Where Is Andrea Yates' Husband Now? Rusty Yates Still Calls His Ex-Wife Who Drowned Their Five Children
In 2001, the nation was shocked by the drowning deaths of five children at their own mother's hands.
Andrea Yates kept her young children submerged in a bath tub until they stopped moving, and has lived in a Texas mental health facility since a judge deemed her not guilty by reason of insanity.
A new NBC News interview with her attorney provides insight into what Yates' life is like, but offers only a brief update on her husband, Rusty Yates, who has since remarried and had a son with his new wife.
Yates was not home at the time of the murders, and returned from work to find the grisly scene. Andrea Yates had a history of mental health issues, and had previously attempted suicide. Yates has since faced criticism for leaving the children alone with their mother.
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According to a website he established in his children's memory, Yates is a former NASA engineer who remarried after divorcing Andrea a few years after the killings.
Yates now has an 8-year-old son with his second wife, who filed for divorce last year. The oldest of the Yates children with Andrea, Noah, would have turned 21 in February this year.
Yates discussed the the tragedy in a new interview with Oprah Winfrey last year, revealing he still calls his ex-wife once a month and visits her annually at the Kerrville, Texas, mental hospital where she resides.
Yates told Winfrey he has forgiven his children's murderer, noting he's always "blamed her illness" for their deaths.
During the interview, Yates said that whenever he thinks of his five children, he imagines them as teenagers. His eldest, he explained, would have been 20 if not for the drownings.
