Over in the US is this case still in the media? I had never heard of it here in the UK until recently. After reading crime library I thought her to be guilty. I then watched the Leeza show on justicefordarlie.com and was even more convinced. Then I saw the page of Barbara Davis who was against Darlie on the Leeza show change her mind after seeing new evidence. I do think ths new evidence must be worth a new trial for a well know author to publically admit she was wrong and offer a public apology, then endorse a site petitioning for justice for Darlie.

There is no such thing as 100% evidence. There have recently been cases in the Uk of mothers killing their children, there was 100% evidence to support this until new evidence came to light to clear the mothers, the children died from cot death. No such thing as 100% evidence.

Life inprisionment should be the new measure.

I am confused as to why Darin Routier would not cooperate with Brian Pardo, If he failed his polygraph test what were the questions asked? Why dont we know this information?

This case haunts me and most of all confuses me. What do you make of it?

She is still in prison, but it's not so much in the media anymore. I'll be posting more about her when I move the old posts here.
Dee

Darlie is still on death row but there has been some headway in her case this year.

All I know on this case is that on myspace, I have a friend Andrea who was fighting for Darlie's case and now she is in prison herself. I don't have the details yet on why as soon I know honest facts I will let everyone know. I wrote Andrea and she hopefully will write back this week sometime.

i do know here case and knows she is innocent.
i hope there will be soon justice for here!!
it's time for darley to go home.

June 4


TEXAS:

In Routier case, time doesn't heal the wounds----Rowlett: A decade later,
officers reflect on killing of sons

Every so often, Brownie Sherrill will see a car creep down the street, its
occupants' eyes fixed on a prominent two-story house at a bend on Eagle
Drive.

By now, he's used to it. For a decade, he and his neighbors have put up
with local people and others staring at the site of one of Rowlett's most
brutal crimes.

About 2:30 a.m. June 6, 1996, Rowlett police received a 911 call from
Darlie Routier saying someone had broken into her home and attacked her
sons Damon, 5, and Devon, 6.

Police and paramedics arrived minutes later.

"There was so much blood," said Police Chief Matt Walling, then a sergeant
and the 2nd officer on the scene. "When I entered the front door, there
was a stream of blood going back to the living room, and that was from
where she had walked around the house bleeding. The 2 boys were in the
living room, and there were large pools of blood accumulated around where
they were."

Chief Walling said Ms. Routier stood in the living room while husband
Darin, 28, tried to perform CPR on one of the boys. The chief and another
officer made sure no intruder was around, then let paramedics in to treat
the children and Ms. Routier, who had cut and stab wounds on her neck and
upper body.

TV news crews arrived within hours, and the quiet neighborhood was soon
overrun by reporters, investigators and onlookers. Police would soon
conclude what some considered unthinkable: that the 26-year-old suburban
mother had stabbed 2 of her 3 children to death and then turned the knife
on herself.

To this day, Ms. Routier, her family and attorneys insist she is innocent.

Her arrest 2 weeks after the killings brought neighbors shock - and
relief.

"At that time, we didn't know whether there was some kind of killer
running around," Mr. Sherrill said.

8 months later, a Kerr County jury sentenced Ms. Routier to death after
convicting her of capital murder in Damon's slaying.

One of her appellate attorneys, Stephen Cooper, said last week that
neither his client nor her family wanted to discuss an incident that was
10 years old.

Ms. Routier did not respond to an interview request sent to the Lew
Sterrett Justice Center in Dallas, where she has been while several
motions seeking to test physical evidence await rulings in state district
court.

Case on appeal

Meanwhile, an appeal filed in November is pending in federal court in San
Antonio, though defense attorneys are seeking to delay that proceeding as
a state district judge decides whether additional DNA testing should be
conducted on several pieces of evidence.

Among the arguments in her appeal: that her defense has new evidence to
rebut some of what was presented at trial; that the prosecution used
testimony that was unfair and prejudicial; and that Ms. Routier had poor
legal representation that ignored evidence and failed to look at her
husband as a suspect.

Mr. Cooper said that Mr. Routier has since moved to Lubbock and that the
couple remains married. Mr. Routier's parents received custody of their
youngest son, Drake, who was an infant at the time of the killings.

Mr. Routier, now 38 and a professional photographer, did not return phone
calls. Ms. Routier's mother, Darlie Kee, said in a voice-mail message that
she didn't want to discuss the case.

"It's very painful and private to all of us," the message said. "And it's
not about sparring with the Rowlett police or a handful of them about all
the things they put out there that are wrong about my daughter. So I just
hope people will remember us in prayer, 'cause it's been 10 years, and it
seems just like yesterday."

Family members still visit the dual headstone at Rest Haven Cemetery in
Rockwall, cemetery superintendent Ronnie Burns said. On Friday, fresh
white carnations sat in a metal vase attached to the headstone, and small
American flags jutted from the ground beside the graves.

Though thoughts of the slayings have faded in the Rowlett neighborhood as
people have moved away, memories are vivid for the officers who worked the
case.

Chief Walling, then the patrol supervisor on the deep night shift, teared
up as he spoke of the toll the case still takes on the officers.

"The only way to describe it is, I feel like a piece of my heart is not
there anymore," he said. "I don't think about it every day, but when
something comes up and points to it, I just feel that emptiness inside.
And I blame Darlie Routier for that."

Lt. David Nabors, who supervised evidence collection at the Routier home
after the slayings, is often invited to speak about the case to law
enforcement agencies and others.

"I've probably talked about this case 20 times - to colleges, hospitals,
CPS," said Lt. Nabors, now the criminal investigations division commander.
"Probably in the last 2 years, I can go through it, and it doesn't bother
me. I used to get extremely irritated and short-tempered the day before,
that whole day, until I got up on stage and talked about it."

'You have nightmares'

It was much worse immediately after the crime.

"You have nightmares," Lt. Nabors said. "I remember the 1st night when I
went home. Power Rangers were big then, and Devon was wearing Power
Rangers briefs. My child wore the same kind of stuff. The 1st thing I did
when I got home 30 hours later was to go in there and wake up my son and
hug him."

Though the officers carried the weight of two dead children on their
hearts, they had a job to do.

"You'd see guys with photocopies of the pictures of the two little boys
sitting next to their desk," said Lt. Dean Poos, who was and remains the
department's public information officer and a police dispatch commander.
"The focus was on doing right for those two dead kids."

Over the years, Web sites, books and letters have taken the department to
task for quickly focusing on Ms. Routier. Even today, Lt. Nabors said,
officers receive threats and criticism.

"This is the worst-case scenario," Lt. Poos said. "I was sitting here as
PIO [public information officer] saying, 'Dear God, let it be an intruder.
Tell us we're wrong here, because people aren't going to want to believe
that a mother's going to hack up her kids.'"

But some moms do kill. In recent years, they have included Dena Schlosser
and Lisa Diaz in Plano, Andrea Yates in the Houston area and Deanna Laney
in East Texas. And in 1994, there was Susan Smith, the mother who put her
two children in her car and let it roll into a South Carolina lake.

Lt. Nabors said investigators didn't set out to trap Ms. Routier - the
evidence and holes in her frequently changing story did that.

"We were careful about getting statements from her each time," he said.
"We'd throw her a bone and tell a little bit about what we know, and the
story changed to meet that physical evidence."

Once investigators began suspecting Ms. Routier, they saw how she reacted
to different situations.

"She got released from the hospital that Saturday, and when she came by
[the police station], she was laughing and joking," Lt. Nabors said. "At
this point, I already knew she did it. So I got a little graphic
describing the boys to see what kind of response I could get out of her.
She said, 'I know this must be hard on y'all.' She never shed a tear. At
all."

Lt. Nabors pointed to: evidence of a cleanup around the kitchen sink,
though Ms. Routier denied cleaning up; analysis indicating a knife from
the home was used to cut a window screen; and a lack of evidence to
corroborate Ms. Routier's account that an intruder escaped from the back
of the home.

Ms. Routier's appeal will dispute some of the evidence, saying that
analysis of a bloody fingerprint on a glass table showed it was probably
from someone not in the family. Her defense also will question the theory
that she staged the crime scene, saying she wouldn't have had time to do
so much.

Lt. Nabors said too much evidence points in Ms. Routier's direction. The
man who said the bloody fingerprint was from an unidentified adult, rather
than a public safety official or family member, is a forensic
anthropologist and not a crime-scene expert, he said. Blood drops in the
home weren't consistent with Ms. Routier's story. Bloody footprints showed
her walking - not running, as she told investigators - around the house.

And, he said, an intruder would have set off a motion-detector light in
the back yard - a light that Chief Walling told him wasn't on when he was
doing his initial search.

One question Chief Walling hasn't heard answered is why Ms. Routier would
kill her children.

"The only person that can answer that is her," he said. "I would like for
her to own up and give us that answer."

**

Chronology of the 2 boys' murder case

June 6, 1996: Routier brothers Damon, 5, and Devon, 6, are found stabbed
to death in the family's Rowlett home. Darlie Routier, 26, has cut and
stab wounds on her neck and upper body. Husband Darin Routier, 28, and son
Drake, 8 months, are unharmed.

June 18, 1996: Ms. Routier is arrested on capital murder charges.

February 1997: After a change of venue, jurors in Kerrville convict Ms.
Routier of capital murder and sentence her to death for killing Damon. Mr.
Routier's parents are given custody of Drake.

March 6, 1997: Defense attorneys file a motion for a new trial.

June 1998: Ms. Routier's relatives file a lawsuit accusing 2 police
detectives and a prosecutor of invading their privacy by hiding
microphones at the boys' graves in Rockwall.

November 1998: One of Ms. Routier's attorneys notes errors in the trial
transcript. Court reporter Sandra Halsey refuses to answer questions about
the transcript, and state District Judge Robert Francis orders a review.

March 1999: A complaint filed with a state board alleges that Ms. Halsey's
work was "incompetent, inaccurate, unprofessional and untimely" and that
she lied to hide errors.

May 20, 1999: Judge Francis orders Ms. Halsey to pay $32,265 for work to
fix the transcript.

June 5, 1999: State officials revoke Ms. Halsey's license.

Nov. 5, 1999: Judge approves the revised transcript.

May 25, 2001: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejects defense objections
to the transcript.

July 2001: Defense attorneys appeal on behalf of Ms. Routier.

March 2002: State Court of Criminal Appeals hears arguments on claims of
trial error.

July 2002: Defense attorneys file a writ of habeas corpus appeal in state
court

May 21, 2003: Court of Criminal Appeals upholds the conviction.

August 2004: Judge denies the state writ of habeas corpus appeal.

Dec.1, 2004: Court of Criminal Appeals denies the writ of habeas corpus.

Nov. 30, 2005: Routier attorneys file a federal writ of habeas corpus
appeal.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

*******************

Arrest made 15 years after mans killing


In the early morning hours of Aug. 4, 1991, Jose Jorge Cardenas answered
the door of his McAllen apartment and stared his killer in the face.

2 gun shots later, Cardenas, a 22-year-old University of Texas
Pan-American sophomore, lay outside his Ninth Street dwelling bleeding to
death. Cardenas died a short time later at Rio Grande Regional Hospital.

Meanwhile, the man accused of his killing - 24-year-old Salvador Rodriguez
Jr. - quickly disappeared in a brown Chevrolet pickup truck, even as
McAllen police issued an arrest warrant charging him with Cardenass
murder.

For 15 years, the arrest warrant remained unexecuted - until now.

His return to Hidalgo County began in July 2004, when Mexican immigration
authorities detained Rodriguez, now 39, in Mexico City. 2 years followed,
as his case slowly moved through the U.S. and Mexican court systems. Then,
in March, Hidalgo County Sheriff deputies traveled to Houston and arrested
Rodriguez for Cardenas murder.

Rodriguez is the first fugitive successfully returned to Hidalgo County
from Mexico in many years, and is one of only 4 detained by Mexican
officials, Hidalgo County Assistant District Attorney Jane Alonzo said.

While state and federal court records paint Cardenas murder as a burglary
turned deadly, the Procuradura General de la Repblica, the Mexican Federal
prosecutorial agency in charge of extraditions, alleges Rodriguez shot
Cardenas after he found Cardenas in the company of his ex-girlfriend,
Monica Clark. According to local records, Clark no longer lives in
McAllen.

Rodriguez, however, sits in the Hidalgo County jail awaiting trial for
capital murder in 332nd state District Judge Mario Ramirezs court.

In 2002, a grand jury originally charged him with murder to expedite his
extradition. But a new grand jury indicted Rodriguez with capital murder
on May 18, charging he was in the course of burglarizing Cardenas home
when the shooting occurred. He was arraigned May 30, and is set for a
pre-trial June 26.

Capital murder is the highest charge levied in the U.S. penal system,
punishable by life in prison or death by lethal injection. The Hidalgo
County District Attorneys office agreed not to seek the death penalty
against Rodriguez when seeking the extradition order from the Mexican
government, which deems the death penalty illegal.

"My client is pleading not guilty and it looks like the case is going to
trial," said Charles Banker, Rodriguezs defense attorney.

Cardenas 1991 obituary lists two sisters in Alamo and his father in
Minnesota, but they could not be reached for comment.

(source: The Monitor)

Taken from www.crimelibary.com:

Preface

In 1997, a court found Darlie Lynn Routier guilty of probably the worst of human crimes: killing two of her natural children in cold-blood. Motive is still a mystery, but the prosecution painted her as a shrewish, materialistic young woman who, sensing her lavish lifestyle crumbling, slew her two sons Damon and Devon in a mad attempt to resuscitate her and her husband's personal economy.
The following story relates the events of the murder and those leading up to her sensational trial, resulting in her conveyance to death row in Dallas, where she awaits death through lethal injection. The evidence against Darlie was damaging and, in retrospect, her defending counsel had little hope for her acquittal.

But, recent findings in her case have cast a doubt over her guilt — at least over the legalities that brought her thumbs down to death row. Therefore, the final chapter in this report is dedicated to the most recent controversy that may result in a new trial for Darlie Lynn Routier.


June 6, 1996

Dawn had not yet arrived over the posh neighborhood of Dalrock Heights Addition, near Rowlett, Texas, and in a bird's eye view the usually safe-and-coddled environs of the upper-class community looked peaceful and tranquil before the new day. But, at 5801 Eagle Drive, discordance roared. Evil rampaged.

The first outsider to hear of the troubles raging within was Doris Trammell, night dispatcher for the Rowlett Police Department. She was surprised when the emergency phone rang at 2:31 a.m. — troubles were few there, for it was the kind of community known as a safe haven from the rest of the world, a place to raise a family — but her nonchalance was jolted. A hysterical female voice at the other end of the line was telling a terrible story.

The voice screamed, "Somebody broke in to our house...They just stabbed me and my children..." Trammell shocked upright in her chair, captured her senses, then tried to calm the woman, tried to get the details in as orderly manner as possible. But, the caller continued to scream panic-stricken into the mouthpiece from her home..."My little boys are dying! Oh my God, my babies are dying!"

Trammell's fingers scrambled for and punched the main police unit line; she side-mouthed into the microphone, "Stand by for medical emergency, woman and children stabbed!" then advised the woman at the other end to hold on while she summoned an ambulance. But the woman continued to sob and yelp, without hesitation, "My babies are dying! My babies are dying!"

"Ma'am, please calm down, tell me what's happened!" the dispatcher begged, but the woman was incoherent and Trammell grew more confounded. Drawing up her computer screen, she traced the call by its caller ID to a number belonging to a Darin and Darlie Routier (pronounced Roo-tear) at 5801 Eagle Drive. After several more pleas, Trammell convinced the party at the other end to subdue, to take a deep breath, to explain what was happening over there. The dispatcher still could not believe what she was hearing. Murder in peaceful Rowlett?

A Terrible Scene

Darlie Routier, the caller, spurted, sobbed, gasped and moaned a terrible tale unheard of in the up-until-then pleasant, placid suburb. "While I was sleeping...me and my little boys were sleeping downstairs...someone came in...stabbed my babies.... stabbed me...I woke up...I was fighting...he ran out through the garage...threw the knife down..."

"How old are your boys?" Trammell pursued, and learned that the injured children were six and five. Devon and Damon were their names. In the meantime, a squad had detected the emergency vehicle wired by Trammell and reported to the dispatcher it was on its way to the Routier address.

Twenty-eight-year-old Darin Routier had been awakened from sleep upstairs by his wife Darlie's screams and now rushed downstairs into the family's entertainment room. Before he had gone to bed hours earlier, the last he had seen of that den was a domestic scene: his children lying on the floor watching their big screen television and Darlie lying on the sofa near them, looking sexy in her Victoria's Secret nightshirt.

Now, his two boys, Devon and Damon, lay blood-soaked while Darlie, her nightshirt covered in blood, paced in a paroxysm of panic shouting at the police dispatcher into the portable phone. Says Barbara Davis in her book, Precious Angels, "He saw blood everywhere... Darin rushed to Devon's side (and) saw two huge gashes in his son's chest where the six-year-old had been stabbed repeatedly. Checking for a pulse and feeling none, he looked at Devon's face. Eyes wide open...stared vacantly back." He then turned towards the other boy, five-year-old Damon, lying near a wall, his back to the room. "A small amount of blood was oozing through the back of his shorts," writes Davis. "Damon's lungs rattled as he struggled to suck in air.

"Torn between two sons, the horrified father momentarily panicked, then made the decision to begin cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the son who was not breathing. Darin placed his hand over Devon's nose and breathed into his child's mouth. Blood sprayed back onto the father's face."

Policeman David Waddell was the first officer to arrive on the scene; he could not believe what he saw, had never seen anything like this as a lawman in that town. He sickened at the sight and the overwhelming smell of blood. Breathing deeply to contain his senses, the officer quickly surveyed the two children — one appeared dead, the other with but a hint of a pulse — and instructed Darlie to lay towels across Damon and apply pressure to his wounds. She ignored him — which he thought strange, even in her frantic state — but only continued to scream at the officer that the intruder might still be in the garage where he had fled.

Waddell was soon joined by another policeman, Sergeant Matthew Walling, and by a paramedic team of Jack Kolbye and Brian Koschak. Like Waddell, they paused at the threshold of the scene, momentarily disarmed by the top-heavy staleness of death. The paramedics immediately realized that they couldn't handle this carnage alone — two children dead or dying and an adult woman soaked in blood, a bloody rag pressed to her throat — and radioed for backup.

Futile Efforts

Aside, Waddell briefed his sergeant. Together, they followed a path of blood through the house, from the entertainment room to the attached garage, accessible through the kitchen and a small utility room out back. Throwing their beam into the darkness of the garage until they found the light switch, they moved forward, revolvers drawn. They encountered no stranger along the route. However, they noticed that the screen on a side window of the garage had been visibly slashed down its center.

Realizing the attacker might still be in the house, the policemen checked out every room upstairs and down, every nook, closet and cranny in the house. Pausing now to take in the state of the kitchen, through which the killer was said to flee, noted its disarray — its tiled floor spattered by blood; a vacuum cleaner knocked over as if in tumult, and, most ominous, a bloodied butcher knife resting silent now atop the island countertop. Beside the blade curiously lay a woman's latched purse and a set of women's expensive-looking jewelry, strangely untouched.

Upstairs they came across a third child, an infant, whimpering in its crib. Gently lifting the baby boy, Sgt. Walling examined him for bruises, but found none. Darin Routier, who met them below the steps, explained the child was their youngest, Drake, six months old.

The pair of paramedics had, in the meantime, been joined by three others — Larry Byford, Eric Zimmerman and Rick Coleman. It had already become terribly clear that Damon was still alive, albeit barely, but that his brother Devon had died; the latter's eyes stared lifeless to the ceiling. Coleman had hastily assembled an IV tube to hopefully sustain the dying until they reached the hospital.

Assessing both boys' wounds, the medics noted two particularly large gashes, identifiably knife thrusts, in each of their chests. The thrusts had penetrated the children's lungs. Devon had died gasping, a horrible death. Damon's lungs, too, strained for oxygen, undeniably suffering the same fate that had claimed his sibling. Kolbye scooped Damon in his arms and maneuvered to the stretcher. He thought he heard the boy's death rattle, sounding as though his lungs expelled what little air they contained.

With the assistance of Coleman, Kolbye performed chest compressions to keep the boy alive. Wheeling him to the curb side ambulance, he simultaneously sluiced air to the trachea that the boy might receive precious air. The medics continued offering life-saving maneuvers the entire way to Baylor Medical Center across town, but the child died before they reached it.

The Intruder

In the meantime, the K-9 unit had arrived on Eagle Drive, its animals unmuzzled and sent sniffing. Officer Waddell briefed its commander on the case and joined the team for a search of the neighborhood roundabout. This, while Sgt. Walling managed to calm the frantic Mrs. Routier on the front porch. While they gauzed her bleeding, she told the sergeant what she had told Waddell earlier: that an intruder had entered her home and mounted her on the sofa while she slept; she had awakened to him, screamed, and, after struggling with him, warding off his blows, he absconded toward the garage. It was then she noticed that he had left behind her two butchered boys. Of his attack on them, she had heard nothing.

She halted and grimaced as paramedics Koschak and Byford applied an IV line into her arm, then paused again as they placed Steri-Strips across a shallow but ugly throat cut. Recuperating from the smarting applications, she continued to speak to the policeman. She described her attacker as a man of medium-to-tall height, dressed entirely in black: T-shirt, jeans and baseball cap.

Three o'clock a.m., and Welling had concluded his interview. He stepped aside as the paramedics escorted her to their ambulance. She required further medical aid at Baylor Center. Darin told her he would follow; much too shaken to drive, he called on neighbor Tom Neal to drive him. Neal's wife remained behind to baby-sit infant Drake.

The Routiers were on their way to the hospital, but the police remained at their premises. In fact, their ranks grew in number. Squads drew up as an army, their rolling flashers severing the darkness to rudely lighten the cul-de-sac where the Routiers lived. Neighbors, roused from their beds, emerged from their dark homes to their assorted yards to gape as troops of dark uniforms flanked in marching fashion around and through the Routier house, across its lawn, through its colonial-style front door. Under the glare of the torch, police threw up a cordon around the property. The staring citizens had never expected to see anything like this in Rowlett, here in the crime-free suburb of Dalrock Heights Addition. Especially on their own street.

Suspicions

Because of its severity, the crime scene drew Rowlett's law enforcement honchos. Among them were Lieutenant Grant Jack, commander of the Investigative Division. Summoned from his bed, he arrived shortly after 3 a.m. and viewed the battle-hardened appearance of Eagle Drive.

In the foyer of 5801, he met Detective Jimmy Patterson, a veteran of the Crimes Against Persons Division, who pointed out the Routier child, Devon, still lying under a blanket. He explained what he knew up to this time concerning the slayings — that the mother claimed a stranger had committed the atrocities and a butcher knife (murder weapon) lay where the police found it, on the kitchenette counter, bloodied. The mother, said Patterson, had put it there after lifting it off the floor after the killer dropped it.

As the two professionals conferred, their forces — uniformed and in plain clothes— steam-rolled throughout the home's many rooms looking for suspicious objects and possible clues. Ascending the Routier's circular staircase to the second floor, a couple of them were accosted by a yapping white Pomeranian that rounded the upper landing to hold them at bay; the animal nipped Patrolman Mark Wyman's trouser leg. Karen Neal, on hand, rushed to the rescue.

"It's Karen, Domain, Karen! Now leave the policemen alone and get in your corner!" she scolded. Corralling Domain, she apologized to the police and explained that the dog was averse to strangers. The patrolmen, and probably Karen Neal too, wondered where this watchdog had been during the all-important time of break-in. He might have saved two lives.

Lieutenant Jack, a professional in the law enforcement field for more than 20 years, had never witnessed slaughter like this in such a peaceful, suburban community; it left him pondering the creature that caused this, that walked on two feet and called itself human. And when the morgue attendants zipped what was left of little Devon into the standard black plastic body bag, the officer, who considered himself a pretty tough person, turned his face away to bawl like a baby.

"For months, when I'd came home from work, I'd walk into my five-year-old's room to check on him," Jack later recalled. "When I looked at my son sleeping, I didn't see him, I saw Damon in the morgue and Devon on the floor...I just couldn't shake the vision."

But, it wasn't just the physicality that gnawed at Jack. It was something else. Something deep under that warned his psyche: Something doesn't add up here. Patterson felt it, too, and admitted it. A strong sense of the macabre crept into their bones.

Jack put Patterson and his partner, Chris Frosch, in charge of the investigation; he sent Frosch to the hospital, in fact, to interview Mrs. Routier at first chance. He needed to get as much detailed information as he could about what happened in this house to cause such blood-letting and havoc. So far, too many blanks existed. And too many suspicions, Maybe wayward, maybe premature.

Eagle Drive had become a rush. Media crews had assembled and cameras flashed in the darkness, catching police activity. The whiteness of their spotlights illumined the pre-dawn hours and mingled with the colors of the squads' rotating "cherry" beams to stroke a bizarre texture of light across the dark canvas — somewhat, Jack thought, like the thread-thin line between nightmare and awakening. The lieutenant squinted into the light of the overheads and shook his head at the attention these tragedies always attract.

Away from the ears of the cameramen, Sgt. Walling drew his superior into his confidence; he looked stunned. "Lieutenant, you won't believe what Mr. Routier said to me right before he left to go to the hospital with his wife. He turned to me and I swear to God he said, 'Golly, I guess this is the biggest thing Rowlett's ever had.' The man had two of his children slaughtered tonight, and he's acting like the damn circus is in town!"

2+2=3

The Routier home buzzed with stark-faced policemen taking stark notes, shooting stark crime photos, dusting for fingerprints that would tell a stark tale. In the kitchenette, something very telling had occurred. Sgt. Nabors thought it was strange that the sink was spotless and white while the floors and edges of the countertop around and above it were blood-smudged. And if someone had taken the effort to clean the sink of blood — why? His job being to process blood traces at a crime scene, Nabors went to work.

"(He) conducted a test to detect the presence of human blood that cannot be seen with the naked eye," explains the book, Precious Angels. "The chemical compound Luminol is the tool that investigators use for this test. If the white crystalline compound in the Luminol detects the copper component found in human blood, the area sprayed becomes luminescent, casting a brilliant bluish light. The sergeant sprayed the sink and the surrounding counter. When the lights were switched off, the entire sink basin and the surrounding counter glowed in the dark."

Repeating this process on the leatherette sofa, the detective found a small child's handprint glowing iridescent blue near the edge where Damon had been stabbed. Like the blood in the kitchen, someone had wiped it away. Again — why?

Simultaneously to Nabors' findings, crime scene consultant James Cron found other variables of the case out of sync. Like Sgt. Nabors, he realized what appeared to be wasn't. The moment he arrived at 5801 Eagle Drive, his years of experience told him, as he began taking mental notes, that Darlie Routier's testimony of what happened didn't.

Mrs. Routier had stated she believed the killer had gotten in and escaped through the garage. Indeed, Cron found, as the woman said, a slit screen on the side of the house, in the garage — but he knew at first glance it was a no-go. The screen showed no signs of having been forcibly pushed in or out to allow a body through its netting, but even more telling was the fact that the screen's frame was easily removable. Any criminal with an idiot's IQ would have simply taken it off its setting. Additionally, the ground below the window, comprised of a dewy, wet mulch, was undisturbed. Perhaps, he figured, the woman in her panicked condition may have been wrong — perhaps the intruder had found other ingress and egress — so he rounded the entire home for other visible indications of breaking and entry. He found none.

Crime Scene Tells Story

Returning inside, he followed the bloody footprints. They indeed led from the room where the children were slain through to a utility room then onto the concrete floor of the garage, trailing off below its window. But, again, the screen seemed an unlikely escape port. Doubling that suspicion, the dust on the sill was undisturbed, there were no hand prints, bloody or otherwise, around the window; odd, since the killer in forcing his way through the window would have had to hang onto the walls for balance!

The investigator double-tracked to the yard, this time looking for drops of blood left behind by the slayer in flight. Surely, his savagery had produced vast amounts of blood and his clothing would have been dripping with it — yet there were no apparent traces beyond the interior of the house. Not on the mulch below the window, not on the yard's manicured lawn, not along nor atop the six-foot high fence that surrounded the yard, not in the alley. The blood was contained within the house. Nowhere else.

In the entertainment room where Darlie described a struggle, Cron found little evidence of a melee having taken place. The lampshade was askew, and an expensive flower arrangement lay beside the coffee table. Nothing more out of place. He found, in fact, the fragile stems of the flowers unbroken — as if the arrangement hadn't fallen, but been placed there.

In the kitchenette, only Darlie's bloodied footprints were visible. Pieces of a shattered wineglass, too, lay among the prints, and a vacuum cleaner had been deposited on its side. Blood underneath these items indicated, to him, that they were dropped after — not before, nor during— the violence.

Atop the kitchen counter sat Darlie's purse, which appeared in order and undisturbed, and several pieces of jewelry — rings, a bracelet and a watch — aligned in order, untouched.

Reports author Barbara Davis in Precious Angels: "Everything the professional saw at the crime scene disturbed him. The lack of a blood trail away from the home coupled with virtually no signs of a struggle bothered him most."

Late afternoon, after his thorough and all-day examination, he summarized his findings for Lt. Jack and Sgt. Walling. "We all know the crime scene tells the story. Problem is," he nodded, "that story's not the same one the mother's telling. Somebody inside this house did this thing. Gentlemen, there was no intruder."

The Trauma Room

Months later, in court, the prosecution would attempt to demonstrate Darlie Routier as a heartless, cold-blooded killer. Much of their testimony came from the staff of Baylor Medical Center, where the dead boys were delivered and where Darlie Routier was admitted for observation. Almost immediately, the hospital's personnel sensed something amiss with the mother, for while she outwardly seemed agitated by her tragedy, repeating over and over "Who could have done this to my boys?" her reaction struck them as insincere and artificial.

Trauma nurse Jody Fitts, an RN for eight years, recalls, "Darlie was wheeled by Trauma Room 1, where her dead child was. She glanced over there, and I was very concerned she would get more upset. His physical condition alone was disconcerting. He was nude and covered head to toe in blood. Tubes were still held in place with tape, and brown bags had been placed around his little-bitty hands to preserve any possible evidence. It was a very stressful and horrible sight...I'll never forget it. (Darlie) saw him. She had absolutely no response, just turned her head back and stared straight ahead — cold as ice."

Checking the woman's condition, examining doctors Santos and Dillawn found the mother's wounds superficial. Under the scratches and blood, they uncovered some minor cuts, which they stitched, and a gash on the throat. While the later left a sickening sight, it was not dangerous, they asserted. The platysma, a sheath protecting the jugular vain, was uncut. Santos, nevertheless, made the decision to keep her in check for several days, considering the strain of the ordeal she suffered. She was berthed in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) under supervision and hooked up to the procedural heart monitor, IV and oxygen tank.



Darlies wounds

Indifference

On Thursday, the day after the murders, Darlie was again interviewed by the police, this time by detectives Jimmy Patterson and Chris Frosch. She reiterated her story of the attack. Her description was slightly more detailed than before:

"I woke up hearing my son Damon saying 'Mommy Mommy,' as he tugged on my nightshirt. I opened my eyes and felt a man get off me. I got up to chase after him. As I flipped the light in the kitchen on, I saw him open his hand and let the knife drop to the floor. Then he ran out through the garage. I went over and picked up the knife. I shouldn't have picked it up. I probably covered up the fingerprints. I shouldn't have picked it up.

"I looked over and saw my two babies with blood all over them. I didn't realize my own throat had been cut until I saw myself in a mirror. I screamed out to my husband."

Male nurse Christopher Wielgosz was on hand during the interview. He noted how she continuously seemed to admonish herself — even to other hospital personnel before and after the interview — for picking up the murder weapon and erasing the intruder's fingerprints. It seemed as if she wanted the point driven home why her finger prints were on that knife.

Various other staff members who attended to Darlie throughout her short stay at Baylor complained that she seemed far removed from despair, even cold to the situation. Nurse Jody Cotner describes the scene she saw while Darlie's family visited after she was admitted to the ICU: "Her mother, Darlie Kee, and her little sister, God bless their hearts ...they were hysterical. I probably held her sister I don't know how long. They were all sobbing. All except Darlie."

Cotner, who has worked with trauma patients for more than a decade, adds, "The reaction of people who lose their children is a wide range of emotions, bur mothers are always inconsolable (but) in my entire nursing experience I have never seen a reaction like Darlie's."

Paige Campbell's remarks echo Cotner's. Says Nurse Campbell, "People react differently, but there is a commonality when someone...sees someone they love die. But I had never seen a reaction like Darlie's before. There were tissues by the bed, but she never took one."

Denise Faulk, a nurse who attended to Darlie during her first night in the ICU was so bothered by Darlie's nonchalance that she went home after her tour of duty and recorded her observations of the woman's behavior. Responsible for washing the blood off Darlie's feet, she had expected the woman to break down. But, she noted, the mother had displayed complete indifference.

Dr. Santos released his patient on Saturday morning so she could attend her sons' wake that evening at Rest Haven Funeral Home. Detectives Patterson and Frosch, however, first escorted Darlie and her husband Darin to the station house for statements. Procedurally given the Miranda Rights, Darlie wrote her official statement, which recalled the events of the preceding Wednesday morning. In this version she penned that she was awakened by Damon who was still standing on his feet when he uttered 'Mommy Mommy'.

In the anteroom, Patterson explained to Lt. Jack something he had caught in his last conversation with Mrs. Routier while she was still bedridden. When he had mentioned to her that her dog Domain had tried to bite a patrolman, she fleetingly remarked, "Oh, he always goes off like that when someone he doesn't know walks in the door." Jack gave him a I hope you made a note of that expression, in return.

I'm Sorry

Family, friends and neighbors turned out that Saturday evening at the funeral parlor. The boys were suited in tiny tuxedos in separate walnut caskets, enveloped by roses of red and white. Upon entering the chapel, Darlie knelt at their sides and whispered to them (Detective Frosch overheard), "I'm sorry." She then wailed, "Who could have done this to my children?"

After Darin calmed her down, mourners strode forward to express their condolences. One mourner, Helina Czaban, who sometimes performed general housekeeping duties for the Routiers, was thrown off balance by her employer's remarks.

When she told Darlie how sorry she was for the tragedy, adding, "...and now this expensive funeral to add to your problems," Darlie replied, "I'm not worried. I'll get five-thousand dollars each for both of the boys."

During the hour-long service the next day, "she didn't wipe her eyes," exclaimed a relative, "never cried...There is no mistaking grief."

According to Barbara Davis' Precious Angels, "As the families tried to comfort Darin, Darlie busied herself by looking at the names on the flower arrangements and comforting her relatives...The family would try to excuse Darlie's lack of emotion by blaming the pills (Xanax) the doctor had prescribed. As the family wept before the boys' coffins, Darlie made the comment that she had to be sure to send thank-you notes to all who sent flowers. After all, it was the proper thing to do."

Darlie

Blonde, hazel-eyed Darlie was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on January 4, 1970, the first-born child of Darlie and Larry Peck. Doted on as a child, her first encounter with the harshness of life occurred at seven years old, when her parents divorced and the domestic security she knew tilted. A year later, her mother remarried a man named Dennis Stahl and, as Darlie entered her teens, the family moved to the vastly different climate of Lubbock, Texas.

Little Darlie and her siblings — two natural and two step sisters — got on together well and helped each other through the difficult transition of hometowns and schools. The toughest part of their young lives was having to endure their parents' constant squabbling and sometimes violent fighting. Eventually, the Stahl's marriage faded and Darlie's mother was once again in search of a new spouse and her girls were without a father figure.

Darlie, despite her new surroundings, emerged from a shy cocoon into a blossoming, sometimes (according to classmates) over-showy teenager. Boys were attracted to her, including one named Darin Routier. As a teenager, he worked as a busboy in a Western Sizzler restaurant alongside Mama Darlie. The mother found him a bright, talkative good-looking boy with ambitious plans for his future; he would be, she figured, a good catch for her oldest daughter. Playing matchmaker, she introduced the two kids and by all reports it was love at first sight for both of them. The dark-haired tall boy with wavy hair flipped for the five-foot-three, heart-faced Lubbock belle with the big eyes. And she, in turn, for him.

They dated in high school and continued to correspond after Darin, two years older than she, went away to a technical college in Dallas. A preface of things to come occurred at Darin's going-away party. There, according to a friend named, Darlie showed a possessive and cunning nature that lay hidden under her surface sweetness. Darlie was annoyed that she wasn't getting enough attention, so she left the party. Then she came back frantic, claiming that someone had tried to rape her. That ruse gave her just the attention that she craved.

After graduating high school, Darlie joined her boyfriend in Dallas where he had been hired as a technician at a computer chip company. Landing a job with the same firm, the couple lived together while saving their money until, in August of 1988, they married. The couple honeymooned first-class in Jamaica.

Returning to Texas, the couple at first moved into an apartment in Garland, close to where Darin worked, learning the computer chip industry, a booming field. Within the year, they relocated to a small home in Rowlett. Here, Darin started a company, Testnec, that tested circuit boards for computers and operated it out of their home.

Trouble in Paradise

Returning to Texas, the couple at first moved into an apartment in Garland, close to where Darin worked, learning the computer chip industry, a booming field. Within the year, they relocated to a small home in Rowlett. Here, Darin started a company, Testnec, that tested circuit boards for computers and operated it out of their home.

Their first child was born on June 14, 1989 — a healthy boy named Devon Rush — to be followed by another son on February 19, 1991 — Damon Christian. With two children and a home company that grew so fast that the owners found it necessary to buy space in an upscale office building, the Routiers' life seemed to be following the quality dream of the new American family.

By 1992, their company had earned them a small fortune. The up-and-coming couple yearned to practice the prestige due them and had a house built in Dalrock Heights Addition, an affluent suburb of Rowlett, adjacent to Lake Ray Hubbard. This community of upper-class businessmen and women bragged crime-free streets and happy families.

The $130,000 two-story home of Georgian design resembled a miniature mansion with classic porch, colonial shutters and a working fountain on the front lawn.

Complementing their new life, the family boasted a Jaguar, sitting waxed and gleaming in a circular driveway.



Routier Family

Darlie was happy. And she was a very good mother, doting on her two children, living to celebrate the good times with them. At Christmas, their house was the most illumined, at Halloween their windows displayed more goblins than any other, at Thanksgiving the Routier's turkey was the largest and most flavorful. On the children's birthdays, Darlie threw gorgeous parties inviting classmates for an afternoon of frolic in their spacious entertainment center.

But, there was another side of Darlie, claim some who knew her — a side that loved to show off to cover a low self-esteem. She reveled in materialism and impression, often to the point of the bizarre. When she decided to get breast implants, she opted for size EE like the kind women had in Playboy and Penthouse. When she bought clothes, they were revealing outfits she wore out for a night's dancing just to grab the attention of onlookers. Her wardrobe bills skyrocketed.

Darlie's detractors say that her need to be the flashiest, gaudiest eventually overcame everything else in her life — including her children. Neighbors complained that Damon and Devon, not far past the toddler stage, were left unsupervised. And when she did attend to them, she often seemed bothered at having to take the time to do so. Her patience with them decreased.

Roots of domestic problems surfaced. Celebrants at a Christmas party silently watched as Darlie and Darin argued violently when Darlie danced too many times with another man. There were rumors of extramarital dating by both partners. But, the couple continued to play the surface charade, buying buying, buying. They bought a 27-foot cabin cruiser and a space at the dock to board it at the exclusive Lake Ray Hubbard Marina.

Friends who were aware of their problems were happy when Darlie became pregnant early in 1995; they counted on the new baby as the common denominator to re-new the couple's love for each other. But, after Drake was born on October 18, 1995, the mother suffered postpartum depression. Mood swings drew sudden tempers and dark rages.

Not helping matters was the state of their finances, which, despite good business profits from Testnec, did not meet the exorbitant lifestyle Darlie and Darin preferred to live and had grown used to. Ends suddenly did not meet.

Asserts Barbara Davis in Precious Angels: "Testnec would gross more than a quarter of a million dollars (in 1995). Almost $12,000 worth of new equipment was purchased for the flourishing business. The Routiers' tax return for the year indicated a gross income of $264,000. With a profit range of 40 percent, the couple netted a little over $100,000."

Darlie was unable to shed the weight gain she had acquired since her last pregnancy and grew increasingly antagonistic. She dropped diet pills that didn't work. A fact that, when the couple battled, Darin would remind her of, knowing he'd hit her tender spot

Cost-cutting measures ignored, spending sprees accelerating, their financial troubles deepened. The toll on their serenity was excruciating. Testnec was losing money and Darin was unable to pay himself the salary he required, nor pay Darlie anything at all for doing the books, which she had let go in her depression. Creditors fell upon them, demanding late bills. On Saturday, June 1, their bank denied them a much-needed loan of $5,000.

Darlie sporadically kept a diary. There were times she would attend to it daily, followed by long absences. On May 3, 1996, contemplating suicide, she wrote, "Devon, Damon and Drake, I hope you will forgive me for what I am about to do. My life has been such a hard fight for a long time, and I just can't find the strength to keep fighting anymore. I love you three more than anything else in this world and I want all three of you to be healthy and happy and I don't want you to see a miserable person every time you look at me..."

Darin walked in on her while she was writing and noticed the tears swelling in her eyes. She broke down and confessed the terrible thoughts of suicide that had been running hot through her brain. He held her and they talked long into the afternoon. By the end of the conversation, she had calmed. For one afternoon, they loved each other again.

A month later something snapped. And flushed up hell.

Of Shadows and Silly String

Darlie Routier had not yet returned to her home on Eagle Drive since that horrible morning; she, Darin and baby Drake had been staying with Mama Darlie in Plano. Needing some articles of clothing, she telephoned her friend Mercedes Adams a few days after the funeral to ask if she would mind driving her there. Mercedes complied, but expected Darlie to buckle under upon walking into the place that took the lives of her two sons. The girlfriend was in for an awakening.

Death lingered in the foyer, but Darlie, Mercedes noted, charged onto the scene seemingly unaware and like a bull elephant, arms akimbo, shouted, "Look at this mess! It'll cost us a fortune to fix this shit!"

"Right there where her boys were killed, and that's the first thing she said to me. I put my hands on Darlie's shoulders and said, 'Darlie, look me in the eye and tell me you didn't kill the boys.' She looked me in the eye and said, 'I'm gonna get new carpet, new drapes, and fix this room all up.' I couldn't believe it."

Back at the Rowlett Police Station, questions loomed. Among them: 1) What was the motive for the murders? 2) If a robbery, why was Darlie's jewelry and purse left untouched? 3) Why would an intruder kill two children before dispatching the adult, who posed a more serious threat? 4) Why would the killer, who obviously had no scruples about murdering a pair of small boys, back off when Darlie awoke, leaving a witness alive to identify him? 5) Why would he drop the murder weapon on the floor, giving Darlie, his pursuer, a weapon in which to fight back? 6) Why would he have used the Routiers' butcher knife in the first place? (Assailants come to their intended victim's premises already armed.) 7) Why were there no visible signs of an intruder — footprints, handprints, drops of blood beyond the house where he made his escape? And as questions mounted, it appeared that a bread knife owned by the Routiers might have been used to cut the garage screen, thus more questions: Had the intruder used the Routier's bread knife to slash his way in? and 9) If so, how did he get the knife in the first place?

Detective Jimmy Patterson conferred with Dr. Townsend-Parchman, who had photographed Darlie's wounds allegedly received by the phantom intruder. While her boys were maliciously and forcefully attacked, her wounds were surface and bore trademarks of what doctors call "hesitation wounds" — that is, the wounds indicated that the blade had slowly, deliberately, cut into her skin and, when pain was encountered, the person holding the blade reflexively withdrew it.

Rowlett police had turned to the FBI's Center for Analysis of Violent Crime in Quantico, Virginia, to evaluate and compare the wounds of the dead boys to those of Darlie. The FBI's Al Brantley, after studying the doctors' and coroner's reports — as well as the crime findings in general — attested that the wounds between sons and mother were indeed vastly different — Darlie's superficial, Damon's and Devon's massive and mortal. The attack on the children was personal, said Brantley. "The killer focused on their chests," he emphasized, "almost as if going for their heart. That indicates extreme anger toward them."

Brantley reported other observations. "For a violent struggle to take place as the mother claimed, no real breakage occurred. After looking at the crime-scene photographs, it appeared to me that the intruder who committed this crime had a strong connection to the material items in the home. The living room was fairly small and compressed. Two adults fighting would have resulted in a lot more broken things. A lot of fragile items in the living room that should have taken the brunt of a struggle were not broken."

His conclusion: Damon's and Devon's slayer was someone who knew them and knew the premises. The entire scenario had been planned in advance — and staged.

Graveside Party

The most bizarre of post-murder episodes was yet to take place in what became the state's case against Darlie Lynn Routier. It was a birthday party — eerily held graveside to celebrate Devon's seventh birthday posthumously!

Darlie and Darin Routier, infant Drake, Darlie's mother, 16-year-old-sister Dana who still lived at home with the elder Mama Darlie, and a few invited personal friends were the celebrants. Local television station KXAS-TV was on hand to record the strange event. Darlie told Joe Munoz, a reporter, that the family had planned a whopping birthday prior to her son's death and that she saw no reason now why he should have it deprived. To many of the NBC media crew on hand at Rest Haven Memorial Park that morning of June 14, it seemed like one of three things: either a bad PR attempt of Darlie's, a sincere but naïve show of goodwill done in poor taste...or simple, plain, unmitigated lunacy.

Neither the Routiers nor the TV crew were aware that Jimmy Patterson's investigators were recording the party from a concealed camcorder, a microphone also having been planted nearby to catch any possible confessional remark.

A pastor opened the 45-minute ceremony over the grave, yet unmarked by a headstone. His sincere attempts to sanctify the moment, however, were overshadowed by what happened when he finished his eulogy. As horrified home viewers watched, Darlie began spraying a can of Silly String across the newly padded ground, laughing, chewing bubble gum and singing Happy Birthday. "I love you, Devon and Damon!" she cried.

To justify her actions, she afterward told Munoz, "If you knew (my sons), you'd know that they are up there in heaven having the biggest birthday party we could ever imagine. And though our hearts are breaking, they wouldn't want us to be unhappy. But they'll be a part of us always."

Responding to questions about her boys' mystery killer, she said, "The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that they will find that person. I have faith in God. I believe He will direct the police to that man."

Four days after the birthday party, on January 18, the Rowlett Police Department arrested Darlie Routier for the murder of her two children.

Preparing the Trial

Americans had been horrified at the destruction of two little boys' lives and now, with news that their mother might be their murderer, they were stunned. "Film crews and network anchors descended like locusts on the town," writes Barbara Davis in Precious Angels.

Darlie remained under custody at the Lew Starrett Justice Center, awaiting indictment. A Dallas County grand jury officially indicted her on June 28, on two counts of capital murder. That same day, Judge Mark Tolle, who would preside at her trial, issued a gag warrant that barred both the defense and prosecution from discussing the case with the media. This, of course, eliminated any of the direct players' participation on TV talk and radio shows.

Doug Parks, Darlie's court-appointed lawyer, presented a request to Judge Tolle on July 9, recommending that the trial be moved out of Dallas County where he claimed bad publicity would prejudice jury members. The motion went into consideration and before the trial would open on its scheduled date in January, 1997, it would indeed be moved to the town of Kerrville in neighboring Bexar County.

Parks' move was well orchestrated since, four days after, State Prosecutor Greg Davis announced in dramatic fashion that he would seek the death penalty. While such seemed unlikely — the last woman to be executed in Texas was during the Civil War — young but brilliant Davis had a knack for getting what he went after. Assisting him would be two rising prosecution attorneys, Sherri Wallace and Toby Shook.

Immediately after her incarceration, Darlie had demanded that she be given a polygraph test, which the police agreed to administer. When she was informed that her husband Darin could not be present in the room during the test, she withdrew her request. However, she again changed her mind on advice from her defense team, but with a stipulation: that before she take the polygraph she exercise her right to take a private test first.

The results of that test were never formally released, but Darlie and her mother were seen immediately afterwards, sobbing relentlessly.

After the prosecution announced its death pursuit, the Routier in-laws hurriedly dropped the state-supplied lawyer assigned to Darlie and, knowing they needed big guns to fight back, mortgaged their homes to procure the services of headline defense attorney, Doug Mulder, late of the district attorney's office. To counteract the legal backup talent pressed against his client, he assembled a grade-A team, which included a retired FBI investigator.

Jury selection began October 16, 1996 in Kerrville. The process would take two days short of a month. Because of the media frenzy is Darlie guilty or isn't she? unfounded truths and rumors were flying amidst the tabloids and even major newspapers; lawyers from both sides wanted to ensure they had selected a jury worthy of the impartiality that a body of jurors was supposed to comprise. On November 14, they announced the voi dire complete: seven women and five men would be the final deciders of Darlie Routier's case after what promised to be a trial of high suspense.

Darin Routier, Mama Darlie and other family supporters took lodging in local hotels, where they would remain near the accused throughout the trial. Over his head in bills, Darin had by this time deserted the now-dreaded family home in Dalrock Heights Addition, transferring all personal possessions into storage. He let the mortgage payments lapse and, in mid-December, the mortgage company repossessed the property, six months in arrears.

It was claimed that at the time of foreclosure, the only reminder of the Routiers' lives there was a pair of little boys' gym shoes, left abandoned on the front porch.

The Trial Begins

Eyes and ears of the world were on Kerrville, Texas. Attests Barbara Davis' Precious Angels: "On Monday morning (January 6,1997) crowds descended on the stately but tiny courthouse, buffeted by fierce winter winds...Visitors to the courthouse were subjected to rigorous security. Each had to pass through a metal-detector gate and hand over purses and briefcases to be searched...No newspapers, cameras or tape recorders were allowed."

The district attorney's office, being relentless, had decided to concentrate its initial armament against Darlie on the death of only one of her boys, Damon. Holding the capital murder indictment on Devon's death in limbo, they could use it as second-line support should the woman be acquitted or receive a life sentence.

When the indictment was recited — first degree murder in the death of Damon Christian Routier — Darlie stood facing the judge. Shouldered by her lawyer, Doug Mulder, she pleaded Not Guilty.

Curtain up on the long-awaited trial.

Chief Prosecutor Greg Davis' opening remarks thundered, "The evidence will show you, ladies and gentlemen, that Darlie Routier is a self-centered, materialistic woman cold enough to murder two precious children..." He vowed to prove how the facts of the case as found by experts did not match the mother's explanation of what happened in her home the night of the brutal killings.

Defense Attorney Mulder, in turn, painted Darlie as a caring mother who, like any other housewife, suffered personal problems and concerns. She was, he said, caught up in a maelstrom of fate. "And the State wants you to believe she became a psychotic killer in the blink of an eye?" he asked. "Well, folks, that's just absurd!"

The Prosecution

The trial would last nearly a month. Proceedings began with the introduction of the first witness for the State, Dr. Joanie McLaine from the medical examiner's office. Dr. McLaine explained the two defense wounds on Damon's body, indicating that he had struggled with his attacker before dying.

Coroner Janice Townsend-Parchman described the differences between the children's' savage wounds and Darlie's hesitation wounds, suggesting Darlie inflicted her wounds on herself.

Officer Waddell, the first policeman on the scene the morning of June 6, testified to the carnage that confronted him inside the Routier house when he entered. Jury members were shown crime scene photographs, which detailed the aftermath of the violence.

Following this dramatic play, paramedic Jack Kolbye related heart-tugging testimony of tending to little Damon and watching, despite any given life-saving measurements, the boy's final struggle for air through bloody, slashed lungs.

The first week's witness presentations ended on a very negative note for Darlie Lynn Routier. Following Kolbye's vivid story, fellow paramedic Larry Byford, who examined her in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, claimed that during the entire trip she didn't ask once about the condition of her children.

Over the next couple of weeks, verbal shrapnel continued to tear the accused apart, word by word, despite the defense's attempts for cover. Kicking off the second week of the prosecution's assault were two members of the Rowlett police force, Officer David Maynes, who discussed some of the evidence uncovered from the crime scene (including a section of white carpeting bearing Damon's bloodied handprint), and fingerprint expert Charles Hamilton, who, basically, told the jury that the only prints uncovered at the scene were Darlie's and her two children's'.

Investigator James Cron next detailed his search of a possible pursuer's flight through the Routier home, through the utility hall and garage, a very careful and scientifically based trek that failed to turn up clues of there ever having been an intruder. Summarizing, he said, "After my initial walk-through, I thought someone in the family had committed the murders and staged the scene. The further I got into my investigation, the more convinced I became."

Charles Linch, a trace-evidence expert, took the stand. Linch, an analyst for the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences, supported Cron's claims. It was impossible, said he, for an intruder to have left the scene of the crime without leaving a trail of blood. Hammering this point home for the benefit of the court, the prosecution next delivered blood expert Tom Bevel, who professorially illustrated the velocity and direction of the blood found on Darlie's nightshirt. His finding was that her sons' blood found on the nightshirt had been literally sprayed onto it while she was in the act of various upswing motions — in other words, stabbing/slicing gestures.

The state's final witness after weeks of hard-hitters was the hardest hitter of all, the FBI's special agent Al Brantley. He first listed the reasons why he disregarded an intruder — among them, that the screen would not have been cut, but removed, and that the positioning of the Routier house, on a cul-de-sac and with a high fence, would have discouraged a burglar or rapist.

He addressed motive. Had a thief called, Darlie's jewelry, which was in the open and very visible, would have been taken. And as for attempted rape, as Darlie had suggested, sexual offenders assailing a woman would not have killed her children but used them as leverage to get her to submit.

And discussing the savagery expended on the young victims, he theorized that the attack was personal and done in extreme anger. Brantley concluded: "Someone who knew those children very well murdered them."

The Defense

By the time the defense opened its arguments, the case looked unsalvageable for its client. But, Doug Mulder and his team did the best with what they had to contradict and counteract the gallows material planted by Prosecutor Greg Davis.

Leading the defense's string of witnesses were friends, neighbors and relatives who had known Darlie for years and who vouched for her character. Reverend David Rogers, who officiated at the funeral, thought Darlie was "grieving appropriately." Friend Cara Byford spoke of Darlie's kindness and of how Darlie came to her after the murders for consolation since Cara had lost a four-month-old boy years previously. Next-door neighbor Karen Neal saw Darlie's grief as real and not at all artificial as the prosecution tried to paint.

Husband Darin Routier's presence in the witness box brought attention as he admitted to family problems due to financial woes, but attested that his wife was truly devastated by their boys' deaths. He choked back tears when he recalled the morning of the murder and his administration of CPR to Damon. "Darlie was running back and forth getting wet towels, going 'Oh my God! Oh, my God, he's dead!' I blew two or three times. She was over him trying to hold the gaps in his chest together. I knew he was dead in three minutes. I screamed at Officer Waddell, and Darlie tried to get him to go to the garage. All three of us were in shock."

A major impact in the prosecution's case had been the "hesitation" wounds on Darlie's throat. But Bexar County's medical examiner Dr. Vincent DiMaio, a professor of forensic pathology, tried to lay doubt that the woman's wounds were self-inflicted and "surface". Her throat slash, he claimed, had come within two millimeters of the carotid artery. As well, he diagnosed bruises on her arms as mass trauma coming from a blunt instrument and not self-given.

Since the prosecution had made much of Darlie's contradictory testimony before and after her arrest, attorney Mulder needed a reliable witness to express, in medical terms, how a suspect, having faced psychological trauma, often lapses in and out of memory. He found that witness in forensic psychologist Dr. Lisa Clayton. The expert had done much work on the homicidal mind.

Dr. Clayton had interviewed Darlie and believed her to be innocent, stating that she showed the typical blackout and distorted-memory symptoms of people who lived through a trauma and were forced to give a clear description of their encounter.

The final witness for the defense on January 29 was a surprise — and, as it turned out for the defense itself — a bad move: the accused, Darlie Lynn Routier. Mulder had tried to talk his client out of appearing, insisting that she would pit herself against cross-examination by a ruthless prosecution team that could make mincemeat out of anything she said. But, Darlie persisted.

The moment started off well as Mulder guided her through her life story, her dedicated motherhood to three children, her domestic ups and downs; he had her skillfully read excerpts from her diary that penetrated the shell of what the prosecution called a wicked woman to display a thoughtful, sometimes deep, person who recognized and cherished life's values. She explained that the Silly String used at the graveside during Devon's posthumous birthday party was brought by her younger sister, Dana, not her, as a symbol of the fun the little boys would have liked had they been alive. She remembered the night of the murder, emphasizing that if her story changed slightly it was because she simply could not remember things clearly. The shock had left them jumbled.

But, when the defense stepped aside, the prosecution wilted her in the face of her own statements; they badgered and barked and condemned her. They wouldn't accept amnesia, they wouldn't accept alibi, they wouldn't accept a word she told them and drove into her with an inquisition. They asked about why she told one policeman one thing and something else to another; they asked why her dog didn't bark when the intruder entered the house, they asked why the kitchen sink was cleansed of its blood; they asked why she lied, lied, lied — and when they left her alone, she was a sobbing, wretched woman for the jury to see.

After hours of deliberation, the jury on February 1 found Darlie Lynn Routier guilty of the murder of her son Damon Christian.

Three days later, a somber Judge Tolle peered down from his bench to the white-faced Darlie before him, and read her the court's decided penalty. It was death.

But: Is Darlie Innocent?

In all fairness, Darlie Lynn Routier, despite some extremely damaging evidence, may be innocent, say many. A special televised episode of 20/20, entitled "Her Flesh and Blood," which aired on February 3, 2000, examined and updated the Routier case materials and found, among other things, that the jury may not have been shown photographs of bruises on Darlie's arms (which strongly indicated she fought off an intruder) nor the complete transcript of the court proceedings from which to make a final verdict. Indeed, the transcript that they did review contained, upon latter examination, 33,000 errors and omissions. As well, the audio tapes they heard were incomplete.

One juror came forth to admit he was peer-pressured into a guilty vote. On the televised program, he claimed he never saw the above-mentioned photos nor was the jury shown the police surveillance version of Devon's graveside birthday party that showed Darlie and her family sincerely grieving over the children.

Barbara Davis, who wrote Precious Angels, and who once believed in Darlie's guilt, has changed her mind since reviewing these latest developments as well as the discovery that there was a latent, bloody fingerprint found on the Routier kitchen counter. According to two New York City police fingerprint experts, the print did not match Darlie nor Darin and, therefore, lends a new credence to the intruder theory.

On July 25, 2001, Holly Becka of the Dallas Morning News reported that Darlie's lawyers filed an appeal for her charging conflict of interest and 13 claims of trial errors: The appeal says that "she deserves a new trial because the judge didn't properly handle her lead defense counsel's conflict of interest in representing the only other suspect in the crime -- her husband." Her appeal doesn't implicate Darin Routier as the culprit but notes that inconsistencies in Darin's testimony could have prevented her counsel from correctly presenting information to the jury.

In early June of 2002, Dr. Richard Jantz, a fingerprint expert, indicated that the unidentified bloody fingerprint left at the crime scene is "consistent with an adult" rather than a child. This testimony supports Darlie Routier's claim that an intruder was present in the house at the time of the murders.

Later that month, Holly Becka of the Dallas Morning News reported that "Darin Routier asked his father-in-law (Robbie Gene Kee) whether he knew anyone who would burglarize his home as part of an insurance scam months before his sons were killed...Ms. Routier's family fears that Mr. Routier mentioned the plot to others, who broke in on their own. They say they think this is possibly why an intruder targeted the home." In fact, neighbors saw a black car watching the house before the Routier boys were killed.

In July, 2002, Darlie's lawyers argued that prosecutors should turn over evidence for new forensic tests. One item requested was the nightgown Darlie had on at the time of the murders. Her lawyers would like to conduct tests that they hope will indicate that her wounds were not self-inflicted. Defense lawyers also want to test the murder knife, the window screen and carpet samples.

Also, at this time, Darin Routier admitted that he had looked for someone to burglarize the family home to benefit from an insurance scam, but that he planned to have the burglary occur when the family was not at home.

The court may require up to 6 months to formulate its reply to Darlie Routier's request.

In the meantime, she sits on Texas' death row, waiting.

Is she one of the most heartless criminals in the state's history or a victim of an overly-aggressive prosecution?