Darlie Routier

Darlie Routier
Born	January 4, 1970(1970-01-04) Altoona, Pennsylvania
Conviction(s)	Capital murder, 1 count
Penalty	Death by lethal injection
Status	On death row

Darlie Lynn Routier (born January 4, 1970) is an American woman from Rowlett, Texas, who was convicted of murdering her young son Damon, and is currently on death row awaiting execution by lethal injection. Two of her three children, Damon and Devon, were stabbed to death in the family's home on June 6, 1996. Routier was accused by police and local media of killing both children but was prosecuted for and convicted only of Damon's death. Routier also sustained knife wounds, which prosecutors claimed were self-inflicted.

Motives

Prosecutors contend that Routier murdered her sons because of the financial difficulties her family faced. She was a full-time homemaker while her husband, Darin, a small business owner, earned a relatively high annual income. However, most of the money he earned was quickly spent. This was later referred to as "living large" by Darin Routier in an interview with Joe Munoz of KXAS Channel 5 on June 14, 1996. The family, from a lower-to-middle class background, lived in a typical two-story tract-style home in a middle class neighborhood, drove a mid-sized SUV and a used Jaguar, typically inoperable, and owned a used $24,000 boat.^[1] Prosecutors argued that Darlie, described as a pampered and materialistic woman, with substantial debt, plummeting credit ratings, and little money in the bank, feared that her middle class lifestyle was about to end and killed two of her children to rid herself of a financial burden.^{[citation needed]} This claim has been disputed by her family and other supporters. By the time of the murders, the money had practically run out, the Jaguar and the boat weren't running, and their income had fallen by $90,000 from the year before.^{[citation needed]} In addition, they allegedly owed up to $10,000 in back taxes and $12,000 in credit card debt, were two months behind on their mortgage payments, and had just been denied a $5,000 loan by their bank.^{[citation needed]}

Murder

Routier claimed that an intruder killed her children, but police became suspicious when they found inconsistencies between some of Darlie's report and crime scene evidence. Routier's children were killed with deep, penetrating knife wounds to their torsos, while the slashes to Routier's neck and arm were more superficial.

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. 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 her wounds 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 June 10, Dr. Alex Santos, the trauma surgeon who operated on Darlie, stated that the bruising looked to be only a day or two old at most, which would mean it occurred in the hospital. When questioned by the defense, however, Dr. Santos extended the timeline and said the bruising might have been inflicted up to four days before the photo was taken, that is, on June 6.^[2]

There were other 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.^[3]
• First responder Officer David Waddell asked Routier repeatedly to apply pressure to her son Damon's back and to tend to him, but received no response from her. However, she continued to apply pressure to her own neck wounds.
• After the operator told Darlie not to touch anything, Routier told the 9-1-1 operator that she had already picked up the murder weapon (thus removing any prints), which made police suspicious.
• Darlie told police that she believed the killer escaped through the garage. Investigators found a slit window screen in the garage, presumably the intruder's point of exit. However, upon closer inspection they found that the sliced screen showed no signs of being forced in or out (to allow to a body to pass through its slit netting). The screen was also easily removable; an intruder could've easily knocked the screen off its setting without having to cut his way out. Additionally, the ground beneath the window contained a wet mulch that was found undisturbed, making it impossible for someone to have exited through the window without leaving noticeable footprints.
• The killer's "trail of blood" led into the garage and stopped cold at the window that Darlie told police the killer escaped through. The blood trail did not extend beyond the interior of the house; not a single drop of blood was found anywhere on the property's exterior. All of the blood found at the crime scene was contained inside the house.
• Darlie's claim that the killer dropped the knife as she chased him through the kitchen was seen by investigators as wildly inconsistent. They questioned why an intruder would drop the murder weapon in plain sight, thus giving Darlie, the pursuer, a weapon with which to fight back.
• Darlie's purse and several pieces of her jewelry were found on the kitchen counter, untouched. This cast suspicion on the idea that the family was the victim of a home invasion.
• The surgeon who attended her referred to her wounds as "superficial". They were described by prosecutors as "hesitation wounds". While the boys were savagely and forcefully attacked, the "hesitation wounds" found on Darlie were slowly and deliberately inflicted.
• 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 on the back and shoulder of her nightdress, indicating blood cast off from the weapon.
• Blood found under a vacuum cleaner and blood spots on the cleaner itself, indicating that the vacuum cleaner had been placed there after the crime was committed.^[3]
• Routier told her ex-maid that she wasn't worried about the cost of the funeral as she could claim $10,000 in funeral insurance.^{[citation needed]}
• Routier was considering suicide two months before killing her sons.^[4]
• The very evening before the murder, Routier squabbled with her husband and asked him for a separation, as he admitted.^[5] The couple's relationship was in trouble, with public fights and rumors of mutual cheating by both partners.^[6]
• In the 911 call, she stated she was 'fighting' the intruder; however, at trial this was heavily disputed by the defense team, who said she stated she was 'frightening.'^{[citation needed]} Prosecutors stated this was said to explain the lack of blood on the sofa and surrounding areas where she was supposedly stabbed.
• Another steadfast argument by the police was that the slash on Darlie's throat was at a downward 45-degree angle, consistent with having made the slash herself.

Routier described the alleged attacker as 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.

Sentence

Mountain View Unit, where Routier is held

Routier was ultimately 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.^{[citation needed]}

As of 2010, Routier is incarcerated in the Mountain View Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ); she has the TDCJ ID 00999220.^[7]

Routier's defense attorney, Douglas Mulder, was the district attorney responsible for the wrongful death penalty conviction of Randall Adams in 1977. Adams' case is profiled in the documentary The Thin Blue Line.

Scandal

Newscasts appeared of Routier and other family members holding a "birthday party" at the children's grave to celebrate posthumously Devon's 7th birthday, just eight days after the murder. The grave had been under hidden police surveillance to obtain evidence against Routier, in the event that she were to break down or otherwise make a confession near the graveside. Darlie arrived with a local television crew she had invited, essentially rendering moot any need for police surveillance. At the birthday party, Routier was shown laughing and spraying silly string on her sons' grave. Darlie yelled out to her dead children that she loved them, all the while grinning and chewing bubble gum. Four days later, she was charged with their murder. When the case was tried in court, the jury was shown the so-called "silly string videotape".

Innocence claims

Routier's family created and maintains a website that proclaims her innocence. The claims are based on mistakes her defense attorneys allege were made during her trial and in the investigation of the murders, especially at the crime scene. Some have argued that Routier should be given a new trial, often alleging that her original trial was based heavily on circumstantial evidence and therefore unfair.

The story of Darlie Routier was covered on a 2004 episode of the CourtTV series The Investigators titled "Mother on Death Row: Darlie Routier". The episode ends with a screen noting that "In May 2003, despite forensics proving that the disputed finger print is not from the Routiers or investigators, Texas upheld Darlie Routier's conviction. The defense is appealing to federal courts."^[8]

On September 10, 2008, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected, without comment, her attorney's motion for a second chance to make their case for more DNA testing.^[9]

References

1. ^ Davis, Don. Hush Little Babies. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1997, pages 120, 123, and 125 - 126.
2. ^ Davis, Don. Hush Little Babies. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1997, pages 201 and 202.
3. ^ ^{a b} http://www.mysterycrimescene.com/darlie-routier.html
4. ^ Davis, Don. Hush Little Babies. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1997, page 129.
5. ^ http://www.fordarlieroutier.org/Evidence/WritAffidavits/darin.html
6. ^ http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/women/routier/1.html
7. ^ "Routier, Darlie Lynn." Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved on January 5, 2010.
8. ^ The Investigators, season 4 episode 10, Mother on Death Row: Darlie Routier
9. ^ "Attorneys denied further DNA testing for convicted child killer Darlie Routier>". http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/091008dnmetroutiercase.626acd12.html. 

External links

	Dallas-Fort Worth portal
	Biography portal
	Crime portal

• Crime Library article on Darlie Routier
• Darlie's profile on Texas Death Row

Persondata
Name	Routier, Darlie
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	January 4, 1970
Place of birth	Altoona, Pennsylvania
Date of death
Place of death