by TChris

Supporters of Andrea Yates, the mentally ill woman in Houston who drowned her children in a bathtub, argue that she should be treated in a mental health facility, not confined in a prison for life. Andrea's lead attorney, George Parnham, reports that Andrea is not coping well with prison life.

Yates is a bright woman, a former cancer nurse. But these days, her short-term memory is poor. She seems to understand what she is told, then she forgets. She isn't agitating to leave her prison home, Parnham said. For her, for now, there is a nightmarish past and no future.

Dr. George Ringholz, the chief of the section of behavioral neurology and neuropsychology at Baylor College of Medicine, tested Yates and concluded that she suffers from schizophrenia. Prison doctors think she suffers from a bipolar disorder. Another expert thinks she may have schizo-affective disorder, but argues that the precise diagnosis is less important than making sure the symptoms -- which include visual and auditory hallucinations -- are treated correctly.

Dr. Ringholz and Andrea's husband, Rusty Yates, believe the medical system failed Andrea by misdiagnosing her developing mental illness as postpartum depression and by viewing her problems "as isolated events, as opposed to a disease unfolding."

In mid-February, Andrea's lawyers, now working pro bono, will be filing documents seeking a new trial.