HOUSTON, June 26 (UPI) -- A Texas prosecutor described Andrea Yates' apparently lucid behavior after she drowned her five children as her second trial opened Monday.
Yates's lawyer blamed a doctor who told her she did not need medication and suggested she think "happy thoughts," the Houston Chronicle reported. "But for Andrea Yates being taken off anti-psychotic medication, those children would be alive today," attorney George Parnham said.
Yates' 2002 murder conviction was thrown out by an appeals court found that erroneous testimony from a prosecution psychiatrist prejudiced the case.
In the new trial, Yates is charged with the murder of three of her five children, a prosecution tactic allowing a second trial if she is acquitted or found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Prosecution witnesses included the Houston emergency dispatcher who handled Yates's 911 call. The jury also heard a tape of Yates refusing to say why she needed police, telling the operator "I just need a police officer."
The responding officer described finding Yates dripping wet and the bodies of four of the five children laid out on a bed.
