American Murder Houses

by Steve Lehto

  The house where Ridgway lived when he killed most of his victims and, according to his own statements, where he committed many of the murders is still standing on 32nd Place in SeaTac. Before she moved out of it, Judith told of how the house became a focal point of rage; people would come by and vandalize it, presumably because they couldn’t get to Ridgway and harm him instead. The house is small, at 1,150 square feet, and was built in about 1970. It has three bedrooms and one bath and is on a fairly small lot. The last time it changed hands was in 1999 when it sold for a little over $112,000. It is privately owned.

  *Matthew Preusch, “Washington: Seeking Death Sentence in Killings,” New York Times, April 16, 2002.

  Postpartum Depression on Trial

  ANDREA YATES

  2001

  942 Beachcomber Lane

  Houston, Texas 77062

  On June 20, 2001, Russell Yates went to his job at NASA, believing that his mother would arrive soon at his house to help his wife, Andrea, with the five Yates children. The youngest was six months old and Andrea had recently been having trouble coping with the children. Worse, she had been suffering from mental illness and had recently gone off her medication. Russell’s mother did not arrive in time. Andrea filled the bathtub with water and drowned her children in it, one at a time. She started with the youngest. After she drowned each child, she would place the child’s body in her bed. When she had finished drowning the last child, she phoned the police and said, “I just killed my kids.” It was 9:48 A.M. She then called her husband and kept saying, “It’s time, it’s time,” over and over again to him. Russell didn’t understand what she was trying to tell him and asked her if someone was hurt. She told him that the kids were hurt. He asked her which of the children, and she replied, “All of them.”

  Russell raced the three miles home and found his house surrounded by police cars and ambulances. The police wouldn’t let him into the house, but he quickly figured out what had happened. He sat on the front lawn and tried to process it. Moments earlier, the police had arrived and had been met by a calm Andrea. Her hair and clothing were wet and she casually told them that she had killed her children. She told them that there were four in her bed and another was still in the bathtub. Detectives had never seen anything like it—five dead children and their mother nonchalantly telling them how she had just killed them all. When they asked her why, she said, “Because I’m a bad mother.” It was one of the most troubling murder cases in recent history. The story of the murders made national headlines, and the trials that followed brought postpartum mental illness into the national conversation as well.

  Andrea Kennedy was born in Houston in 1964 and by all standards was a very bright person. She was a good student, graduating from high school as valedictorian, and she studied nursing at both the University of Houston and the University of Texas. In 1986, she began working as a nurse, and three years later she met Russell Yates. Yates was an engineer who would eventually work at NASA. They married in 1993 and over the next few years they had five children: four sons and one daughter. In 2001, they ranged in age from six months to seven years old.

  Before meeting Andrea, Russell had befriended a street preacher named Michael Peter Woroniecki he had met at Auburn University. Woroniecki was eccentric: He began his ministry standing on street corners in Grand Rapids, Michigan, preaching the Gospel with a bullhorn. The people of Grand Rapids found his loud public sermons obnoxious, and he was arrested several times as a result. He reportedly struck a deal with local authorities after his last arrest there: He promised to leave town and preach elsewhere if the charges against him were dropped.

  Woroniecki set out to spread the Gospel around the world. He drove across Europe in a van and exhorted listeners at every stop to follow Jesus. He often stationed himself in large cities and capitals, preaching fire and brimstone. He spent a lot of time in the United States too. He claimed to have preached God’s word in all fifty states and was often seen at sporting events or places where large numbers of people congregated, such as the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. When Russell first met Woroniecki, he had gotten some religious literature from the preacher and began corresponding with him about the Bible. Russell had even begun emulating some aspects of the preacher’s itinerant lifestyle. When he and Andrea had been married a couple of years, Russell insisted that the young couple should live simply, and they moved into a recreational vehicle in a trailer park rather than a house.

  Russell introduced his wife to the preacher, and she seemed to like his message as well. In 1998, Andrea and Russell went to Miami to visit with Woroniecki. On that trip, they bought the motorhome the preacher had been using in his travels, a 1978 GMC bus that had been converted into an RV. Russell and Andrea returned to Texas with the vehicle and used it to replace the recreational vehicle in which they had been living. Andrea would soon appear to be as influenced by Woroniecki’s philosophies as her husband had been.

  In 1999, after their fourth child was born, Andrea began hallucinating and hearing voices when no one else was around. She attempted suicide, taking an overdose of antidepressants that had been prescribed to her father. She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and spent almost a week there before being released. She then began regularly seeing a psychiatrist. Less than a month later, Russell found Andrea in the bathroom, holding a knife to her neck. She was admitted to a hospital again. There, she told a doctor she had been having visions and hearing voices ever since the birth of her fourth child, Luke. Her psychiatrist would later say that Andrea was one of the “five sickest” patients she had ever treated and said that much of her illness was caused by postpartum issues. Her psychiatrist warned her—and Russell—that Andrea should not have any more children because of the high risk of a postpartum psychotic episode. It was advice the couple would ignore.

  While Andrea was in the hospital, Russell decided it was time for them to move from the bus into a real home. He bought a house on Beachcomber Lane in Houston. Meanwhile, Russell was working for NASA at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston. Their new home was only three miles from where he worked, giving him just a five-minute commute. In November 2000, Andrea gave birth to Mary, their fifth child. Shortly before she became pregnant, Andrea had stopped taking her medication.

  Andrea’s mental illness grew worse. She continued suffering from postpartum depression and psychosis. She was hospitalized again in March 2001 but was discharged after two weeks when Russell and Andrea asked for her to be released. Andrea’s doctor specifically warned Russell to not leave her alone with their children. One of the problems, however, was that the couple had decided to homeschool their five children. The children were home all day long with Andrea while Russell worked. And people would later note that Andrea appeared to be overwhelmed by her household and teaching responsibilities. As a result, what few visitors they had often observed that the house was a mess and that Andrea was struggling with even the most basic chores.

  Because of the perceived dangers in leaving Andrea home alone with the children, Russell arranged for his mother to come to Houston and help Andrea. Russell’s mother did not live with them in the house but stayed at a hotel nearby. She would come over after Russell left for work and then return to her hotel in the evening. While helping Andrea around the house she witnessed Andrea’s odd behavior. Andrea was often silent and nonresponsive to her mother-in-law. She didn’t eat and she would scratch at her head until she had bald spots. Sometimes, she would stare into space and go silent, or just talk to herself. Once, she filled the bathtub with water and then simply left it standing. When her mother-in-law asked her why she had done that, Andrea said she had filled the tub “in case I need it,” without any further explanation. At the time it seemed odd but not terribly frightening.

  Russell had Andrea readmitted to the psychiatric hospital when it became apparent that her mental state was not getting better. This time, she was prescribed Haldol—an antipsychotic drug sometimes used to treat schizophrenia—and he
r doctors even recommended electroconvulsive (sometimes called electroshock) therapy. She agreed to take the drugs but declined the therapy. After ten days, she was sent home again. Russell’s mother noticed a slight improvement in Andrea, but she still seemed distant and emotionless. After a visit to her doctor at which she claimed she was not feeling suicidal and denied having psychotic thoughts, her medication was reduced. This visit was on June 18, 2001. She killed all of her children on the twentieth.

  ^ ^ ^

  Andrea Yates was charged with three counts of murder; the prosecutors decided to “save” the two other murder charges so they could retry her if she somehow was found not guilty for these three murders. It became much more complicated than anyone would have expected for a case where the defendant admitted she had killed her children. Her attorneys argued that she was obviously insane. They said Yates suffered from postpartum depression, which resulted in a mental state whereby she did not know right from wrong. Meanwhile, the prosecution felt they had a good chance of proving that she had known what she was doing when she drowned her children. Yates had admitted to waiting for her husband to leave for work before she acted. She had locked up the dog, which normally had the run of the house. And while she had been treated for a variety of depressive-type illnesses, she had been discharged from the hospital. Her doctor had even discontinued her medication, apparently in the belief that she was healthy.

  The prosecution pointed out that Yates had even explained why she had killed her children. “My children were not righteous,” she had told them. “I let them stumble. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell.” Some people wondered if Andrea’s religious statements indicated an unnatural fascination with the teachings of Woroniecki, the fire-and-brimstone street preacher. If so, the actions might have had nothing to do with mental illness but more to do with religious zealotry.

  Regarding the insanity defense, Texas followed the rule used in many states: The defendant had to be incapable of telling right from wrong at the time of the killings to not be held accountable for them. To the surprise of many observers, Russell decided to support and defend his wife, the woman who admitted drowning their five children. He held a press conference and showed reporters a family portrait from happier times. He explained his belief that Andrea was mentally ill and not responsible for what she had done. “She wasn’t in the right frame of mind,” he said.

  The first problem the defense attorneys ran into was Andrea. She would not cooperate with her own attorneys. She told one that she did not want to plead not guilty. The attorneys wondered if she was competent to stand trial when she told them that Satan was talking to her in her jail cell. The attorneys asked the court to hold a hearing on whether Andrea was even fit for trial. The competency exam was set to begin on September 11, 2001. When news of the 9/11 attacks reached the courthouse, the hearing was postponed. Eventually, the hearing was reconvened and the court listened to expert testimony and concluded that Andrea was competent to stand trial for murder regardless of whose voice she heard talking to her when she was alone in her cell.

  At her trial, both sides presented expert testimony, and by the time it was over, ten psychiatrists and two psychologists had testified. One of them was an overzealous expert for the prosecution who would undo their case, but not before he had created some drama on the witness stand. Dr. Park Dietz testified that not only did Yates know what she was doing at the time of the killings, she had seen a television show with a similar theme and then had simply mimicked the episode in an apparently effort to play insane. Dietz said Yates had acted out an episode of the television show Law & Order. It seemed to make sense that Dietz would know; he had been a consultant for the show. That episode, according to Dietz, involved a woman who had drowned her children and then escaped liability by pleading insanity. He testified, under oath:

  As a matter of fact, there was a show of a woman with postpartum depression who drowned her children in the bathtub and was found insane and it was aired shortly before the crime occurred.

  The prosecutor found witnesses who confirmed that Andrea did, indeed, watch Law & Order.

  The prosecution team argued the Law & Order angle as well. The prosecutor cross-examined one of Andrea’s experts by asking:

  Did you know that in the weeks before June 20, there was a Law & Order episode where a woman killed her children by drowning them in a bathtub, was defended on the basis of whether she was sane or insane under the law, and the diagnosis was postpartum depression and in the program the person was found insane, not guilty by reason of insanity? Did you know that?

  The defense expert witness was caught unaware and admitted that he did not know about the episode. In the closing argument the prosecutor said, “These thoughts came to her, and she watches Law & Order regularly, she sees this program. There is a way out. She tells that to Dr. Dietz. A way out.” The jury found Yates guilty after three and a half hours of deliberation. At the time of the trial and the verdict, many media reports recounted the tale of how Yates had mimicked actions she had seen on TV, believing it to be a good way to fake insanity.

  A writer covering the trial for Oprah magazine had previously worked on the show Law & Order and didn’t recall any episode of the show that mirrored the case of Andrea Yates. Word was passed to the defense and it was confirmed: There was no such episode. Defense counsel met with the prosecutors and noted that the key prosecution witness had testified falsely. He had also been the only witness who claimed that Andrea knew right from wrong when she killed her children. His testimony had clearly been vital to the prosecution’s case. And now, it was apparent that it was deeply flawed. The prosecution argued that the matter of the false testimony wasn’t all that important. Yates’s attorneys argued to the trial court that this was grounds for a new trial, but the trial court denied the request. The court did not think the false testimony had been enough to influence the verdict. The judge did, however, tell the jury of Dietz’s false testimony so they could take it into account during the punishment phase they were then asked to rule on. The same jury that found her guilty was then asked if Andrea was a continuing threat to society. If she was, she could be sentenced to death. They deliberated on this issue for only forty minutes and apparently concluded she was not a continuing threat to society. Yates was sent to prison for life. She would be eligible for parole in forty years.

  Andrea’s attorneys went to the Texas Court of Appeals, complained about the false testimony of Dietz, and asked for a new trial. The appeals court noted that Dietz had been the only mental health expert who had argued that Andrea knew right from wrong when she killed her children. If his testimony was suspect, the entire case of the prosecution went out the window. And so it did. The Texas Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Yates.

  The second time around, in July 2006, Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity by a Texas jury. For his part, Park Dietz later claimed that his testimony regarding the nonexistent Law & Order episode was “an honest mistake” resulting from “human error.” It seemed odd to many court observers that a consultant for a television show would accidentally come to believe that an episode of that show so closely resembled the case he was working on, when no such show existed. How closely did he consult on the show? And where did the notion even come from in the first place?

  Russell Yates defended his wife at first, but eventually he filed for divorce. Later, he remarried. His second marriage took place just a few days before Andrea’s second murder trial began and was held in the same church where the funerals for the children had been held. Some people questioned the timing of the wedding, but Russell told the Associated Press that Andrea was aware of his plans and that he and Andrea wished each other well.

  Andrea is still in the custody of the state of Texas and is receiving treatment for mental illness. Her current attorney is working to see if she can be released back into society now that she has been treated for ten years. He believes she could gradually rejoin society and be fine. It
is just unclear when, or if, the state of Texas would be willing to allow that.

  Meanwhile, art imitates life. In 2004, a Law & Order episode titled “Magnificat” had a story line that appeared to be inspired by the Yates murders. In it, a severely depressed woman kills her children. However, this episode was shot well after Dietz had given the false testimony about the existence of such a show.

  The Yates home was built in 1968. It was placed on the market in 2004 while awaiting the ruling from the Court of Appeals after the first trial. It was on the market for six months, listed at $109,900. According to listings, it is 1,620 square feet with three beds and two baths and sits on an 11,389-square-foot lot. The home is privately owned.

  *Andrew Cohen, “10 Years Later, the Tragedy of Andrea Yates,” The Atlantic, March 11, 2012.

  Mob Hit in the Victorian Mansion

  THE KREISCHER MANSION

  2005

  4500 Arthur Kill Road

  Staten Island, New York 10309

  Robert McKelvey spent time with some shady characters on Staten Island. Some of them were reputedly involved in organized crime, and the police had their suspicions about McKelvey as well. His business associates may have had mob connections and were the sort of people no one liked to talk about. One day, McKelvey was invited by Joseph Young, one of his associates, to the Kreischer Mansion, a three-story Victorian house that sat on top of a hill on Staten Island. Young was reputed to be an enforcer for a local crime organization. At least, that was what many people in the neighborhood thought. Certainly McKelvey knew it. But he headed over to talk to Young. McKelvey owed money to some very powerful people, according to law enforcement officials, and had recently angered some of them by mouthing off to the wrong people. Unbeknownst to McKelvey, the people he owed money to had decided they wouldn’t mind writing the debt off—so long as McKelvey was dead.