Houston ? On the day she drowned her five children last summer, Andrea Yates was incapable of determining her actions were wrong, a psychiatrist hired by the defense testified Wednesday at Yates’ murder trial.

“It’s not like she could come up with a list of options,” Dr. Lucy Puryear said. “She was psychotic at the time and driven by delusions that they were going to hell and she must save them.”

In a videotaped interview played Wednesday in court, Yates discussed with the psychiatrist how she tried to block thoughts of harming 7-year-old Noah, her oldest child. She also talked about feeling overwhelmed as her family continued to grow while living inside a converted bus and how she attempted suicide in 1999 hoping it would prevent her from harming her children.

“There’s an extreme amount of shame and guilt about having thoughts about harming your children,” Puryear said, explaining why women who have such thoughts keep silent. “They don’t want anyone to know.”

Prosecutor Joe Owmby questioned Puryear about differences in her testimony and that of another defense expert, Dr. Phillip Resnick, who last week testified that Yates knew drowning her children was illegal, but thought in her psychotic delusional mind that it was the right decision to keep her children from eternal damnation.

Puryear told Owmby that she and Resnick just have differing opinions.

The defense rested its case Wednesday. The prosecution can begin calling rebuttal witnesses today.

Yates, 37, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to capital murder charges that could bring the death penalty.

Puryear testified that Yates experienced voices and delusions after the birth of her first son, but said she told no one because she feared Satan would hear her and harm her children. She also worried some of her doctors might be Satan or be influenced by Satan, the psychiatrist said.

“She believed that if she said them out loud, Satan would hear them and make them happen,” Puryear said.

Yates did not discuss her fears about Satan in the videotaped interview conducted five weeks after the drownings. She disclosed the thoughts in other interviews after receiving psychiatric treatment.

When she was asked to recall her thoughts and emotions the day of the drownings, Yates cried, rocked in her chair, paused and eventually said: “I don’t remember.”

Defense lawyers are trying to show Yates’ delusional psychotic mind kept her from knowing right from wrong at the time of the killings. Puryear told jurors Yates suffers from a psychotic disorder, most likely schizophrenia, and major depression that worsened in the postpartum period.

Yates wore an orange jail jumpsuit during the taped interview with Puryear. Her long black hair was stringy, with strands clumping together and hanging down her shoulder as she talked about how she was a “bad mother.”

But in another videotape made Feb. 4, Yates appears bright-eyed, well kept and with a fuller face. She said on the tape that she had been eating and sleeping well, reading her Bible and attending support groups.

“On February 4, I believe she was adequately treated,” Puryear said.