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A new documentary is looking to peel back the curtain on the case of a Texas mother who was convicted of killing her five children, with rumors circulating decades later that she may have carried out the slayings while under the influence of a religious cult.
On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children – John, Paul, Noah, Luke and Mary – in the bathtub of her family’s home in the Houston suburb of Clear Lake, according to People. Immediately following the killings, in which the children ranged from six months to seven years, Yates placed their bodies on her bed and called 911 to confess.
When officers arrived at the family’s home, Yates reportedly met them with wet hair and clothing, calmly stating, “I killed my kids.”
A 2026 Investigation Discovery docuseries “The Cult Behind the Killer: The Andrea Yates Story,” looks into not only the killings, but one of the widely circulated theories that Yates may have been radicalized by a religious cult before drowning her children.
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Andrea Yates, right, sits with her attorney George Parnham after the not guilty by reason of insanity verdict was read in her retrial July 26, 2006, in Houston. (Photo by Brett Coomer-Pool/Getty Images)
Following the horrific deaths, Yates made national headlines as investigators pored over claims of cult indoctrination and postpartum depression.
“Something had to have snapped,” Cheryl Johnson, Yates’ neighbor at the time, told People immediately after the killings. “She was no monster.”
In the years following the murders, details surrounding Yates’ struggles with mental health began to surface. Her husband, Rusty Yates, reportedly wanted a big family and later told authorities she suffered from severe depression after the birth of her fourth child.
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This undated family photo shows four of the five children of Andrea Yates, who confessed on June 20, 2001, to killing her children by drowning them in their home in Clear Lake, a suburb of south Houston, Texas. The children shown are, from left, John, Luke, Paul and Noah. (Yates Family/Getty Images)
“He was adamant that they were going to have six kids,” another neighbor, Sylvia Cole, previously told People. “She was really meek and easygoing, so I’m not sure if it was a joint decision.”
In the months after her fourth child, Luke, was born, Yates reportedly attempted to take her own life by overdosing on medication prescribed to her sick father, causing her to be hospitalized.
Following her release from treatment, a spokesperson for Harris County Children’s Protective Services told People that “there was no concern on the hospital’s part that she was a risk to her children, so it was never assigned to a caseworker.”
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This undated family photo shows Mary, the youngest of the five children of Andrea Yates, then 36, who confessed on June 20, 2001, to killing her children by drowning them in their home in Clear Lake, a suburb of south Houston, TX. (Photo by Phillippe Dieder/Getty Images)
Yates was subsequently prescribed antipsychotic medication and antidepressants, but two weeks after she stopped taking the drugs, her mental condition worsened.
During her trial, her attorney, George Parnham, argued the mother of five drowned her children because she believed it “was the right thing to do.”
Both the prosecution and defense also looked to prove Yates was acting under the influential teachings of Michael Woroniecki, a controversial traveling preacher who reportedly preached that “unrighteous mothers” would go on to give birth to “unrighteous children.”
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In “The Cult Behind the Killer: The Andrea Yates Story,” Woroniecki’s teachings are often characterized as a “cult,” though no charges were ever filed against the preacher in connection with the Yates children’s deaths.
In a 2022 interview with “Good Morning America,” Woroniecki called the claims “ridiculous” and denied allegations that his teachings had any influence over Yates at the time of her children’s killings.
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“It came up that maybe the pastor that was at their church had somehow, through his preachings, put some idea in her head about good and evil,” Nicole DeBorde, a Harris County defense attorney and president of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, told Fox News Digital.
“And that her ultimate decision to do the horrible thing that she did was because she believed that her children’s souls were going to be lost, and so she needed to kill them before they became evil to preserve their innocence so that they could go to Heaven, which is again pretty awful.”
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In 2002, Yates was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years behind bars, according to People. However, her conviction was reversed and Yates was retried in 2006, when she was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
“It couldn’t get more emotional,” DeBorde said. “I mean, you have these beautiful children who are deceased. People just like you and me had to hear this case and had to see the absolute devastation and destruction of this family, including these awful pictures of these children. And that’s enough to make most people so upset that they would render an incredibly punitive sentence as quickly as possible, just because it’s so emotional.”
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In light of the verdict, Yates’ defense team looked to blame systemic failures for not only the deaths of her five children, but the fate of Yates herself.
“On June 20, 2001, there were six victims at the home of Andrea and Rusty Yates,” Parnham wrote in an essay for the Houston Chronicle in 2013. “Her five children, certainly, but also Andrea herself – all victims of the real culprit, in this case a severe mental illness known as postpartum psychosis.”
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One year later, Yates was sent to Kerrville State Hospital, a Texas-based mental facility, where she has since opted to remain to continue treatment, according to People. In 2022, Yates reportedly waived her annual review to consider her release and “grieves for her children” every day, Parnham reportedly said.
“She’s where she wants to be. Where she needs to be,” Parnham said in an interview with ABC News in 2021. “And I mean, hypothetically, where would she go? What would she do?”
“The Cult Behind the Killer: The Andrea Yates Story” is available to stream on Investigation Discovery.