Texas baby killer faces execution

Mrs Yates pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity

Prosecutors are demanding the execution of a Texas mother who admitted drowning her five children in a bathtub.

They said they would seek "the full range of punishment in this case, including the death penalty" as Andrea Pia Yates, 37, appeared in a Houston court on two counts of capital murder.

Lawyers for Mrs Yates entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity for her.

Russell Yates stands by his wife

Mrs Yates called her husband and the police from her home in a Houston suburb on 20 June, telling them she had drowned her five children, aged six months to seven years.

After Mrs Yates called them, police officers who came to the apartment found the four youngest children's bodies still wet under a sheet on a bed, and the eldest dead in the bathtub.

All the children were found to have died by drowning, according to the Harris County Medical Examiner's report.

Mrs Yates has been indicted on two counts of murder - one for the deaths of her two oldest children, seven-year-old Noah and five-year-old John, and another for the death of six-month-old Mary.

The prosecution told the court that a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation determined that Mrs Yates was competent to stand trial.

But her attorney, George Parnham, said mental health experts told the defence team that she remained in a psychotic state.

He said the defence team had not even been able to discuss the case with her, and he demanded a review of the evidence used by the court-appointed doctor.

'Post-natal depression'

Her husband, Russell, stands by his wife, saying she suffered from post-natal depression after their two youngest children were born.

He said her situation deteriorated after the death of her father.

Mrs Yates, a former nurse and housewife, did not utter a word or change her facial expression throughout the 20-minute proceeding.

Not once did she make eye contact with Mr Yates, a Nasa computer engineer, who sat with his mother in the front row of the court.

For Mrs Yates to escape the death penalty under Texas law, her defence must prove she had a severe mental defect that prevented her from discerning right from wrong at the time of the killings.

If her lawyers' argument is accepted, Mrs Yates will be committed to a state mental hospital until she is no longer ruled insane.

She is currently being held in the psychiatric wing of the Harris County Jail.