Why Andrea Yates' ex-husband still visits her 25 years after she drowned their 5 children

Andrea Yates' ex-husband still visits her 25 years after she drowned their five children.

Yates' story is currently being revisited in an HBO documentary called The Cult Behind the Killer: The Andrea Yates Story which was released on January 6.

On June 20 2001 stay-at-home mom Andrea dialled 911 and confessed to police that she had drowned her five children in the bath in her home in Clear Lake, a suburb of Houston, Texas.

The tragedy shocked the US, and Yates was arrested shortly after confessing to the killings of Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary.

Yates would go on to be convicted of capital murder in March 2002, and was given a sentence of life in prison, but the verdict was later overturned, and she was found not guilty due to insanity.

Lawyers representing Yates said that she suffered from postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis, and that she had been taken off the strong antipsychotic drug Haldol shortly before the killings.

Now, Yates lives at a mental health facility in Kerrville, Texas, where her ex-husband Rusty, who divorced her in 2005, still visits her.

Rusty Yates in 2002 (Pam Francis/Getty Images)

Rusty, 61, spoke to PEOPLE about why he still visits Yates some 25 years after the deaths of their children.

“I try once a year to visit in person and we text back and forth some and talk on the phone some,” he said.

“Andrea and I always got along. That's a time of our life that we both cherish and she's the only person I can talk to about it.

"She and I are the only two who can get together and reminisce about what it was like to enjoy those years together.”

Rusty went on to candidly say that he still thinks his ex-wife is 'loving and devoted', saying: “I mean, it's nice to reminisce. Honestly, I never imagined anything like this could happen, especially with her, especially how caring and loving and devoted Andrea is."

Andrea in court in 2006 (Brett Coomer-Pool/Getty Images)

He added: "I don't hold it against her, but even just communicating with her is a reminder of that. So, we try to focus on the better times, but it's a little hard to, even in our conversations, avoid that most significant tragedy.

"And I think that for her, it loomed so large that it's really kept her from growing, from really living and trying to enjoy the balance of her years. It's just too big. She can't get past it.”

Rusty shared that Yates still spends a lot of time looking through old photos of their family, saying that 'her mind is still sort of stuck there'.

He said: "She's kind of stuck because she has this extremely hard time forgiving herself. It's like, how do you take something that significant and get past it in life?"