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Officer says Yates led him to her dead children

Andrea Yates listens to Monday's opening arguments.

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Testimony is scheduled to resume Tuesday in the trial of a Texas woman charged in the drowning deaths of her five children.

A second day of testimony will follow the first full day of witnesses taking the stand in the capital murder trial of Andrea Yates. Testimony was set to resume Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. EST.

On Monday, the first witness in the trial testified that when he arrived at Yates' home last June in response to a 911 call, the defendant answered the door breathing heavily, her hair and clothes soaked with water.

Police Officer David Knapp said Yates, 37, looked at him and said, "I killed my kids." As they stood at the door, she then repeated the phrase, he testified.

Knapp said Yates led him to the master bedroom, where the bodies of Luke, 3, Paul, 2, John, 5, and Mary, 6 months, were laid out on the bed "like lumps."

A frothy substance trickled from three of their mouths, Knapp said.

As he questioned her, Yates showed no facial expression, and her voice was monotone, Knapp said.

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In an attempt to show that Yates knew what she was doing, the prosecution on Monday pointed out that she complied with instructions from police who arrived at her home, made contact with them and had no problem understanding directions.

Knapp said it was two or three minutes after he arrived at the house in the quiet suburban Houston neighborhood that a second policeman arrived.

The officer discovered the body of the fifth child, 7-year-old Noah, lying face down in a bathtub.

Opening statements

In opening statements made Monday, defense attorney George Parnham said Andrea Yates "did not appreciate the wrongfulness of her acts" when she drowned her five children in the bathtub.

As Yates sat quietly in the courtroom, Parnham said expert witnesses, many of them psychiatrists, would prove that Yates was suffering from a severe case of postpartum psychosis and was unaware of her actions.

Yates, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, confessed to drowning the children June 20. She is charged with two counts of capital murder, one for the deaths of Noah and John and another for killing Mary.

Yates' most recent bout of severe depression was prompted by the birth of Mary in November 2000 and the death of her father the following March, Parnham said. Her mental illness caused delusions, hallucinations and disorganized thoughts, he said.

"Our experts will testify that postpartum depression usually involves delusions involving the infant; that unless mother and child are properly treated, mother and child are at great risk for harm," the defense attorney said.

But prosecutor Joseph Owmby told the jury of eight women and four men that Yates' state of mind was not his concern. His burden, he said, is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Yates killed the children.

"She told him (a police officer) that she wasn't mad at the children; that she killed them because they were not developing correctly and she was a bad mother. She said she had been thinking about killing them for two years," Owmby said.

Some of the jurors are parents. Prosecutors have said that if Yates is convicted they will seek the death penalty. But a conviction also could bring a sentence of life in prison, with the possibility of parole in 40 years.

If found innocent, Yates would be sent to a mental hospital because of her insanity plea. Two of the female jurors have degrees in psychology.

About 60 witnesses, many of them medical experts, have been subpoenaed to testify at the trial, which is expected to take up to a month.

Prosecutors said they would pull no punches in trying to prove their case. They will play the 911 call Yates made and the taped interview she gave to police after her arrest. Police also took videos at the scene.

Prosecutor Joseph Owmby

Yates told investigators she had to chase down and subdue the oldest child, Noah, who was found face down in the bathtub.

"They're going to pull out pictures of those children lined up in bed with their hair still wet and the one in the bathtub still face down," Houston defense attorney Dick DeGuerin told CNN.

Yates' defense team will try to paint a different picture.

Yates' attorneys must "make her a human being," DeGuerin said. "Make the jury understand how she could have been so delusional as to think she was saving her children by killing them."

Husband remains supportive

One of Yates' strongest supporters is her husband Russell, 37, a NASA engineer.

"I'm supportive of her. It's hard, you know, like I said, I'm torn," he said. "One side of me blames her because she did it. The other side of me says she didn't. You know that wasn't her, she wasn't in her right frame of mind."

He has posted photos and videos of their family life at a Web site he created at http://www.yateskids.org.

Russell Yates has visited his wife twice a week at the psychiatric unit of the Harris County jail, spending 15 minutes with her each time. A clear window separates the couple and they talk through a cluster of small holes in the glass.

Andrea Yates is kept under suicide watch and sleeps on a mattress on the floor.

Her family said her mental condition has improved. The medication she is taking appears to be working and she is receiving psychiatric treatment, family members said.

Russell Yates said his wife has memory problems and doesn't recall the events surrounding the drownings.

"She's not quite still all there yet," said Fairy Caroland, Russell Yates' aunt.

Defense attorney George Parnham

"In the same conversation, she might ask a question about a family member, and in two minutes or less ask the same exact question. She will not remember having said what she said. This is not somebody totally functioning as yet," Caroland told CNN on Monday.

"My greatest concern is that the death penalty is even an issue in this case. Our entire family believes Andrea should be hospitalized and should not even have been brought up on these charges," Caroland said.

A few days before the start of the trial, Russell Yates allowed CNN into his home. He still lives in the same house in the quiet suburban neighborhood

He showed home videos of the children he had edited on his computer. He said he is so focused on getting through the trial and coping with his children's deaths that he hasn't decided what he will do in the future.

History of depression

Andrea Yates began showing signs of postpartum depression four months after the 1999 birth of the couple's fourth child, Luke, according to medical records released by the court.

The records show Yates tried to commit suicide twice after that and had visions of stabbing someone with a knife.

She spent almost four months at a psychiatric hospital in Houston. When she was allowed to leave, there was no indication doctors thought she had been cured.

In fact, one doctor wrote, "patient and husband plan to have as many babies as nature will allow! This will surely guarantee future psychotic depression."

During the next 18 months, Russell Yates said, his wife showed signs of improvement, so the couple decided to have another child.

In November 2000, Mary was born. She was the family's first baby girl. Russell Yates said symptoms of postpartum psychosis returned several months after the birth.

In March 2001, Andrea's father died. Family members said this triggered Andrea's fall into severe depression.

She took a combination of psychiatric medications, including the anti-psychotic drug Haldol. During March and May last year Andrea was admitted to a second psychiatric hospital.

Twenty-nine days after checking out of the Devereaux Treatment Center she reported she had drowned her children.