This case still breaks my heart.
Twenty years after their killings, attorney George Parnham still dutifully visits the graves of Andrea Yates’ five children.
He regularly drives to Clear Lake to leave flowers for Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2 and Mary, 6 months. He makes sure the grass over their graves is cut. He still weeps when he talks about them.
“I haven’t had a case in my entire career that has impacted my life as much as this case has,” said Parnham. “It’s something about the kids.”
During Yates’ 2002 trial, which drew international attention, many couldn’t fathom how a 36-year-old mother could drown her own children in a bathtub. The definitions of postpartum depression and psychosis were not yet commonly known. In order to defend Yates, Parnham had to educate the public about mental illness.
“When a person is suffering from mental illness and is in a psychotic state, they make decisions based on their own reality,” he said. “They don’t have a decision-making process based on rational thinking.”
The case brought mental health awareness, and postpartum mental illness in particular, into public awareness. Since it happened, more therapists, psychiatrists and medical professionals have dedicated their careers to helping women struggling after giving birth. More resources and interventions have also become available.
“Over the years, we’ve seen more and more women speak up and ask for help,” said Dr. Sherry Duson, a licensed therapist and counselor who founded the Center for Postpartum Family Health in Houston . “And there’s a greater understanding among OB-GYN pediatricians that perinatal mental illness is common and treatable and needs to be addressed.”
You should read the rest. It’s still painful to consider all the ways that Andrea Yates was failed by everyone around her, but at least we are more cognizant of mental illnesses, in particular postpartum depression and psychosis, than we were before. And God bless George Parnham for all the work he did on this case, and for his commitment to Andrea Yates and her children after all this time. May we never see another case like this again.
I worked with George Parnham (and a lot of other lawyers) on a case almost 20 years ago when I was a young associate. I was impressed by his care and concern for his clients. The story of his visiting the children’s graves is just what I would have expected of him.