.

The Cult Behind The Killer: The Andrea Yates Story premiered on HBO Max on Jan. 6 and explored the theory that the mother of five had been manipulated by the religious teachings of an alleged local cult leader named Michael Woroniecki, per The Hollywood Reporter.

So where is Andrea Yates now? Here’s everything to know about her life nearly 25 years after she drowned her five children.

Andrea had a history of severe postpartum depression and psychosis 

Andrea Yates on March 21, 2002.Texas Department of Criminal Justice/Getty

For years, Andrea had struggled with her mental health. The Texas Tribune reported that she was previously hospitalized and had attempted suicide. Witnesses also claimed that they saw the mom of five walking in circles while at home.

Longtime friend Marlene Wark told PEOPLE that Andrea was “very happy, very strong” after the birth of her first child, Noah. However, her husband, Rusty Yates, later said she suffered from severe depression after welcoming her fourth, Luke.

She attempted suicide in 1999, months after he was born, and was later prescribed antidepressants and an antipsychotic medication called Haldol. According to her lawyer, her mental illness worsened after she came off the drug.

She drowned her five children in 2001

Andrea Yates with her husband and children.Courtesy of Yates Family/Getty

On June 20, 2001, police responded to a 911 call from a home in Clear Lake, Texas, a suburb outside of Houston. When officers arrived, they found Andrea standing outside the house wearing a wet shirt.

She reportedly confessed: “I just killed my children.”

Andrea later detailed the killings to the police, telling them she drowned Luke, Paul, John and Mary one by one. Her eldest son, Noah, ran after he saw Mary’s lifeless body, but his mother wrestled him into the tub too.

She placed her four youngest on her bed and covered them with a sheet before she repeatedly called 911. Andrea reportedly told doctors after her arrest that she believed the only way to save her children from Satan was to kill them, per The Texas Tribune.

Andrea was initially found guilty and sentenced to life in prison 

Andrea Yates speaks to a psychiatrist on July 27, 2001 in Houston, Texas.CNN via Getty

In March 2002, Andrea was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years. TIME reported that the jury rejected her insanity plea because the defense couldn’t prove that she was unable to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the crime.

During the trial, expert witnesses recounted what Andrea had told them about why she decided to end her children’s lives.

“It was the seventh deadly sin,” she reportedly told jail psychiatrist Melissa Ferguson, who testified. “My children weren’t righteous. 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.”

In 2005, her conviction was reversed 

George Parnham and Andrea Yates at her 2006 retrial.BRETT COOMER/AFP via Getty

Three years after her first trial, Andrea’s capital murder conviction was reversed after one of the prosecution’s key witnesses admitted that he had made an error on the stand.

California psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz originally testified about a Law & Order episode that bore similarities to Andrea’s case. The prosecution claimed that she frequently watched the show and could have copied the idea to kill her children. However, Dr. Dietz later learned that the episode of the NBC crime drama in question never existed.

“Shocked at the possibility of having made a factual error, even one unrelated to Mrs. Yates,” he said in a 2005 statement, per CNN, “I immediately researched the issue, with help from the writers and producers of ‘Law & Order,’ and within hours determined that my recollection was probably incorrect.”

Andrea was found not guilty by reason of insanity 

Andrea Yates during closing arguments in her retrial on July 24, 2006 in Houston, Texas.Brett Coomer-Pool/Getty

In July 2006, Andrea was found not guilty by reason of insanity. The jury had concluded that she suffered from postpartum psychosis, a rare disorder that can cause delusions and hallucinations, per The Texas Tribune.

“The jury looked past what happened and looked at why it happened,” Rusty told reporters outside the courthouse, per The Houston Chronicle. “Prosecutors had the truth of the first day and stopped there. Yes, she was psychotic. That’s the whole truth.”

After her retrial, Andrea was sent to North Texas State Hospital. According to The Houston Chronicle, it is a maximum-security campus in Vernon, Texas.

Where is Andrea Yates now?

Andrea Yates enters the courtroom to hear the verdict in her retrial on July 26, 2006 in Houston, Texas.Brett Coomer-Pool/Getty

Andrea has been remanded to Kerrville State Hospital, a mental facility in Kerrville, Texas, since 2007. Though she has an opportunity to review her condition for potential release every year, she has continued to waive that right as recently as 2022.

“She’s where she wants to be. Where she needs to be,” Parnham told ABC News in June 2021. “And I mean, hypothetically, where would she go? What would she do?”

Her defense attorney believes that she will likely spend the rest of her life at the low-security facility, where she watches old videos of her kids and makes aprons and cards that she anonymously sells to support the Yates Children Memorial Fund, which was founded by Parnham and his wife to support women’s mental health. The lawyer told PEOPLE in June 2016 that she was the only patient not allowed to leave the grounds.

Parnham shared on NBC News in September 2016 that Andrea is doing “remarkably well” and has not sought release. “She has excellent care,” he said. “The hospital where she is, there are no razor wires, there’s no bars, there’s no armed guards, no fences.”

Still, she “grieves” for the loss of her five children, and her attorney said, “There’s not a day that goes by where she doesn’t care for, talk about, is happy about her children’s lives before June 20 and grieves for her children.”