HOUSTON, July 11 (UPI) -- The defense has rested in the retrial of Andrea Yates, the Texas woman accused of drowning her five young children in a bathtub.
The Houston Chronicle said jury deliberations could begin some time next week.
The defense rested Tuesday after Yates' best friend, Debbie Holmes, told jurors that the woman who drowned her five children in the bathtub "misses them terribly," the Chronicle reported.
The newspaper said jurors must decide whether a severe mental disease or defect prevented Yates from knowing it was wrong to drown her five children -- Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary -- in a bathtub at the family's home on June 20, 2001.
An appeals court threw out her capital murder conviction last year, citing concerns that erroneous testimony may have swayed the jury during her first trial four years ago, the newspaper said.
The new trial will determine if Yates spends the rest of her life in prison or whether she goes to a state mental hospital for an undetermined period of time.
