Darlie Routier
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Darlie Routier (b. January 4, 1970) is a woman sitting on Texas death row for the murder of her two children, Damon and Devon. Her two sons were stabbed to death in the family's Rowlett, Texas home on June 6, 1996. Routier also sustained several wounds, which prosecutors claimed were self-inflicted, related to the incident.
Contents |
[edit] Motives
Though a motive is unclear, prosecutors claimed that Routier murdered her two sons because she was angered by her family's financial difficulties. Her husband, Darin, a small business owner, and the family enjoyed a relatively high annual income. However, most of the money that he earned was quickly spent - later termed as 'living large' by Darin Routier on June the 14th of 1996 to Joe Munoz of Channel 5. The family lived in a lavish Georgian home in an affluent neighborhood, drove a Jaguar, and owned a $20,000 boat. Prosecutors argue that Routier feared that, with little money left in the bank, her affluent lifestyle was threatened, and killed her children to rid herself of a financial burden. This claim has been disputed by her supporters and family. By the time of the murders, the money had run out...the Jaguar wasn't running, the boat they owned wasn't running, their income was ninety thousand dollars less than the year before, they owed up to ten thousand in back taxes, twelve thousand in credit card debt, were two months behind on their mortgage, and the couple had just been denied a five thousand dollar loan from their bank. At the time of the murder, an insurance policy for five thousand dollars for each of their sons was laying in plain view of the responding officers.
[edit] The Murder
Routier claimed that an intruder (or intruders) killed her children, but police became suspicious when numerous inconsistencies in stated and stipulated facts came to light. For example, Routier's children were killed with deep, penetrating knife wounds to their torsos, while Routier's superficial wounds were slashes to her neck and arm; The police wondered why an intruder would attack the victims in such different ways, leaving the one witness who could identify him alive. Also, Routier claimed that at one point, she ran barefoot through her kitchen to call for help. The floor of the kitchen was covered with broken glass, but Routier had no injuries to her feet. Also, her bloody footprints were found UNDER the broken glass, indicating she walked through there first then the glass was deposited on the floor. She also claimed to chase the intruder to the utility room, but there were no bloody footprints leading to that area. In addition, traces of the screen that the intruder supposedly cut were found on one of the knives in Routier's kitchen that had been placed back in the butcher block. The sink in the kitchen had been cleaned up but blood was found down the front of the cabinets directly under the sink, so police suspected that she inflicted the wounds upon herself over the sink, then washed the blood down. Areas of blood around the sink had been wiped away, as revealed by a luminol test. Her claim for defensive wounds was the bruising on her arms, however at trial after looking at photos taken four days after the murder took place, a prosecution expert, her own e.r doctor, the nurses on staff in the ICU and the medical examiner stated the bruising looked to be only a day or two old at most, indicating according to prosecutors that the bruises were self-inflicted days after the murder.
There were other suspicious details:
- Officers at the scene, paramedics, nurses, doctors and neighbors were all struck by the fact that Routier never asked how the boys were or inquired whether they were alive or not.
- First responder Officer David Waddell asked Routier repeatedly to apply pressure to her son Damon's back and to tend to him and was ignored each time. She continued to apply pressure to her own neck wounds however.
- Routier made such a point of telling the 9-1-1 operator that she had picked up the murder weapon (thus removing any prints) that many were immediately suspicious.This was after the 911 operator told her not to touch anything,
- The surgeon who attended her referred to her supposed attack wounds as 'superficial'.
- Spots of blood found on her clothing demonstrated she had, at the very least, been very close to her sons while they were stabbed. The blood from both sons was deposited in a projected bloodstain pattern and on the back and shoulder of her nightdress indicating blood castoff from the weapon.
- Routier told her ex-maid that she wasn't bothered about the cost of the funeral as she could claim $10,000 funeral insurance.
- Routier attempted suicide two months before killing her sons.
- In the 911 call, she stated she was 'fighting' the intruder, however later at trial this was heavily disputed by the defense team who said she stated she was 'frightening'. Prosecutors stated this was said to explain the lack of blood on the sofa and surrounding areas where she was supposedly stabbed.
Routier described the attacker as being a man of medium height, dressed entirely in black with a t-shirt and baseball cap. However, she later claimed to suffer from traumatic amnesia due to the event, and her account was of little use.
The public was also horrified by a video that had Routier and other family members holding a "birthday party" at the graves of the murdered children. The grave had been under hidden police surveillance in the hopes that Routier would break down or otherwise make a confession near the graveside. At the 'party', Routier was shown acting very happy and even spraying silly string on her sons' graves. Four days later, she was charged with the murder of her children. When the case was tried in court, the jury was shown the so-called "silly string tape," in which Routier is laughing and shooting silly string at the graves of her sons in a "birthday celebration". Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that prior to the silly string incident, the immediate family had held a moving memorial at the graves. She was tried and convicted of murdering one of her two sons, and sentenced to death. Prosecutors did not try Routier for the death of the second son, holding his murder in reserve in case of Routier's acquittal on the first murder trial.
[edit] Controversy
There is still some dispute over whether Routier actually committed the crime, and her family has organized a group of followers that feel she should be set free. She is often the focus of anti-capital punishment groups, who use her case to argue that the system is rigged and unfair, especially when trials are conducted based upon circumstantial evidence alone. However they fail to remind the public that, according to her defenders, the knife used in the death of Devon was not the same one used on Damon and Darlie and none of his blood was found on the weapon used. According to the defense, this second knife was never recovered. The experts for the prosecution, including the medical examiner for the county, refute this claim by the defense saying that the knife presented could have easily made the wounds to all three involved and did not eliminate this knife as the murder weapon for either boys.
