Rusty Yates is an engineer in the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and holds the title of Senior Systems Engineer in the company. Rusty Yates today is living a quiet life with his children and seems to be wanting to have a distance from the media and the public.

He recently featured in Investigation Discovery’s episode of Andrea Yates: The Crimes That Changed Us which showcased the murder investigation documentary of Andrea who killed all the five children she had with Rusty Yates.

What Happened to Rusty Yates?

In 2001, his then-wife, Andrea Yates killed all their five children by drowning them in their bathtub while he was gone for work. It was within one hour after he left for office that the gruesome incident took place. Andrea had several diagnoses of mental illness that Yates was accused of ignoring and not taking it as seriously as he was supposed to.

He and Andrea met in 1989 and married in 1993 and had five children from the marriage whom they lost in 2001 in a homicide case. On the morning of 20th June 2001, Yates was headed to the office for work when he received a call from Andrea asking him to arrive home immediately.

In the initial years of their married life, soon after three or four of their children were born, Andrea was diagnosed with depression and postpartum psychosis and was hospitalized on various occasions due to nervous breakdowns. She also attempted suicide several times but was somehow interrupted by her husband on various occasions who took her for treatment. In spite of being kept on an anti-depressant and various other psychotic pills, her condition kept getting worse and was even found chewing her fingers while shaking vigorously.

She reportedly killed the first three eldest children who were boys, Luke, John, and Paul by drowning them in the water of their bathtub and later proceeded to kill the youngest children, Mary and Noah. She laid them all in the bed and first called 911 and called her husband who had just arrived in his office.

This tragic and gruesome incident was all over the news and shook the entire nation and undoubtedly changed her and her husband’s life forever.

Where is Rusty Yates Now?

After the murder of his children, his wife was arrested and has been sentenced to life imprisonment as a result of murder, and the case not being considered an insanity defense for which the court found her guilty of the murder. The defense expert found Andrea to be psychotic but could not prove her inability to choose between right and wrong at the time of the murder.

Rusty Yates divorced her in 2005 and spoke in the interview about how difficult it was to divorce the mother of his children who died at her hands. He, however, met Laura Arnold at the church and married in 2006 in a private ceremony attended by only about a hundred people who were amongst the closest friends, families, and acquaintances of the couple.

The couple together has a son who was born in March 2008 and is 15 years of age today. Seven years after the tragic incident took place, he became a father again and shared the parenthood with Laura who he married two years after he divorced Andrea who was in jail.

Rusty Yates in 2022

Rusty and Laura filed for divorce in 2015 and have been separated since then. They are co-parenting their 15-year-old son currently. Rusty Yates’ second wife was also a divorcee at the time of their marriage and had children from her previous marriage.

He told in the interview how his life changed after his second marriage and the birth of his child with his second wife. Although he seemed upset on most occasions thinking about the past tragedy, he wants to move on with his life and try to make it better in spite of having faced so many mental and emotional difficulties.

Take Away

Rusty says that he does not blame his wife, but for the mental illness she was suffering from. He did not want to admit that the mother of five of his children could kill all of them with a proper mental state. However, he did not seek to change the order of the court to reduce her punishment as that would mean disregarding the loss of his five children.

After the second divorce, he does not want to tread into the life of marriage again as it proved to be unsuccessful with both his first and second wife. He is currently not very seen in public nor does he appear a lot in front of the media and social media platforms.