HOUSTON, July 15 (UPI) -- Andrea Yates knew killing her children was wrong, but thought it was the best thing to do for them, a psychiatrist said in her murder retrial in Texas.
Dr. Park Dietz testified Friday that Yates quoted Scripture to him when she talked about the killings, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Yates was obsessed for years with hurting her children, Dietz said, and because she considered this a sin, she believed her thoughts must have been controlled by Satan.
This made her sane, Dietz said, adding that someone who committed such a crime believing it was ordered by a "good and infallible" God would be insane.
The woman's original conviction and life sentence were set aside by an appeals court because Dietz's testimony in her first trial was erroneous.
Yates, 42, is accused in the drowning deaths of her five children, ages 7, 5, 3, 2 and 6 months, on June 20, 2001, at the family home near Houston.
Defense attorneys are trying to convince a jury that Yates was insane when she killed the children.
Prosecutors say Yates, although mentally ill, knew right from wrong.
If convicted, she would automatically be sentenced to life in prison. If found not guilty by reason of insanity, she would be placed in a mental hospital and remain under the court's jurisdiction.
