Flesh and Blood: How far would someone go to maintain their standard of living? As far as murdering their children to relieve themselves of the financial burden?
Death Metal: The band’s lyrics were peppered with references to Satanic sacrifice. For one of its members, that would prove to be a revelation of his own bloody end.
Kill Him by Christmas: The would-be hitmen had been given strict instructions by the boy’s stepmother. “Kill him by Christmas so I don’t have to buy a present.”
Music and Murder: The little girl was a prodigy on the accordion and her teacher promised that she could make her a star. But should anyone really have to die for their art?
Murder, Miami Style: After living the high life in Florida, Joyce wasn’t about to walk away from her marriage a broke divorcee. Wealthy widow was more her style.
Warning! May Cause Death: Would you swallow a vitamin pill that you received anonymously in the mail? John Kmetz did. To him detriment.
Bus Ride to Hell: When passengers aboard a Greyhound bus are awakened by the screams of one of their fellow travelers, they have no idea of the horror that is about to unfold.
Death Follows: Meet Robert Durst, millionaire property developer, cross-dresser, shoplifter, serial killer.
Click the "Read More" link below to read the first chapter of
Murder Most Vile Volume 18
Flesh and Blood
It is a highly controversial case, one that continues to provoke
debate decades after a young mother was sent to death row for the savage
murders of her children. Did Darlie Routier really take a butcher’s knife and
plunge it repeatedly into the chests of 6-year-old Devon and 5-year-old Damon?
The evidence suggests that she did and that she was rightly condemned to death
for her terrible crime. And yet, there are still those who believe in Darlie’s
innocence, pointing to evidence that the police overlooked during the original
investigation. Why, for example, did investigators ignore a bloody fingerprint
left on a kitchen counter? Why did they dismiss a bloodstained sock found 75
yards from the crime scene on a trajectory that a fleeing intruder might have
taken? Why did they fail to consider the bruises on the young woman’s arms? The
truth is that we don’t know the answers to these questions. We know only that
two little boys were savagely slain and that there is more than enough evidence
to support the notion that their mother was responsible. Or maybe not. You
decide.
“911, what is your emergency?”
Doris Trammell, the night dispatcher for the Rowlett Police
Department, had enjoyed a relatively peaceful shift. That was not unusual. The
city of Rowlett, an upscale enclave to the northeast of Dallas, Texas, is a
quiet place. Serious crime is a rarity here, or at least it was until that 911
call came in during the early hours of Thursday, June 6, 1996. The caller was a
woman and she was hysterical.
“Somebody broke into my house! They stabbed me and my children!”
Trammell, of course, had been trained to deal with these situations.
She glanced briefly at her computer clock which read 2:31 a.m. Then she punched
the main police line and instructed units to standby for an emergency involving
women and children. She then returned to her caller, entreating the woman to
calm down and provide her name and address. The caller, however, wasn’t
listening. “My boys,” she wailed. “Oh my God, my babies are dying!"
“Ma'am, please calm down and tell me what happened,” the dispatcher repeated,
keeping her eye on her computer screen as the caller ID software performed its
magic. In the next moment a name and address popped up. Darin and Darlie
Routier, 5801 Eagle Drive, Dalrock Heights. Trammell knew the area well. It was
probably the most affluent neighborhood in town. She immediately passed the
address on to emergency responders, sending an ambulance and police officers
racing to the scene. The first to arrive was patrolman David Waddell and he
knew immediately that this wasy
something big.
Waddell had barely entered the residence when he encountered a woman
in a blood spattered nightgown, sobbing hysterically and babbling something he
couldn’t understand. Looking past her into the lounge he saw what appeared to
be the bodies of two small children, lying on the carpet, their clothes soaked
with fresh blood. Officer Waddell rushed towards them, fell to his knees and
quickly established that one of the boys had stopped breathing, while the other
was drawing harsh, gurgling breaths. Judging by the amount of blood, both had
been seriously injured. Waddell had a call to make and he made it
instinctively. Instructing the mother to fetch towels to staunch the wounds, he
began giving CPR to the boy who had stopped breathing. The mother, meanwhile,
continued yelling, saying that the intruder had fled into the garage and might
still be in the house. She ignored all instructions given by Waddell.
But Waddell, at least, had help by now. Police Sergeant Matthew
Walling had arrived, along with paramedics Jack Kolbye and Brian Koschak. The
EMTs immediately got to work, attempting to stop the bleeding and resuscitate
the children. While they were so engaged, Waddell and Walling went to
investigate the householder’s assertion that the assailant had fled into the
garage. Following a trail of blood through the kitchen and an entertainment
room, they entered the garage with their weapons drawn and threw on the light
switch ready for anything. But the space was empty. If the attacker had fled
this way, he’d managed to escape, possibly through a side window, where the
screen had been slashed. Or perhaps he was elsewhere in the house. The officers
conducted a room-by-room search but found no stranger in hiding. They then
returned to the kitchen where they’d spotted the possible murder weapon, a
bloodied butcher knife carelessly cast aside on a countertop. They noticed
something else too, something curious. The counter top was liberally smeared
with blood but the sink was spotless and appeared to have been recently rinsed
out.
By now, other police officers and medical personnel had descended on
the house. In the street outside, the sweep of blue and red police lights threw
splashes of color while officers strung up crime scene tape to keep inquisitive
neighbors at bay. Inside, Sgt. Walling had finally managed to calm the
distraught mother, now identified as Mrs. Darlie Routier. And he’d been able to
glean from her a version of what had happened. It was a story she’d repeat
numerous times over the days that followed, sometimes with embellishments and
conflicting details.
According to Mrs. Routier, she had been downstairs with her two older
sons, having fallen asleep in front of the television. Her husband, Darin, was
upstairs in the master bedroom with their youngest, 7-month-old Drake. She’d
woken with a man pinning her to the couch and had immediately started fighting
and screaming, causing the intruder to flee. She’d then given chase but had
just reached the kitchen when she decided to go back and check on her sons. It
was only then that she realized they’d been stabbed. By then, her screams had
awakened her husband and he’d come running downstairs. But it was too late, the
intruder had already fled, leaving the two boys grievously injured.
More than grievously, as it turned out. Each of the boys had suffered
two vicious stab wounds to the chest, thrusts that had missed the heart but had
shredded lungs and severed vital arteries. Devon, 6, was pronounced dead at the
scene while his younger brother, Damon, was critical. He was rushed to
Baylor Medical Center but it was too late. Damon Routier was dead
on arrival.
Compared to the horrific injuries inflicted on her sons, Darlie Routier
had gotten off lightly. She’d suffered a
wound to her throat and another to her right arm. The cuts were relatively
shallow, although the neck wound had come dangerously close to her carotid
artery. After answering further questions about the night’s events, she was
taken to
Baylor Center for treatment of her injuries. By now, the case had been
assigned to veteran Homicide Detective Jimmy Patterson and his partner, Chris
Frosch. Patterson soon had reason to suspect that the story told by Darlie Routier
was somewhat shy of the truth.
It started with an anecdote relayed to him by Sgt. Welling shortly
after he arrived at the house. “You’re not going to believe what Mr. Routier
said to me right before he left to go to the hospital,” Welling said. “He
turned to me and I swear to God he said, ‘Golly, I guess this is the biggest
thing Rowlett's ever had.’ Can you believe that? Two of his children have just
been slaughtered and the man is acting like the damn circus is in town!”
Patterson did indeed think that that was odd. But he’d also been in
the job long enough to know that people respond differently in times of tragedy
and crisis. Still that was only the first of the anomalies he’d encounter that
night. The next was the slashed screen over the window in the garage. Mrs.
Routier had suggested that the killer had entered and exited the home in this
way but that just didn’t stack up. The screen was of the type that could be
easily clipped from its frame so why slash it? And what had been used to make the
cut? It certainly wasn’t the murder weapon since the killer had only gained
access to that once he was inside the house. That meant he must have arrived
carrying a knife. Why then use a different blade to commit the murders? Why
leave it behind with potential fingerprints?
That wasn’t all that bothered Patterson about the killer’s supposed
escape route. After committing the murders, he would have been covered in blood
and would undoubtedly have deposited some of it on the wall and on the screen
as he fled. And yet, the Crime Scene Unit had found not a trace. A K-9 team had
also tried to pick up a trail starting from the killer’s alleged exit and had
come up empty. The only conclusion that Patterson could draw from that was that
the killer had neither entered not exited through the garage. And if that was
the case, how had he gotten in? There was no sign of forced entry.
Also perplexing was the blood evidence found at the scene. A trail of
blood did indeed lead along the escape route that Darlie had described the
killer taking. The problem was that there were no footprints other than those
made by Darlie’s bare feet. And then there were indications, found by the CSIs,
that someone had cleaned up blood in the kitchen sink and also on a leather
couch. Why?
None of this added up and neither did the issue of the dog. The
Routiers had a pet Pomeranian who a neighbor described as “yappy and highly
suspicious of strangers.” Where, Patterson wondered, had this little guardian
been when the intruder had entered the house? Why had he not raised the alarm
and woken the Routiers?.
There was only one possible answer that Patterson could think
of. There had been no intruder. Someone in the house had done this.
The following day, Patterson and Frosch showed up at the hospital to
question Darlie Routier. This time she provided a more detailed description of
what had happened and some of those details directly contradicted the statement
she’d given previously. Earlier, she’d stated that it had been the weight of the
man on top of her that had jarred her awake. Now she said that she’d awakened
to Damon’s cries of “Mommy! Mommy!” as he tugged on her nightshirt.
“I opened my eyes and felt a man get off me. I got up to chase after
him. As I flipped on the light in the kitchen, 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 his
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.”
Routier went on to describe the man who had attacked her, saying that
he was of medium-to-tall height, dressed all in black and wearing a baseball cap.
That description was of little use to Patterson. Far more interesting was the
information he was able to glean from questioning the nursing staff at the
hospital.
They told of a cold and distracted woman who showed no emotion even
when visiting relatives broke down in tears. Several of the nurses also
mentioned that Darlie appeared determined that everyone should know she’d
handled the murder weapon. She mentioned it numerous times, admonishing herself
for picking up the knife and thus erasing the killer’s fingerprints with her
own. That, of course, didn’t amount to evidence but it was certainly
suspicious.
And Darlie’s odd behavior continued at her sons’ funeral. Whereas
other family members and even neighbors were distraught with grief, she
appeared strangely unmoved. Her relatives put it down to the Xanax she’d been
prescribed and perhaps they were right. Who could really understand the
emotional state of a mother who’d suffered such a devastating loss. And anyway,
while the police may have had their suspicions, where was the motive? What
possible reason could Darlie Routier have had for killing her children? There
were no insurance policies, no bitter custody dispute. By all accounts, Darlie doted
on her boys. Perhaps her background might yield some clue. The police started
delving.
Born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on January 4, 1970, Darlie moved with
her mother to Texas after her parents divorced and her mother married a man
named Dennis Stahl. That marriage would also end in divorce but, by all
accounts, Darlie had a happy childhood and blossomed into a pretty,
blond-haired teen. She met her future husband, Darin Routier, while she was
still in school and apparently it was love at first sight. They continued to
correspond after Darin went away to college and picked up their relationship
after he graduated. Shortly after, Darin was hired by a computer chip company
in Dallas and Darlie moved there to be near him and soon landed a job with the
same company. They were married in August of 1988.
The couple began their life together in an apartment in Garland.
Darin, however, had bigger dreams than working for a boss and living in rented
accommodations. A year later, he rented a house in
Rowlett and started his own computer company, Testnec, operating it out of his
garage. It was a risk but one that would soon pay handsome dividends. It needed
to. Darlie had just discovered that she was pregnant.
The couple’s first child, Devon, was born on June 14, 1989 and was
followed by his brother, Damon on February 19, 1991. By then, Darin’s company
had grown to such an extent that he’d had to hire additional staff and rent
office space. The money was rolling in and the Routiers indulged themselves by
commissioning a two-story Georgian mansion in the upmarket suburb of Dalrock
Heights on the shore of Lake Ray Hubbard. Darin also bought himself a 27-foot
cabin cruiser while the family cruised the streets in a shiny new Jaguar. Life,
it seemed, could not get any better.
Darlie was by all accounts a good mother, doting on her children, making
a big fuss of Christmas and Thanksgiving celebrations and throwing elaborate
parties on their birthdays. But there was another side to her. Ever since her
teens, friends and acquaintances had noticed a certain neediness. Darlie always
had to be the center of attention and with the money now available to indulge
her obsession she held little back. She spent a fortune on clothes and
convinced Darin to pay for size EE breast implants, assets she put to use by
wearing the skimpiest, most revealing outfits. Inevitably, this led to problems
in her marriage with the couple sometimes arguing in public over Darlie’s
flirting. Not that Darin was an angel either. Rumors abounded that both he and
Darlie were having affairs.
Unfortunately, in such an unhealthy situation it is always the
children who are going to suffer. Neighbors complained that Damon and Devon, hardly
past the toddler stage, were often left home alone. And more and more people
were noticing that Darlie’s patience with her sons had become wafer thin. It
was therefore a surprise to friends and family when Darlie announced early in
1995 that she was pregnant again. The Routiers’ third son, Drake, was born on
October 18, 1995. His arrival only served to spin Darlie off into postpartum
depression, characterized by extreme mood swings and frighteningly dark rages.
To make matters worse, 1995 was also the year that the couple’s exorbitant
spending started to catch up with them. Darin’s company was doing well, with a
gross income of $264,000 for the tax year. But it
was hardly a match for the millionaire lifestyle the couple was living. Soon
they were turning to credit to keep up appearances. Then Darin began dipping
into his business coffers with the inevitable fallout. Creditors began asking
for payment and Testnec had no money to settle up. An application to his bank
for a bridging loan of $5,000 was declined.
While all of this was going on Darlie was battling her own demons,
struggling to lose the weight she’d put on during her last pregnancy, waging a
losing campaign against depression, frustrated by the reins being applied to
her spendthrift habits. The situation got so bad that she began contemplating
suicide. On May 3, 1996, she wrote in her diary: “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.”
Darlie Routier would never follow through on the threat to take her
own life. But a month after she’d penned that poignant note, two of the sons to
whom she had addressed it would be dead.
Back at Rowlett Police Headquarters, Det. Patterson was still
wrestling with the many questions surrounding the case. Some of those would
soon be answered. First the medical examiner’s report on Darlie’s injuries was
back. The cuts, according to the M.E. were “hesitation wounds” that is, they
had been inflicted slowly and deliberately, with the person reflexively withdrawing
the blade as soon as pain is experienced. This was quite different to the
wounds the boys had suffered. There the knife had been forcefully plunged in,
with intent to kill.
Then there were the various forensic reports, most notably those regarding
the screen and the mysteriously clean kitchen sink. The sink had shown a clear
response to Luminol, meaning that it had definitely been washed clean of blood
before the police arrived. By whom and why? Patterson thought he knew the
answer. He believed that Darlie had inflicted her neck wound over the sink and
had then rinsed away all traces of blood.
The evidence regarding the damaged screen was even more conclusive. A
set of knives found in the Routier residence had been subjected to forensic
analysis and had returned some interesting results. On a breadknife,
technicians found traces of metal and Teflon that were forensically matched to
the screen. This knife then, had been used to make the cut. Were the police to
believe that an intruder had removed the knife from a drawer, slashed the
screen, and then returned the knife to its original place? No, it all went to
back up Patterson’s theory that the intruder story was a lie concocted by the
real killer. On January 18, 1997, Darlie Routier was arrested for the murder of
her two sons.
Routier was indicted on two counts of first degree murder on June 28,
1997, although the DA later opted to try her only for Damon’s murder, keeping
the other charge in reserve, in the event of an acquittal.
That, in truth, never seemed likely. Routier’s version of events was
in direct conflict with the forensic evidence and in cases like that juries
generally lean towards the forensics. The best shot that the defense had was to
dwell on the one thing to which the police did not have a definite answer, the
fact that Darlie Routier had no motive.
Except that that wasn’t exactly true. There was plenty of evidence
that Darlie was the “self-centered, materialistic woman” that the prosecutor
described her as; plenty of evidence that she had at times neglected her
children and had on other occasions been openly hostile towards them. There was
witness testimony, too, of her odd behavior on the night her children died, of
her callous attitude and lack of grief. And that had continued at the boys’
funeral and beyond. One particular incident had involved a bizarre birthday
party that Darlie had hosted at her sons’ gravesite, complete with cake and
silly string. Darlie’s friends and family might have believed she was innocent,
her attorney might have tried to prove it, but in the end, the evidence said
different. That, at least, was how the jury ruled.
But were they right? After the trial, two pieces of evidence emerged
that might have resulted in a different outcome. One was a bloody fingerprint
found on a counter top which did not come from either Darlie or Darin Routier;
another was a child’s sock, discovered in an alleyway 75 yards from the crime
scene. It was found to contain traces of
These perplexing clues might well cast doubt on the original
conviction but they have not been deemed sufficient to gain a new trial for
Darlie Routier. She remains incarcerated at the Mountain View Unit in
Gatesville, Texas, awaiting her date with the executioner.
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