The Associated Press

H O U S T O N, March 1 — In an interview with a psychiatrist videotaped three weeks after she drowned her five children last summer, Andrea Yates said she believed she had to kill the children to keep them from going to hell.

On the tape, which was played Friday during her capital murder trial, Yates said that after the bathtub drownings she believed the state would execute her, Satan would be eliminated from the world and the children would be saved.

"These were their innocent years," Yates said. "God would take them up."

Along with the tape, forensic psychiatrist Phillip Resnick testified in court that he concluded Yates knew the drownings were illegal, but not wrong.

Yates has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, and faces life in prison or the death penalty if she is convicted.

During the 14-minute videotape, Resnick asked Yates how she felt about her children. "I didn't hate my children," she replied.

Yates stared blankly at the camera, clenching her jaw. Her long, black hair appeared greasy and stuck to the sides of her head, tucked behind her ears. Large black circles surrounded her eyes as she sat hunched in a chair.

The psychiatrist told jurors Yates suffers from schizophrenia and major depression that impaired her behavior and thinking, resulting in delusions and hallucinations.

"Even though she knew it was against the law, she did what she thought was right in the world she perceived through her psychotic eyes at the time," Resnick said.

Yates is charged with capital murder for the deaths of 7-year-old Noah, 5-year-old John and 6-month-old Mary. Charges could be filed later in the deaths of Paul, 3, and Luke, 2.

Resnick said Yates began having delusions in 1999 after Luke's birth and attempted suicide twice that year. The voices and delusions intensified after Mary's birth the next year.

"When I was in a hospital last year or a year before, I heard a deep growling voice say my name," Yates said on the tape.

Resnick has also testified in such high-profile cases as serial killer Jeffery Dahmer, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Susan Smith, who was sentenced to life in prison for drowning her two sons in 1994 in South Carolina.

Earlier Friday, another psychiatrist testified Yates knew her actions were wrong five days after she drowned her children, but he was uncertain when she came to that conclusion.

"She may have had opinions, but I could not tell how long she had those opinions," said Steven Rosenblatt, who interviewed Yates in jail. "Someone might on Day 1 have a particular view of something and on Day 5 have a totally different view."

photo credit and caption:
Psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Resnick talks with the media as he leaves the Harris County courthouse in Houston Friday, March 1, 2002, after testifying in the murder trial of Andrea Yates. Yates is charged with two counts of capital murder for the June 20, 2001 drownings of three of her five children. She has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.