Rusty Yates, the former husband of Andrea Yates, says people should not draw a straight line between Andrea’s case and that of Lindsay Clancy.
“I think this case is a little murkier, you know?” Rusty told NewsNation in a new interview about the mothers’ high-profile murder trials. “It’s not quite as clear as Andrea’s was. I mean, Andrea had hundreds of pages of medical records, you know, a pretty well-documented history.”
“The state went far and wide to find anyone who would say anything negative about Andrea and they couldn’t,” Rusty said. “They couldn’t find anyone because she’s just such a sweet person.”
The two cases have often been discussed together. Andrea Yates and Lindsay Clancy were both nurses, both killed their children in incidents their defense teams linked to postpartum psychosis and other diagnoses, and both entered pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity. Their trials have also forced a broader and deeply difficult question into public view: when, if ever, should severe mental illness affect criminal responsibility?
Clancy strangled her three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — before jumping from a second-story window at her home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023. Yates drowned her five children, who ranged in age from 6 months to 7 years old, in the bathtub of her Texas home in June 2001.
As the jury weighs Clancy’s verdict, the outcome could determine whether she is sent to prison or committed to a psychiatric institution. Andrea Yates, meanwhile, has been living in a state hospital since 2006.
Andrea was tried twice: Her 2002 trial resulted in a guilty verdict and a life sentence. Her case was later overturned and at her retrial, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Andrea now resides at Kerrville State Hospital, where Rusty has said he visits once a year.
Andrea and Lindsay’s husbands have also faced public scrutiny over whether they could have prevented the killings or contributed to their wives’ mental decline.
“I think people just want to be able to explain things in terms they understand,” Rusty said during an Aug. 21 interview with Cuomo Crime Time, pointing to an email he once received from a stranger accusing him of beating Andrea.
Rusty denied the claim, telling Chris Cuomo the allegation was “completely false.”
“I think people can’t appreciate that they don’t have the same breadth of experience that everyone else does,” Rusty said. “So they have a desire to explain things and do so based on limited experience.”
Rusty said he sees Lindsay’s husband, Patrick Clancy, “going through the same thing,” adding in that interview, “It’s like, ‘Wait, she was mentally ill so the next closest target, husband, let’s blame him’…how far do you have to go to get to the drug companies?”
The women’s cases have also emphasized postpartum mental health and about whether they were properly medicated before the killings.
Lindsay herself had weighed in on the Yates case, years before she killed her own children.
Coworker Margaret Hamp recalled Lindsay becoming emotional when first hearing about Andrea’s case.
“She cried,” Hamp testified Aug. 17, “and she said, ‘How could a mother hurt her children?’”
Lindsay is waiting to learn her fate as the jury is in day six of deliberations.