Father Faces His Loss--5 Caskets of Slain ‘Friends’

If ever a man stood alone, it was Russell Yates, who paced at the head of a dim brown church and choked down sobs long enough to eulogize his slain children Wednesday morning.

The five of them lay in tiny white caskets--their corpses prettied by makeup and blankets of roses. His wife sat across town, locked in a jail cell on charges of systematically drowning Mary, Luke, Paul, John and Noah in the bathtub.

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and that’s exactly what he’s done,” the 36-year-old computer expert said, swiping at his cheeks. “He gave me all these children, and then he took them away.”

It began the morning of June 20, when Andrea Pia Yates called police to her modest brick home in a working-class neighborhood on the hem of this city. When she confessed to drowning her children one by one, the skinny, enigmatic mother--who apparently battled jagged bouts of postpartum depression--became a bull’s-eye for public debate and speculation, sympathy and wrath.

But on this humid Wednesday morning, Andrea Yates faded into the background, if only for a few hours. Through mundane accounts of potty training exploits, T-ball games and bunk beds, Rusty Yates sketched his children into vivid, distinct people.

“They weren’t just some generic children who happened to be mine,” he told some 300 family members, co-workers and neighbors. “They were my friends.”

By all accounts, few people really knew the children. The eldest, Noah, had just turned 7 in February. The youngest, Mary, was born last November.

Instead of trundling them off to public school, Andrea Yates taught her children their lessons in the family’s Spanish-style house. Aside from joining the T-ball league that Rusty coached, the kids played with their parents, mostly, or with one another.

Until this week, none of the Yates clan had set foot inside the Clear Lake Church of Christ, the neighborhood sanctuary that hosted the children’s funeral. As far as anybody can tell, the nondenominational Christian family belonged to no particular congregation.

Instead, the Yateses kept their religion--like most of their activities--behind closed doors.

“I don’t know anything about the children,” minister Byron Fike said as he paused on the church’s tidy lawn before the service.

But inside, photo collages greeted the mourners. There were glossy shots of puppies, birthday cakes and hot air balloons; there was one of Noah in the bathtub.

At the altar, grinning photographs glowed on a movie screen overhead as Yates described his brood. Sometimes, lulled by talk of the past, the young father’s limbs relaxed, his eyes brightened and a wry chuckle crept into his voice.

But when he’d catch a glimpse into one of his babies’ coffins, his voice faltered and his features fell. He’d turn his gaze up into the ceiling beams, heave a deep sigh and--finally--resume his speech.

He talked about Noah, the smart, slightly aloof oldest boy, a bug connoisseur who trapped everything from bumblebees to frogs in a glass jar. Consulting a packet of note cards, Yates bragged about “perfect, precious Paul”; about Mary, his “little princess.” There was mischievous Luke, 2, and John, a clever 5-year-old.

The subtleties dwindled as the ages shrank. By the time Yates got to 6-month-old Mary, about the only thing he could talk about was her smile.

“I’m sorry,” he said, bending over her coffin, “that I never got to see you grow up.”

Andrea Yates made occasional cameos in her husband’s eulogy, but only in fond, normal contexts--squealing with her children over the pretty hatching of a butterfly; pregnant with Mary; deciding, along with Rusty, to have as many children as God handed them.

But in her downtown jail cell, a weary-eyed Andrea Yates faces capital murder charges. Harris County Dist. Atty. Chuck Rosenthal said Tuesday that he’ll decide at some point in the next three weeks whether to seek the death penalty.

Police say Andrea Yates had waited until her husband left for work that day, then filled the bathtub and drowned the kids one by one. They say she wrapped four of the bodies in linens and stacked them on a bed. Noah’s body was found in the tub.

Rusty Yates stood tearful on his front lawn the morning after his children’s deaths, clutched a family photo and--with plastic toys strewn behind him--defended his wife. She wasn’t in her right mind, he said.

His plea soon was echoed by defense lawyer George Parnham, who has said he may argue that the 36-year-old mother was insane when she allegedly killed her children. It’s a tactic he’s used before: In 1993, Parnham convinced a Houston jury that a father was insane when he stormed into a school and shot two police officers.

On Tuesday, District Judge Belinda Hill issued a gag order banning lawyers, police officers and witnesses from talking to reporters. In all likelihood, Rusty and Andrea Yates won’t be heard from again until the trial, which hasn’t been scheduled.

“Mr. Yates has lost all his children; in essence he’s lost his wife,” said Fike, who’s been ministering to Yates since the deaths. “He’s in desperate need.”

As the eulogy ended, Rusty Yates broke into tears. One by one, he folded his children’s worn baby blankets and tucked them over the corpses. He nodded to the ushers, who quietly moved behind him to close the caskets.

Then a slow procession of small white coffins wended through the dim chapel. A door creaked open, and the heat of summer pushed into the sanctuary.

Photographers lined the sidewalk outside. Rusty Yates stepped out into the glare of day.