[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn Anchor:] Now on
[Wolf Blitzer Reports:] a Houston mother goes on trial. At stake in this courtroom, her own life.
[Unidentified Male:] The evidence will show that beyond a reasonable doubt she is guilty. Andrea Yates was, without question, one of the most severely ill with postpartum depression.
[Blitzer:] Coming to terms with a cremation horror story.
[Unidentified Male:] It's just so much pain that these people are going through down here.
[Blitzer:] Can you trust that your relatives' remains won't be tampered with? And Canadian skaters get their gold, but who gets the blame for an Olympic controversy? Was he wrongly implicated? I'll speak with the head of the French Figure Skating Federation. Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. We've been following two horrific, gut-wrenching stories all day, and they top our "News Alert." In Houston, a lawyer for Andrea Yates says severe depression drove her to kill her five young children. Opening statements in Yates' trial were made today. She has already pleaded "not guilty" by reason of insanity in the drowning deaths of her children last year. We'll have much more on this in a moment. One-hundred thirty, and counting. That's the number of bodies recovered on the grounds of a crematory in Georgia. Officials say the total may reach 200. The crematory operator, Ray Marsh, is under arrest, charged with 16 counts of theft by fraud. According to investigators, Marsh said the bodies were not cremated because the incinerator was broken. In Tokyo, President Bush is refusing to ease his hard-line stance against the countries he calls the "axis of evil": North Korea, Iran and Iraq. The president says his goal is to settle issues peacefully, but the United States will do what it must do, he says, to defend its interests. His comments came after talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. More deadly violence in the Middle East. A suicide bomber blew himself up in Gaza, killing three Israelis. And in the West Bank, a suicide bomb attack killed an Israeli policeman. The attacks came after Israeli officials said they stopped five Palestinian suicide bombers yesterday. Now back to our lead story: a jury of eight women and four men heard opening statements today in the trial of the Texas mother accused of drowning her five children. At the heart of the proceedings: the state of mind of Andrea Yates. CNN's Rawley Valverde looks at how the prosecution and the defense laid out their case.
[Rawley Valverde, Cnn Correspondent:] Andrea Yates sat emotionless in a packed Houston courtroom, as the prosecution's opening arguments described the chilling details of June 21, 2001.
[Unidentified Male:] She called Noah into the bathroom, and put him in the water with Mary and drowned him. Then carried Mary and put her on the bed with the other three children that she had already drowned.
[Valverde:] In the span of less than an hour, Yates had methodically drowned her five children. Prosecutors hope to prove that Andrea Yates, though she might have been depressed, knew full well what she was doing that day.
[Unidentified Male:] She told him that she wasn't mad at the children, that she killed them because they weren't developing correctly, and she was a bad mother.
[Valverde:] The defense team will focus on Yates' mental state, claiming that she is not guilty by reason of insanity. In their opening argument, the defense said that since the birth of her fourth child, Yates' mental stability had deteriorated rapidly. She was in and out of mental health treatment centers, heavily medicated for depression, and had attempted suicide twice. They plan to call up to the stand a large number of experts, including Dr. Rickels of the Baylor College of Medicine.
[George Parnham, Defense Attorney:] He will tell this jury that, among other things, that in his opinion, she not only did not know on June 20th what she was doing was wrong, but believed it was right. It was the right thing to do.
[Valverde:] The trial is expected to last two to three weeks. Now, Andrea Yates is looking at three possible outcomes, here. She could get life in prison, she could die by lethal injection. Or if she's found not guilty by reason of insanity, she'll be institutionalized. In Houston, I'm Rawley Valverde. Back to you.
[Blitzer:] Thank you very much, Rawley. And many legal experts say the defense could face a difficult job during the Yates trial. What steps will the attorneys on both sides take to prove their cases? Joining us now with some legal analysis is Cynthia Alksne, former federal prosecutor. Cynthia, thanks for joining us. They both make pretty compelling opening statements. What did we learn from their general strategies in these opening states?
[Cynthia Alksne, Fmr. Federal Prosecutor:] Well, the general strategy of the prosecution is to focus on the day before the murder and the day of the murder, and afterwards. That's where it begins. And they will talk about that almost exclusively. On the other hand, the theory and the strategy of the defense is to try to bring up her whole life, and how she came up from being a mother of five to suddenly drowning five children. How did that happen? And specifically, why did they live in a bus, and why was she catatonic, and those types of things. So the focus is global for the defense, and very black and white for the prosecution.
[Blitzer:] What is the burden of proof? What do they have to prove to show that she was not insane? Because by definition, a mother who kills her five little children by definition, that's not a normal person.
[Alksne:] Right. This is an interesting point you bring up. After President Reagan was shot, insanity laws changed completely in this country. They went from the prosecution having the burden of proving insanity or sanity, to the defense. So the prosecution will have to prove that she murdered her children. That will be relatively easy. She has confessed to that. There isn't any question about that. Then the burden shifts to the defense. The defense actually has to prove that she was insane at the time. That s he did not because of a severe mental disease or defect, she was unable to understand what she was doing. She didn't know what she was doing was wrong. That's the defense's burden of proof. And that's a very important distinction, here.
[Blitzer:] Given the fact that she has a long history of psychiatric problems she was taking all sorts of medical prescriptions to deal with the postpartum psychosis, and the other mental illnesses that she had how difficult of a burden is that for the defense?
[Alksne:] It's a very difficult burden, because there's a difference from being mentally ill, severely mentally ill and not knowing the difference between right and wrong. Let's remember, Jeffrey Dahmer was legally sane. So, being legally responsible is very different from, "that woman is nuts," which, of course, we know. We all know instinctively, any mother who drowns her five children is nuts. But that's not the same as whether or not you are criminally responsible or not.
[Blitzer:] So if the prosecution can show that immediately after she committed these murders, she knew she did something really, really bad, in talking to her husband or anyone else would that be enough to convince a jury, presumably, that she was sane enough to go ahead and be convicted of murder?
[Alksne:] Right. That's what the prosecution is doing. Here's, for example, what they have. She planned the murders the night before, according to her statement. When you're planning, then you have some knowledge about right and wrong. She decided to wait until after her husband had left, because she knew he would stop her. That's planning, knowing the difference between right and wrong. She committed the murders during a window of time after her husband left and before her mother-in-law arrived, because she didn't want her mother to catch her in the act. That's understanding the difference between right and wrong. She called the police that's an indication she knew the difference between right and wrong. She told the piece she needed to be punished, and that she knew hat she had done was a sin. All those things are going to be her statements that came out of her mouth, and they all reflect that she had some understanding of right and wrong. Now, the question will be, how do you balance that? And this is the jury's job between what is clearly a long and severe history, including, you know, multiple suicide attempts, being catatonic, being institutionalized in the state of Texas, all kinds of things. And that's the jury's job to do.
[Blitzer:] Were you surprised that there was no plea agreement in advance of the trial?
[Alksne:] I was surprised there's no plea agreement. And I'm not convinced that there won't be one, as the case goes on.
[Blitzer:] OK. Cynthia Alksne, thanks for your legal analysis.
[Alksne:] You're welcome.
[Blitzer:] Turning now to a case in Georgia that Governor Ray Barnes calls "shocking." At least 130 bodies have been found on the grounds of the Tri-State Crematory in the small northeast town of Noble. Relatives are not only shocked, but they're outraged. CNN's Holly Firfer is covering developments in Noble. She joins us now live Holly.
[Holly Firfer, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, Wolf, authorities say that the process of removing bodies from a 16-acre area of grounds in the Tri-State Crematory is a slow one. Hundreds of bodies have been found and the medical examiner says that number is growing by the hour.
[Dr. Kris Sperry, Georgia Medical Examiner:] We have opened one of the vaults, and found that it was filled with human remains. The other four had been opened now, for initial evaluation. And all of those are filled with human remains.
[Firfer:] Identifying the hundreds of remains is no easy task. Some bodies were already mummified, making it difficult to gather DNA. Authorities are taking samples from family members to try to make a match. Over 400 people are involved in the operation, from mapping the site, excavating and testing remains, and counselling family members.
[Rock Thomas, Relative Of Deceased:] I was just shocked that anyone could walk around and conduct business, and go home to what we now know are hundreds and hundreds of bodies scattered out and behind their place.
[Firfer:] Twenty-eight-year-old Ray Brent Marsh, the director of the family-run Tri-State Crematory, sits in a Walker County detention center as the charges pile up: one count of theft by deception for every body identified. Marsh claims the incinerator did not work. But for how long, no one knows. The county medical examiner said some of the remains could be 20 years old, expanding the investigation.
[Blitzer:] Holly, what kind of reputation did this crematory have before we learned of this horrific evidence?
[Firfer:] It had a very good reputation. Nobody suspected anything. People had been on the property up to about a year and a half ago. Didn't see anything. And funeral homes certainly were using them quite a bit, so they had a fine reputation. And it's quite shocking.
[Blitzer:] Holly Firfer, quite shocking indeed. Thank you very much. And, devastated, traumatized: those are just two of the words being used to describe the reaction of families who believed relatives had been cremated at the Tri-State Crematory. Here's what some of them had to say.
[Unidentified Male:] Well, no doubt about it that he is guilty. Knowing that knowing that something was going on in his property. I couldn't tell you. There's not a thing that you could do to I would not know. I couldn't tell you. There's just so much pain that these people are going through down here. Whatever they do to him, it won't be enough.
[Unidentified Female:] How can anybody throw bodies out in the woods and leave them? This man is pure evil, to take loved ones, family members, and discard them like an old beer can? It's somebody that has no heart, no feeling.
[Blitzer:] Joining us now with some insight into this incredible, horrible case, Robert Vandenbergh, the president of the National Funeral Directors Association. Thank you, Mr. Vandenbergh, for joining us. How unusual, in your experience around the country, is this case in Georgia?
[Robert Vandenbergh, National Funeral Directors Association:] This is an awful aberration. It has never, to my knowledge, happened before. And hopefully, of course, will never happen again.
[Blitzer:] Has anything like this ever happened, even in a smaller scale, as far as your history as far as you know?
[Vandenbergh:] No. The only time that I've heard of any problem that kind of even gets close to this was a situation out in California, where cremated remains were not being returned to families, but were being placed in a 55-gallon drum type situation, and were not being handled properly. But that is probably the closest that I've ever heard of, anything like this.
[Blitzer:] Well, as you know, our viewers out there, a lot of people, are going to be wondering what happens to the remains of their loved ones when they send them to a crematory. What should people look for when they go to a funeral home, for example, to deal with this most painful kind of decision?
[Vandenbergh:] Well, of course, when you're going to a funeral home, it's like when you're going to anything that you are entrusting something. And with someone's loved one, of course, it is a very sacred trust. But it's much like selecting a physician or an attorney. You need to investigate it, obviously. You need to ask people that you trust people like your clergy, your other family members, friends who have used funeral homes in your area. And ask them for recommendations. And then also go and talk to these people yourself. Today it is not uncommon to be virtually interviewed by a family. Just the other day I was interviewed by a man whose wife was dying with cancer. And we were recommended to him to help him through this. But he wanted to come and meet with us first, to see if, in fact, we were the people that he wanted to trust. And that is something that I advise to all the families who are out there, who are possibly facing this type of situation in the future.
[Blitzer:] Given that trust situation that you described, how much damage do you believe has been done to that trust level because of what we're now seeing happened in Georgia?
[Vandenbergh:] I'm sure that it is bringing questions to people's finds. However, I have to assure them that in my history, and with our members and the people we represent and the funeral directors across this country, something like this doesn't happen. This was a very strange situation. And in talking with the people down there that have known these people for years, as your reporter said moments ago, these people had a very good reputation. They were very well thought of, very well trusted. So it's strange. No one knows exactly what this is. But I'm sure people will be asking a few more questions about this, and rightfully so.
[Blitzer:] Robert Vandenbergh, thanks so much for joining us and giving us some perspective on this most horrific case. Thank you very much.
[Vandenbergh:] Thank you.
[Blitzer:] And the skating scandal that made Olympic history is putting one man on the defensive. Coming up: my interview with the president of the French figure skating federation. Was he wrongly accused? The new and improved airport security force faces its first test in Los Angeles. Did the changes make a difference? And how much influence does Vice President Dick Cheney really have in running the country? Still ahead: I'll speak with a man in a position to know. Stay with us.