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00:00This was one of the toughest stories I've ever done.
00:14When there is a big train wreck, you want to go look at it.
00:19This was a train wreck with five babies lying on the tracks.
00:25Andrea Yates.
00:26Andrea Yates.
00:27Andrea Yates called 911.
00:29Authorities rushed to her home, only to find her five young children dead.
00:33Andrea Yates confessing to police she drowned her children one by one in the bathtub.
00:39Everyone was horrified.
00:43A mother killed her kids?
00:45One of the most heart-wrenching tragedies we have ever heard.
00:48How could a mother kill her own family?
00:51Everyone was talking about it.
00:53Neighbors are understandably stunned.
00:55I felt so sorry for the children.
00:57It really had to be a lot wrong with that woman's head.
01:00They just immediately hated her.
01:02This was a very evil and calculated woman.
01:05Andrea Yates, she faces capital murder charges.
01:07If convicted, she could be put to death.
01:09The number one question is why, why, why?
01:13I wanted to find out what was the motive?
01:16How could she do this?
01:18Is this an act that is literally beyond our comprehension to understand or to deal with?
01:25When I got in that car down to Houston, I had no idea what I was going to face.
01:31One of the most heartbreaking tragedies we have ever heard.
01:42Neighbors are understandably stunned.
01:46This mom's actions are a calculated act of evil.
01:51These events are beyond our ability to understand.
01:54Number one question is why, why, why, why?
02:08In 2001, I was a freelance writer primarily concentrating on true crime.
02:14When I was researching my book, Breaking Point, I was starting to get hints that, no, she wasn't this horrible, evil person that was on the news.
02:26Her neighbors were saying she was a people pleaser and she was a caretaker.
02:32And everyone said, what a great mom.
02:35I was getting a totally different picture of Andrea.
02:39But I knew there was more, and I couldn't get the full story, and it was driving me crazy.
02:49One day, I walked into Clear Lake Church of Christ, and lo and behold, Rusty Yates is standing in front of me.
03:00And Rusty and I had our first lengthy conversation.
03:04I told him I was writing a book.
03:08He didn't really hesitate to keep talking to me.
03:13After the church, Rusty sent me a lot of videos of the kids.
03:18Bring it up the rear, it's Luke.
03:20Hello?
03:22All right.
03:2499% of them were filmed by Andrea.
03:27The video camera was her best friend, that she could be saying, hey, look at this, listen to them, isn't this great?
03:35Look at my kids.
03:37You don't throw horses.
03:40They're so many tempting years.
03:43Seeing how hard she worked to be a good mom.
03:46Where are you driving?
03:48And how cheery she was, and how encouraging and loving them.
03:54Where's Noah?
03:54Oh, there.
03:56This was Andrea's world.
04:02He's smart.
04:06If I say goodbyes.
04:07Bye to the camera.
04:09But there was things I couldn't quite confirm or not confirm.
04:14The next door neighbor talked about how Andrea would take the kids to a homeschool bookstore and want the Christian curriculum.
04:23But people would talk about, well, I don't remember them going to church.
04:33Whenever I would ask him about religion that they had grown up with, Rusty was reluctant to talk about it.
04:41So, it was always just sort of a mystery.
04:46I had a few confidential sources.
04:56And one of them told me about this preacher that Andrea was involved with.
05:03And they called it a cult.
05:06And then one day I received these letters.
05:11I was totally shocked.
05:13I didn't know they were coming.
05:14And it was just sort of a mystery source that dropped them in the mailbox to me.
05:21They were letters that Michael and Rachel Warnecki wrote to Andrea.
05:29Andrea was searching.
05:47Andrea was lonely.
05:48And through their letters back and forth, Andrea could pour out her heart, her loneliness.
05:57In 1999, Andrea wrote that Luke has been born.
06:03And Rachel writes to Andrea,
06:05To read those letters was heartbreaking because it was just nothing but how you're doing wrong.
06:28And that there's not any hope for you.
06:35If you allow Satan to come in and still be understanding, the consequences will be tragic.
06:43When I read those letters, you kind of go, it all makes sense now.
06:49Why Andrea did this?
06:50What was going on in her confused, mentally ill brain?
06:55Everything was pointing to this preacher named Michael Warnecki.
07:07According to the author of this new book, letters written to Andrea Yates by the Reverend Warnecki and his wife may have convinced Yates she was possessed by the devil.
07:16That is a way to, you know, that God can use this and everything, loneliness, depression, anything was all separation with God in alignment with Satan.
07:27Basically, if you go to college.
07:28I was watching the Debbie Duncan show and there was this lady who wrote a book and she was talking about Michael being involved in the Yates family.
07:37How did they meet?
07:37When Rusty was a student in college, I learned that Rusty met Mike on campus just like I did.
07:45He started corresponding just like I did.
07:47Basically, anything and everything from what I gathered but the Warneckis are sinful.
07:52Here's the thing, I knew, you know, what happened to me, you know, what he did to my life.
07:57But it just, when it hit me, like, oh, no, this Andrea Yates was so pressurized with that struggle for salvation that she had to kill her kids.
08:09And that's what's like, oh, my God.
08:11How far can this go?
08:15Michael Warnecki.
08:16Byron Brimstone Preacher.
08:18The preacher is mimicking Satan himself.
08:20We watched the news coverage like a hawk.
08:23It was all through the frame of these people are going to try to bring Michael down.
08:28It's going to hell.
08:30It's going to the lake of fire.
08:33The man who's now under fire for what some claim is destructive preaching.
08:38A bunch of fools.
08:40Michael reached out to my mom initially.
08:42He was like, hey, how are you?
08:43And it was like oddly nice.
08:45It became pretty clear that Michael was afraid that this would be pinned on him.
08:51They had many conversations about God, Satan, and hell.
08:54Says, hey, they might bring me in to testify.
08:57The defense is trying to make the case that some of my teachings may have led Andrea to do this horrific crime.
09:05Michael Wernicke's influence is dangerous.
09:07And then he was the most positive he's ever been towards my mom.
09:12He said, God has told me that you're pretty close to getting into the kingdom of heaven.
09:17It was all damage control.
09:19He was scared.
09:21The time has come for Andrea Yates, the so-called killer mom, to defend her actions in court.
09:29If convicted, she could be put to death.
09:32Yates' attorney, Wendell Odom, with Yates health records.
09:35Those records detail a history of deep depression, attempted suicide, and psychosis.
09:40Andrea Yates' case was certainly the most significant case I ever tried in my life.
09:48When I saw Andrea Yates, for the first time, it was one of the most shocking things I'd ever seen before.
09:54She had pupils that were giant and dark.
09:57She would jerk her head around and be looking at something behind her.
10:03I've never seen anyone that mentally ill before in my life.
10:07It was clear we need to start building an insanity defense.
10:11He thought the whole time, how ridiculous is this?
10:20Here's a loving mother who would never, ever, ever have harmed our children in any way had she not been psychotic.
10:30And the state's prosecuting her for capital murder.
10:33The defendant has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
10:37Our strategy was to explain to the jury that this was a psychotic episode created because of postpartum depression.
10:44If this woman doesn't meet the test of insanity in this state, then nobody does.
10:52Zero.
10:53We needed to explain that she knew that what she was doing was illegal, but she didn't know that it was wrong.
11:01She may have believed because of her mental depression that it was in the best interest of the children to drown them one after the other.
11:11But that's not the law in Texas.
11:14I'm asking you to vote in accordance with the law and the evidence and find her guilty as charged.
11:20I appreciate your attention.
11:23The defense and prosecution have both presented their arguments in the Yates case.
11:27After a month-long trial, the court rests.
11:31Jurors face the task of deciding whether this is a case of illness or intent.
11:37Andrea Yates' fate rests in their hands.
11:42All rise for the jury, please.
11:45We, the jury, find the defendant, Andrea Pia Yates, guilty of capital murder.
11:56After only 35 minutes of deliberations, jurors said Andrea Yates should get life in prison, not the death penalty.
12:06Hearing the verdict, I didn't feel like I could get up.
12:09She's my wife, who I loved.
12:16I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
12:20During the trial, we didn't do as good a job as we should have explaining her mental state, including her faith-based beliefs, which were provided by Warnecke.
12:31After the trial, I was thinking that Michael Warnecke is not being held accountable.
12:39He got a little bad press and all that, but he just marched on.
12:44And no one knows the real story.
12:47He's getting away with it.
12:48I started thinking, what do I do?
12:52I felt it was my social responsibility to inform who this man is, and maybe that could help a lot of people.
13:05So I called a local news studio and told them that I have some information on this preacher.
13:13It's simple brainwashing.
13:16It starts off very innocent.
13:18Your perceptions start altering, and pretty soon you're sucked into a system.
13:23I knew that Mike would be pissed.
13:25I knew he would see me as a traitor, that he would see me as a Judas.
13:31I didn't know how far he would take his displeasure with me.
13:39We are all going to hell, yeah!
13:42Tonight, preacher Michael Warnecke is responding to his critics and places the blame on Rusty Yates for his wife's actions.
13:51What about Rusty?
13:52I have never heard him once.
13:53I heard him blame the hospitals, the clinics, the postpartum depression, the drugs.
13:58Could you ever stand up and say, I'm looking in the mirror and I'm seeing the guy who's responsible.
14:02I should have shepherded my wife.
14:04They visited you in Florida.
14:05Right.
14:06And you told them, according to Andrea Yates, that they were going to hell.
14:12I was Andrea's friend.
14:13She had just had this experience with watching a caterpillar become a butterfly.
14:17And she left there with a tremendous hope that things were going to change in their life.
14:21She was a respected psychiatrist.
14:23She said flat out that Andrea Yates never would have killed her children if it were not for you.
14:29That is ridiculous.
14:30So if you go out and kill somebody, that's my fault.
14:32If I know you, like this other guy that was on there.
14:34You're talking about David Della Isla.
14:36I knew that guy, what, 15 years ago.
14:38For 15 minutes, I met at McDonald's restaurant.
14:41Just the fact that he's saying that he didn't really know me just, it's like, wow.
14:45He said you communicated with him considerably.
14:47He has a stack of letters, he said.
14:49A stack of letters?
14:49From you.
14:50I don't think a stack of letters.
14:51That said that he was living a not-righteous life.
14:53You're just a damn liar, you know?
14:55Like, here is the stack.
14:57This is a correspondence of about 12 years.
15:00And so he knows me very well.
15:03That was the lies.
15:04Like, no, you know exactly who I am.
15:11When I found out that Mike had some sort of relationship with Andrea Yates,
15:16I was dumbfounded, numb.
15:21It was heartbreaking.
15:23And I thought, I hope they're wrong about Mike Warniecki.
15:31Mike Warniecki and I were born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on February 4, 1954.
15:36And we went through school together.
15:38Grand Rapids is also known as the city of churches.
15:41Mike and I were both altar boys.
15:42His dad was an usher in a church as a senior in high school.
15:47Mike was an excellent football player.
15:48He was the typical gung-ho jock, confident to the point of being cocky, like being the center of attention.
15:56I was going to be the great charismatic hotshot.
15:58Mike goes to Central Michigan on scholarship.
16:01And he, if not for some bad luck, might have gone to the NFL.
16:05At this time, God had been dealing with me.
16:07I began to read the word.
16:08I began to just realize what it was to follow Jesus Christ.
16:12He was all in as a football player.
16:14He was all in as an evangelical preacher.
16:17He is everything to me.
16:20I'm totally committed to him.
16:23He tried to get into different seminaries, but he was rejected for being too fanatical, too earnest, too over the top.
16:29I was offended by it at first, but I didn't realize, yeah, that's exactly what God wants me to be.
16:34And I began to realize, no, this world belongs to Satan, totally contrary to what you see in the demon dens, the vipers, the snake pits of today called churches.
16:43And so he was going to make his own way.
16:45And he did wear that rejection as a badge of honor.
16:47In the early 1980s, Mike's profile around town grew exponentially.
16:58I preach outside of football games, basketball games, car races, baseball games, tracks, festivals, parades.
17:04God is going to destroy this earth and all you wretched sinners.
17:08He would stand outside of churches on Sunday morning and tell the churchgoers that they are going to hell.
17:14It was totally aggressive, and it was obnoxious.
17:18I don't care no more about ministry, about position, about reputation, about image, about what anybody says about me.
17:25He was scorned. He was ridiculed.
17:27Probably everything he related to through what Jesus went through.
17:31In fact, all they say now is bad things.
17:33You're off. You're cult. You're weird.
17:37Around that time, I started working at the Grand Rapids Press as a police reporter.
17:40So reporting on him journalistically was awkward because we were still friends.
17:45And he's arrested various times.
17:50Cops intimidating me, arresting me, not because I'm breaking any organs, because they don't like me.
17:56And there was an event.
17:57That was the straw that broke the camel's back.
18:00The Shrine Circus was an annual institution in Grand Rapids.
18:10Mike was doing his preaching outside the ticket office and accosted a woman verbally about her religion, about her faith.
18:18I interviewed her subsequently.
18:20He roughed her up pretty good, according to her.
18:29She was so upset, she wanted him to go to trial, see him pay for what he had done to her.
18:34But the city cut a deal with him that he would leave town, and that was the start of his worldwide tour.
18:42I don't recall hearing from him for quite a while, until Mike became a prominent figure in the Andrea Yates story.
18:55I get a call, and it's Mike.
19:00He was unhappy with the story in the Grand Rapids Press.
19:02He thought the story was slanted against him.
19:05He said, come on, Steve, you know me.
19:07We go way back.
19:09It was the only time he ever asked me for anything.
19:11And he said, I would like you to publish my objections to that press coverage.
19:16And so we do our interview.
19:21Mike denied any culpability.
19:22His defense was, we love those kids.
19:27We would never suggest that a mother should kill her children.
19:34And he said they needed Jesus.
19:37If the Yates' would have just listened to him and followed how they should live their lives according to his beliefs, this wouldn't have happened.
19:46Over the years, I had done some research, and the word cult occurred to me.
19:56A billion of your wickedness to a holy God.
19:59Because of his charisma, his performance, skills, and all those things, he could be a cult leader.
20:07I started thinking, how many victims are out there?
20:12How many people are still under his spell?
20:14And then I came across the first survivor's website, and I thought, wow, there's a lot more victims.
20:21I first met Michael Warnicke on campus at Michigan State University.
20:30For about a year and a half, I was very intensely enmeshed with the Warnicke cult.
20:36I fell for what he was preaching, hook, line, and sinker.
20:41But then I realized, no, the message is wrong.
20:45The fruit is bad.
20:46And Andrea Yates drowning her children is like the most symbolic fruit of his ministry you will ever get.
20:54And so I started the website, Michael Warnicke, the ultimate false prophet.
20:58I put that site out there in hopes of rescuing other people involved with the cult.
21:03I had thousands of views.
21:07I got contacted by as many as 40 people.
21:12And so that's how I met David.
21:16Reading similar stories from other survivors and what they went through,
21:20it made me realize that we were manipulated, that we were deceived systematically,
21:28that there was nothing flawed with me.
21:30It was him who was the flawed one.
21:34I believe that Michael Warnicke should stand accountable for it.
21:39And I believe he will on the day of judgment.
21:40I think it's a really good question to ask whether Michael Warnicke is a cult leader
21:53or if this particular belief system is a cult.
21:57People oftentimes assume that when you talk about the word cult, that means that there's a compound.
22:05But that's not necessarily true.
22:07Based off of all of our definitions on how to define a destructive cult,
22:12it's a dedication to a particular person, idea, or thing.
22:17Michael is ultimately someone who does not want people to think independently.
22:26There is a clear pattern of indoctrination.
22:31He's sending people personalized messages, either audio or pamphlets.
22:37Something that Michael does is he really taps in and utilizes and manipulates.
22:42He creates this state of heightened emotionality in his messages for people.
22:48The effects of psychological manipulation and the effects of this type of ideological religious control
22:59can leave someone feeling trapped in a psychological prison.
23:03The impacts of that can be extremely devastating.
23:07An appeals court in Texas has overturned the murder convictions of Andrea Yates
23:21because of false testimony by an expert witness.
23:24A state expert claimed Andrea Yates watched law and order
23:28and may have copied a plot where a mother used postpartum depression
23:32as a defense for drowning her children.
23:34However, it was later proven that no such episode ever existed.
23:41The ruling means Yates is entitled to a new trial.
23:46In June of 2006, I was requested to participate in a jury
23:50for the state of Texas versus Andrea P.A. Yates, and I gasped.
23:55It shocked me, and it scared me.
23:58Everybody in Houston knew about this case, and everybody had an opinion
24:01that I heard many, many times, of course she was crazy.
24:06She killed her children.
24:07With Andrea Yates set to stand trial once again,
24:11will the court affirm her guilt,
24:12or will a new verdict reshape the legal and moral reckoning
24:16of one of the most harrowing cases in recent history?
24:20The first day of trial, and really every subsequent day,
24:23Andrea Yates would come into the courtroom quiet and shy and reserved.
24:27The evidence will show you that she had been contemplating
24:30the death and the killing of these children for approximately two years.
24:36That she knew it was wrong, and that she knew she would be punished,
24:40and that's what she told the police on June 20th of 2001.
24:45There was a vast difference between the first trial and the second trial.
24:49This was a mental illness and a delusion that she was acting.
24:52We thought we needed to do a better job of explaining
24:55what was going on in her head at the time.
24:57In 2001, her illness had gotten so great
25:00that their lives were gone.
25:04She wasn't worried about saving their lives anymore.
25:06She was worrying about saving their souls.
25:09Explain how the delusion got formed.
25:11The entire word of God speaks about the last days,
25:15days of intense, powerful deception and delusion.
25:20And where she got the delusion was from this faith-based relief
25:25that Michael Wernicke was espousing.
25:29I first heard the name Michael Wernicke on the second week of the trial,
25:33when the Wernicke pamphlet in the Perilous Times was entered into evidence.
25:38At this point, I was starting to realize that Yates' religious beliefs
25:42were not necessarily mainstream.
25:44This actually was something that was brought up in the courtroom
25:49to give us some context as to the religious beliefs of Andrea Yates.
25:53Modern Mother Worldly was very, very lazy.
25:56All of her children drove her crazy.
25:58Now, the Bible told her to spank and train them.
26:00So, if the Bible's telling Modern Mother Worldly to discipline her children,
26:05but because she's not, on the day of judgment, she will have no plea.
26:09Modern Mother Worldly gets cast in hell.
26:11Now, what becomes of the children of such a Jezebel?
26:15Because the delusion is still that she's a bad mother,
26:18that the children are flawed, that they're going to hell
26:20unless she sends them to heaven.
26:22This really started to paint a picture for us as to the mind of Andrea Yates.
26:27So, I knew that there was something about this Wernicke
26:30that needed to be paid attention to.
26:34Dr. Resnick, who interviewed Andrea Yates shortly after her arrest,
26:38will take the stand today.
26:44You love your children?
26:48Yes, not in the right way, Hill.
26:52Mrs. Yates had a number of paranoid ideas.
26:56She claims that she and the children would watch cartoons.
27:04The characters would speak directly to her, telling her she was a bad mother.
27:11Mrs. Yates believed that she was marked as evil.
27:16She believed she had 666 tattooed on her head.
27:21She believed that Satan was literally within her and surrounding her
27:29and influencing her during her psychotic period before the killing.
27:36Michael Wernicke lectured about Satan being a very powerful force.
27:42The ravaging power of Satan, who will destroy your mind.
27:50Michael Wernicke is emphasizing how real Satan is
27:55and how these demons and Satan will take over your mind.
28:01Satanic powers of darkness are seeking to war against you.
28:04So, she clearly was strongly influenced by Michael Wernicke.
28:09You need to wake up and to learn how to effectively fight.
28:13His testimony was one of the most powerful.
28:16I've never forgotten what Dr. Wernicke stated.
28:18Andrea Yates' religion was the trellis upon which the ivy of her mental illness grew.
28:26Everything in her psychosis tied back to her religious beliefs.
28:32After the last day of testimony and closing arguments,
28:35we went into the jury room.
28:37We had eight jurors that believed she was not guilty by reason of insanity
28:40and four that claimed she was guilty.
28:42We were arguing kind of back and forth about what she believed and what she didn't believe.
28:47One of the most challenging aspects of this trial
28:49was trying to get into the mind of Andrea Yates.
28:53In order to ascertain whether or not she knew what she was doing was wrong,
28:57we did request a number of items, including the pictures of the kids
29:01and a copy of the Perilous Times, which was the newsletter that we knew was in the Yates' home
29:07when the children were killed.
29:10So, we had been told that this picture, this image that was brought into evidence,
29:15was from the Perilous Times.
29:17But that's all that we saw, right?
29:19And in this limerick that was discussed was really the essence of everything.
29:25But it wasn't.
29:26There was a lot more.
29:28And so this copy of the Perilous Times was brought into the deliberation room.
29:32The eternity of my children is my accountability while they are children,
29:39and I would be sending them to hell if I raised them to think according to the standards of this world.
29:44By the time a child is the age of accountability.
29:47It's too late.
29:48By this time, the thinking of the world that you have taught them takes over.
29:52God is going to hold you accountable.
29:58The Perilous Times is the most relevant media to me in my life.
30:02The highest stakes thing for you is if you are a parent, your responsibility is your kid's salvation.
30:09There's a lot of pressure on parents to make their kids obey, fall in line.
30:15And the price to pay, if you didn't do that, you cause one of your kids to go to hell.
30:23You told me earlier there came a time when you felt you were being a bad mother.
30:28Could you explain that?
30:29Well, they weren't developing right and, you know, academic sense and, you know, righteous sense.
30:41According to Michael's teachings, a child becomes no longer a child.
30:47They become no longer innocent.
30:48If they're not saved before the age of 12, which is the age of accountability, you're going to hell.
30:57And if you had not taken their lives, what did you think would happen to them?
31:03If they were to continue to dumbling.
31:06And where would they end up?
31:08Hell.
31:08I 100% believed all of this.
31:12All of this.
31:13I would be up that night, worried I was going to hell.
31:17How old are you, Moses?
31:19My mom would often express to us that if she found a way that we all died, that would be a blessing.
31:26Because if you die, I mean, you're going to heaven.
31:28You're going to paradise.
31:30What were you trying to accomplish then when you did take your children's lives?
31:37Maybe in their innocent years, God would take them up.
31:42And so when I found out that they died, it wasn't shock at all.
31:48It was, ah, damn it.
31:50They did it.
31:51They did it before us.
31:52And what does this mean for me and my place in heaven?
31:56You mentioned an aphorism from the Bible about a millstone.
32:00Would you say what that is?
32:01And it's better to tie a stone around your neck and throw yourself in this sea than to cause a little one to stumble.
32:12That's what she did.
32:15She was saving her kids.
32:24I don't want to admit this stuff out loud.
32:28I don't.
32:31Jesus does single out one group.
32:53Children.
32:54He says.
32:55It's better to tie a heavy millstone around your neck.
32:59And he'd be drowned in the depth of the sea.
33:02One of these little ones will believe in me to stumble.
33:12In reading the Perilous Times, I was shocked.
33:15And I sat there shocked and I told the jury, hey, everything in her delusion is in this newsletter.
33:22She believed she was an unrighteous mother and this unrighteous mother had produced unrighteous children.
33:28And those unrighteous children were going to burn in hell unless they died before the age of accountability.
33:33That was everything that we needed to hear to basically understand why she did what she did.
33:40But there was one holdout juror who said, we just can't forget the children.
33:51It was an incredibly emotional moment for everyone.
33:54So on the last day of deliberations, we did have a moment of silence for each of the children, two minutes per child, where we reflected and prayed and thought about what the magnitude of what we were doing.
34:09And afterwards, I got up and wrote something on the board.
34:16It is our job, our duty to judge Andrea Pia Yates based on the facts presented to evidence and the law given to us by the court.
34:27Let God judge her after that.
34:34And after that, the last holdout said, I want to vote.
34:43Mr. Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?
34:46Yes, sir.
34:46Will you please pass them to the bed, please?
34:48We, the jury, find the defendant, Andrea Pia Yates, not guilty by reason of insanity, signed Todd Christopher Frank, foreman of the jury.
35:08I thought, wow, the result of not guilty for reason of insanity was quite a relief.
35:13I was super, super grateful.
35:15In many respects, she's a victim in all this because she became ill, were unable to get adequate treatment for her.
35:21She did this horrible, you know, thing that just devastated all of us.
35:25But, you know, I can't, I can't lose out of the fact that, that this wasn't her.
35:30Rusty came across the survivor's website.
35:34This is an email that I got from Rusty saying that he found one of Michael Warnecki's tapes in the tape player at the time of the tragedy.
35:45It was called, What is Truth?
35:47It's some tape I've listened to before many times.
35:51Andrea Yates was listening to Mike all the way up until that tragic day.
35:56You want to submit to his kingdom?
35:59Then you must conform.
36:00You must go with his program.
36:02You must yield.
36:03You can't just do your own little thing or you will pay consequences.
36:07But then Rusty would say things like, Mike had influence, but it was, you know, Andrea was psychotic because of her depression.
36:15I think that he wasn't aware that other people went through some abuse from Michael.
36:21Everyone responds a little differently, you know, I've tried myself to think, well, how would life be different if I'd never met him?
36:30Even outside of the tragedy, even just for me, how would my views have changed or be different?
36:35And I don't know.
36:38I was stunned.
36:39I was in this cult for 12 years.
36:41I was like, Rusty, what are you talking about?
36:43It's horrible.
36:44He ruins people's lives.
36:46This is a news story about Andrea.
36:59A couple has ties to an out-of-state religious group.
37:03Andrea's brother says, to me, it was kind of a cult religion.
37:07They made statements like Catholics were going to hell.
37:11We're back with Karen Kennedy and Brian Kennedy, the mother and brother of Andrea Yates.
37:16What happened to that girl?
37:18Warnakey.
37:20Satan.
37:21A preacher.
37:22Andrea has introduced him through Russell.
37:24You paint him as part of the villain of the piece?
37:26Oh, absolutely.
37:27She's always talking about the devil.
37:28Everybody's going to hell.
37:30Everybody's a sinner.
37:31And he's preached to Andrea?
37:32Yeah, but I mean, he's got some type of a cult following.
37:38What do you think about it being referred to as a cult?
37:40Well, it could be seen that way.
37:41But, I mean, I don't think it is.
37:50It's a fine line.
37:51I'll admit that.
37:58Interesting.
37:59I asked to talk to you because there's a lot of things I just want to, like, ask you.
38:29And get your advice on.
38:30Your story and your family has been such a significant part of my life.
38:35This religion, this ideology, had absolutely fractured our family and continues to affect us today.
38:42Even though we had never had to face the pain that you and your family had to face.
38:49This whole thing is like, what's the six of us and everybody else is going to hell, basically.
38:54Yes, he will be saved like in the days of Noah.
38:57Yeah.
38:57You become, you're a caterpillar, you go into a cocoon, and then eventually become a butterfly, and then you're saved.
39:04That's what I was told to us.
39:05So it was like, how do you get into Michael's favor?
39:08Oh, yeah.
39:09That starts bordering on manipulation, right?
39:11I mean, if there's a carrot and there's a bar and the bar keeps going up, you never get there, so don't.
39:15So, for me, I thought, okay, well, he's not God, so I'm not going to worry too much about his heaven and hell speech.
39:23How did you hear the same teachings that my parents heard, and you took that from it?
39:29I think it's a mistake I made with Andrea is that, you know, I was raised in a tradition of, you know, grace and forgiveness, not a tradition of, you know, fire and brimstone, right?
39:39Black and white.
39:40So, when she heard this heaven and hell stuff, you know, did it make her more concerned than she otherwise would have been about her standing before God?
39:47I think, of course.
39:47How could it not?
39:48Your situation is probably more similar to Andrea's than it is to mine.
39:53This helps me just try to understand my own parents more, and I love my parents.
39:58I want to have a relationship with them.
40:00You know, I see them.
40:01I understand how they were taken advantage of.
40:06Can I tell you something?
40:07I 100% believed what the Warnickies would say in my parents' definition of God until I was 16.
40:15And when I found out what happened with your family, I was jealous.
40:28Of your kids, because they did it.
40:32They, in my definition of heaven, they, yeah.
40:38Oh, well.
40:44And I'm sorry I felt that way, because I've said I don't even, as some of your thoughts blew up.
40:52I'm so sorry.
40:54But, yeah.
41:00I guess I hadn't realized how much some have struggled with it and what the impact of his messaging has been.
41:07But there are a lot of people whose lives took a completely different route than they would have, and who are still suffering from emotional damage from that exposure.
41:16And I had no idea.
41:19Yours is an amazing story, because it started so young.
41:23You know, you were born into that.
41:24It was mostly a conversation we'd have over a beer, I'd hope.
41:30I know, let's have a beer.
41:32Yeah.
41:32That's so cool.
41:34I appreciate you, seriously.
41:35No, likewise, yeah.
41:39The tragedy in our family is related.
41:41I think this has maybe helped expose a bit of a pattern of manipulation with the Warneckis.
41:50They are so exclusive, they're going to heaven, everyone else is going to hell.
41:55I think that, looking back, I miscalculated the effect on Andrea.
42:01Now, I believe her delusions could well have been influenced by her exposure to the Warneckis.
42:07If I had to do it all over, I would not have introduced her to them.
42:26I'll never be able to love as freely as I did before the tragedy.
42:30I'll try, but it's not easy.
42:37The way that I see it, where this tiny blue dot in an enormous universe that's barely a speck,
42:43you know, that's the reality.
42:45That's what we can see.
42:47It's a whole harsh universe.
42:51I hope this isn't it, you know.
43:18Transcription by CastingWords
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