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Darlie Routier (b. January 4, 1970) is a convicted murderer who killed her two young sons. She is currently sitting on Texas death row. is the 4th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
For other uses, see Texas (disambiguation). ...
For information about the Record company see Death Row Records For information about the computer game see Deathrow (game) Death Row is a term that refers to the section of a prison that houses individuals awaiting execution. ...
Her two sons were stabbed to death in the family's Rowlett, Texas home on June 6, 1996. Routier also sustained several wounds, which prosecutors claimed were self-inflicted, related to the incident. Look up stab in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Rowlett is a city in Dallas County and Rockwall County, Texas, United States. ...
is the 157th day of the year (158th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ...
Motives
Though a motive is unclear, prosecutors claimed that Routier murdered her two sons because she was angered by her family's financial difficulties. Her husband, Darin, a small business owner, and the family enjoyed a relatively high annual income. However, most of the money that he earned was quickly spent - later termed as 'living large' by Darin Routier on June the 14th of 1996 to Joe Munoz of Channel 5. The family lived in a lavish Georgian home in an affluent neighborhood, drove a Jaguar, and owned a $20,000 boat. Prosecutors argue that Routier feared that, with little money left in the bank, her affluent lifestyle was threatened, and killed her children to rid herself of a financial burden. This claim has been disputed by her supporters and family. By the time of the murders, the money had run out...the Jaguar wasn't running, the boat they owned wasn't running, their income was ninety thousand dollars less than the year before, they owed up to ten thousand in back taxes, twelve thousand in credit card debt, were two months behind on their mortgage, and the couple had just been denied a five thousand dollar loan from their bank. At the time of the murder, an insurance policy for five thousand dollars for each of their sons was laying in plain view of the responding officers. Jaguar Cars Limited is a luxury car manufacturer, originally with headquarters in Browns Lane, Coventry, England but now at Whitley, Coventry. ...
The Murder Routier claimed that an intruder (or intruders) killed her children, but police became suspicious when numerous inconsistencies in stated and stipulated facts came to light. For example, Routier's children were killed with deep, penetrating knife wounds to their torsos, while Routier's superficial wounds were slashes to her neck and arm; The police wondered why an intruder would attack the victims in such different ways, leaving the one witness who could identify him alive. Also, Routier claimed that at one point, she ran barefoot through her kitchen to call for help. The floor of the kitchen was covered with broken glass, but Routier had no injuries to her feet. Also, her bloody footprints were found under the broken glass, indicating she walked through there first then the glass was deposited on the floor. She also claimed to chase the intruder to the utility room, but there were no bloody footprints leading to that area. In addition, traces of the screen that the intruder supposedly cut were found on one of the knives in Routier's kitchen that had been placed back in the butcher block. The sink in the kitchen had been cleaned up but blood was found down the front of the cabinets directly under the sink, so police suspected that she inflicted the wounds upon herself over the sink, then washed the blood down. Areas of blood around the sink had been wiped away, as revealed by a luminol test. Her claim for defensive wounds was the bruising on her arms, however at trial after looking at photos taken four days after the murder took place, a prosecution expert, her own e.r doctor, the nurses on staff in the ICU and the medical examiner stated the bruising looked to be only a day or two old at most, indicating according to prosecutors that the bruises were self-inflicted days after the murder. This article is about the tool. ...
A utility room is a room in a house, which is the descendant of the scullery. ...
There were other suspicious details:
- Officers at the scene, paramedics, nurses, doctors and neighbors were all struck by the fact that Routier never asked how the boys were or inquired whether they were alive or not.
- First responder Officer David Waddell asked Routier repeatedly to apply pressure to her son Damon's back and to tend to him and was ignored each time. She continued to apply pressure to her own neck wounds however.
- Routier made such a point of telling the 9-1-1 operator that she had picked up the murder weapon (thus removing any prints) that many were immediately suspicious.This was after the 911 operator told her not to touch anything,
- The surgeon who attended her referred to her supposed attack wounds as 'superficial'.
- Spots of blood found on her clothing demonstrated she had, at the very least, been very close to her sons while they were stabbed. The blood from both sons was deposited in a projected bloodstain pattern and on the back and shoulder of her nightdress indicating blood castoff from the weapon.
- Routier told her ex-maid that she wasn't bothered about the cost of the funeral as she could claim $10,000 funeral insurance.
- Routier attempted suicide two months before killing her sons.
- In the 911 call, she stated she was 'fighting' the intruder, however later at trial this was heavily disputed by the defense team who said she stated she was 'frightening'. Prosecutors stated this was said to explain the lack of blood on the sofa and surrounding areas where she was supposedly stabbed.
Routier described the alleged attacker as being a man of medium height, dressed entirely in black with a t-shirt and baseball cap (a cumbersome, and impractical article of clothing for someone breaking into a house, especially through a window) . However, she later claimed to suffer from traumatic amnesia due to the event, and her account was of little use. For other uses, see 911 (disambiguation). ...
The public was also horrified by newscasts of Routier and other family members holding a bizarre "birthday party" at the graves of the murdered children. The grave had been under hidden police surveillance in the hopes that Routier would break down or otherwise make a confession near the graveside. When Darlie did arrive, with a local television crew she had invited, the need for the police surveillance was essentially rendered moot. At the "party", Routier was shown laughing, cackling, and even oddly spraying silly string on her sons' graves. Darlie yelled out to her dead children that she loved them, all the while grinning wildly and chewing bubble gum. Four days later, she was charged with the murder of her children. When the case was tried in court, the jury was shown the so-called "silly string tape.Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that prior to the silly string incident, the immediate family had held a moving memorial at the graves. She was tried and convicted of murdering one of her two sons, and sentenced to death. Prosecutors did not try Routier for the death of the second son, holding his murder in reserve in case of Routier's acquittal on the first murder trial. Silly String is a childs toy: a flexible, brightly-colored plastic string, which is shot as a stream of liquid from an aerosol can. ...
Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offences. ...
In criminal law, an acquittal is the legal result of a verdict of not guilty, or some similar end of the proceeding that terminates it with prejudice without a verdict of guilty being entered against the accused. ...
Innocence Claims Routier's family set up a website that proclaimed that she is innocent. The site has attracted supporters for Routier's cause. She is often the focus of anti-capital punishment groups, who cite her case to argue that the system is rigged and unfair, especially when trials are conducted primarily based upon circumstantial evidence. Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offences. ...
Circumstantial evidence is lesbian sex with a huge glass dildo unrelated facts that, when considered together, can be used to infer a conclusion about something unknown. ...
The claims are based upon alleged mistakes made during her trial, and at the time of the initial investigation, especially during the crime scene investigation. These include:
- A bloody fingerprint that was smeared, and not intact enough to be conclusively linked found to anybody at the crime scene. (later proven to be child-size)
- The possibility of a second murder weapon.(this was debunked by the pathologist who never ruled out one weapon being used for all three people)
- Conflicting statements from witnesses and experts. (experts notes were verified and defense witnesses disagreed)
- Witness statements being ignored - such as one of a man similar in description to the one Mrs. Routier claims to have seen lurking around her home earlier that same day. One of the alleged witnesses who claimed to have seen this mysterious stranger meandering about and looking constantly at the Routier house in broad daylight, did not actually go to the police, or any other agency, with this information until 2002-nearly six years after the incident. The police also received no complaints, or calls from concerned residents the day that this strange person was behaving oddly, and lurking about in an upper middle class residential area where children frequently played outside, often with minimal adult supervision.
- Police photos which showed that items were moved around by the police, such as the vacuum cleaner, which would also have disrupted the crime scene.(of course every crime scene is photographed with the items IN place, moved and then taken away...basic crime scene conduct and certainly no conspiracy)
- Despite police statements, there was allegedly no mulch underneath the window of the garage. One of the main points they made during trial was that this mulch had been undisturbed, although there may have actually been no mulch there.
- Although the doctors later said that wounds were 'superficial', the wound to her neck came within 2mm of her carotid sheath.Obviously very different from the deep, thrusting stabbing wounds of her victims. Given that Routier had no training in physiology, the laceration could easily have been self inflicted without Routier comprehending how potentially dangerous this wound might have been. Supporters of Routier also claim that her necklace was "emdedded" into the laceration on her neck, and that this makes it unlikely the wound was self inflicted, without explaining why this could not have been the case. According to the medical staff in attendance at the time of her hospitalization, the necklace, which was actually only a thin 1/4 inch gold plated chain, was not embedded into her wound, but merely sticking to the dried blood on her neck, and was easily, and painlessly pulled off.
Critics have stated that these claims are not credible, and merely suggest that the investigation and subsequent trial were imperfect. Despite the failure of Darlie's appeals, and continued judicial review of her claims, her supporters continue to contend that there is enough reasonable doubt in the case to continue efforts to release her, and that DNA testing may exonerate her.
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