Darlie Routier - Murder

Murder

Darlie Routier claimed that an intruder killed her children, but police became suspicious when they found inconsistencies between Darlie's report and the crime scene evidence. Mrs. Routier's children were killed with deep, penetrating knife wounds to their torsos, while the slashes to Routier's neck and arm were more superficial. The two boys weighed about 40 lb each and were held face down on the floor and stabbed 4 times in the back. Mrs. Routier weighed 128 lb and was standing and fighting when she was wounded.

Darlie Routier claimed that she ran barefoot through her kitchen to call for help. Routier had stated that the intruder had knocked a wine glass off of the kitchen counter as he was leaving, causing the glass to break on the floor. However Routier had no corresponding injuries to her feet. Though the intruder supposedly cut through a screen in the Routier home, traces of the screen were found on a knife in Routier's kitchen that had been placed on the kitchen counter. The sink in the kitchen had been cleaned up, but blood was found down the front of the cabinets directly under the sink, so police suspected that she inflicted her wounds over the sink, then washed the blood down. The first responding officer, David Waddell, noted that Mrs. Routier was bleeding profusely and her shirt was covered in blood when he arrived. Areas of blood around the sink had been wiped away, as revealed by a luminol test. Her claim for defensive wounds was the bruising on her arms. However, at trial, after looking at photos taken June 10, Dr. Alex Santos, the trauma surgeon who operated on Darlie, stated that the bruising looked to be only a day or two old at most, which would mean it occurred in the hospital. When questioned by the defense, however, Dr. Santos extended the timeline and said the bruising might have been inflicted up to four days before the photo was taken, that is, on June 6. Another steadfast argument by the police was that the slash on Darlie's throat was at a downward 45-degree angle, consistent with a self-inflicted wound. Her necklace was so deeply embedded in her throat that it had to be surgically removed.

In the 911 call, she stated she was 'fighting' the intruder; however, at trial this was heavily disputed by the defense team, who said she stated she was 'frightened.' Prosecutors stated this was said to explain the lack of blood on the sofa and surrounding areas where she was supposedly stabbed.

After the operator told Darlie not to touch anything, Routier told the 9-1-1 operator that she had already picked up the murder weapon (thus removing any prints), which made police suspicious. Officers at the scene, paramedics, nurses, doctors and neighbors were also struck by the fact that Routier never asked how the boys were or inquired whether they were alive. Officer Waddell asked Routier repeatedly to apply pressure to her son Damon's back and to tend to him, but received no response from her. However, she continued to apply pressure to her own neck wounds.

Darlie's purse and several pieces of jewelry were found untouched on the kitchen counter, casting suspicion on the idea of a home invasion. Routier described the alleged attacker as a man who was 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 220 pounds, was dressed entirely in black with a T-shirt and baseball cap. However, she later claimed to not be able to remember any further description, doctors later claimed that she was suffering from traumatic amnesia due to the event, and her account was of little use. Routier's claim that the killer dropped the knife as she chased him through the kitchen was seen by investigators as wildly inconsistent. They questioned why an intruder would drop the murder weapon in plain sight, thus giving Routier a weapon with which to fight back and also leaving police powerful forensic evidence.

Darlie told police that she believed the killer escaped through the garage. Investigators found a slit window screen in the garage, presumably the intruder's point of exit. However, the sliced screen showed no signs of being forced in or out to allow a body to pass through. The screen was easily removable, leaving open the possibility that an intruder could have knocked the screen off its setting without needing to cut his way out. The ground beneath the window contained wet mulch that was found undisturbed, making it impossible for someone to have exited through the window without leaving noticeable footprints. The killer's "trail of blood" led into the garage and stopped at the window that Routier told police the killer escaped through. Not a single drop of blood was found anywhere on the property's exterior.

Routier's attending surgeon referred to her wounds as "superficial" and were described by prosecutors as "hesitation wounds". While the boys were savagely and forcefully attacked, the "hesitation wounds" found on Routier's body were slowly and deliberately inflicted. Spots of blood found on her clothing demonstrated she had been very close to her sons while they were stabbed. The blood from both sons was deposited in a projected bloodstain pattern on the back and shoulder of her nightdress, indicating blood cast off from the weapon. Blood found under a vacuum cleaner and blood spots on the cleaner itself, indicating that the vacuum cleaner had been placed there after the crime was committed.

Newscasts appeared of Darlie Routier and other family members holding a "birthday party" at the children's grave to celebrate posthumously Devon's 7th birthday, just eight days after the murder. The grave had been under police surveillance, but Darlie arrived with a local television crew she had invited, essentially rendering moot any need for surveillance. At the birthday party, Routier was shown laughing and spraying silly string on her sons' graves. Darlie yelled out to her dead children that she loved them, all the while grinning and chewing bubble gum. Four days later, she was charged with murder. The jury was shown the so-called "silly string videotape" at trial. Significantly, the jury was not shown earlier surveillance footage from the police stake out filmed prior to the "silly string incident" that showed Routier and the family grieving "appropriately" with two priests for over an hour.

Routier was also said to have been considering suicide two months before killing her sons. The evening before the murder, Routier squabbled with her husband and asked him for a separation. The couple's relationship was in trouble, with public fights and rumors of mutual cheating by both partners.