Dallas – Two Texas women who killed their young children in cases that drew nationwide attention have formed a friendship at a state hospital, a newspaper reported.
Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001, and Dena Schlosser, whose baby died after she severed the girl’s arms with a kitchen knife in 2004, became roommates at the Maple unit of the North Texas State Hospital after each was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
“We talk about our past; we talk about our memories, our fun memories, the things that our kids did,” Schlosser told The Dallas Morning News.
With the support of her family, Schlosser agreed to be interviewed several times by phone.
Yates did not want to come to the phone. But her ex-husband, Rusty Yates, who still regularly visits her at the hospital in Vernon, northwest of Dallas, said Schlosser has become a friend.
“Hopefully, they can help each other through the long recovery process,” he said.
The two women will probably be in state care for years, remaining at Vernon or another hospital until their doctors and judges agree they can be released.
Conversations between the women often revolve around their young daughters – Mary Yates was 6 months old and Maggie Schlosser was 10 months old when they died.
Schlosser’s parents, Connie and Mick Macaulay of Canada, said their daughter once tearfully called after talking with Yates.
“They’d talked a lot about Mary and Maggie,” said Mick Macaulay, a mental-health counselor. “They were feeling guilty, remorseful and sad.”
Schlosser, 37, was already at the hospital when Yates, 42, arrived in the summer.
The women have much in common. Both were married, stay- at-home moms who followed out-of-the-mainstream religious leaders. Both suffered from postpartum depression and psychosis after the births of their daughters.
