5 Murdered Children - not a crime

Five years ago a mother, Andrea Yates, drowned her five children one by one in the bathtub. The 7 year old was the last to go and he struggled like hell. Yates was found guilty of murder. Then the verdict was overturned. The retrial found her not guilty by reason of insanity. Her lawyers argued that she thought she was battling Satan and that her children would escape his clutches if she killed them. Or something like that.

I am not 100% certain how I feel about this. Yates is clearly nuts, to put it crudely. But to deliberately murder five children? Anybody's children? And to have their father in the courtroom smiling when she is found 'not guilty'?

By now it should be clear that I sometimes read National Review Online mainly for comic relief (and Victor Davis Hanson). Yet Kathryn Jean Lopez has written an article on these murders that I found myself basically agreeing with. Here is one of her concluding paragraphs, ending on a sarcastic note:

We’re told that Andrea and Rusty [Yates] are “happy” about the
verdict. It’s been five years since their five kids were murdered. They’ve moved
on. Perhaps we should move on too? [her response, btw, is: Are you crazy?!!!]

I suppose it is simply my childhood socialization as a Christian that convinces me something truly evil occured. Or at least a crime. With a culpable party.