June 2006 - Routh joined the Marines one week after graduating high school, stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
September 2007 - March 2008 - Routh served in Iraq; stationed at Balad Air Base.
2009 - Routh served with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the USS Bataan.
January 19, 2010 - April 2010 - Routh's unit assigned to Haitian Relief Mission after devasting earthquake on January 12, 2010.
An earthquake on January 12, 2010 killed 230,000 people, injured about 300,000 and destroyed or severely damaged a quarter-million homes in Haiti, an incomprehensible tragedy in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. North Carolina-based 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit deployed from Camp Lejeune, N.C., to the Caribbean nation aboard several amphibious ships that were ordered to prepare for deployment January 13, 2010. "I don't know yet the scope of the tragedy, but it's very severe," Commandant Gen. James Conway said. "The 22nd MEU is going over, which recently returned from theater and is not yet disbanded. It'll be going along with three to four [amphibious] ships. The timeline is to be determined, but there is a sense of urgency throughout the [U.S.] government that says sooner is better than later because we're still in the rescue mode." Scores of bodies were found in a mass graves. Mass graves were used out of necessity, in order to get the bodies off the streets and to prevent the spread of disease.
June 18, 2010 - Routh honorably discharged from active duty. He was an expert marksman and Marine corporal who had earned several medals, including a Marine good-conduct medal. He was listed as “individual ready reserve,” meaning he could be called back to active duty.
July 23, 2011 - Routh voluntarily admitted himself to VA hospital for the first time.
July 30, 2011 - Routh thought he had a tapeworm; sister took him to the VA hospital. He was admitted against his will because "he was very suicidal," according to his mother. Routh was released three weeks later. Routh was prescribed nine different medications after his three weeks in the VA. After his hospital visits, "he went for several group therapy meetings; he went to the psychiatrist every few weeks to discuss his medications."
In the summer of 2011, after he'd been home for about a year, Eddie and a cousin went to Houston to help build storage units. Eddie fell ill after a few days, so his sister Laura drove down to fetch him. On the four-hour trip back to Lancaster, Eddie began to chatter nervously about a tapeworm eating his insides. He made his sister, Laura, pull over at a dingy roadside eatery, where he ordered plate after plate of food. "He was so convinced that this thing was eating him alive, he was buying protein drinks," his mother, Jodi, says. "He was eating every hour, as much as he could eat."
Finally she took him to the VA hospital. And sometime later, when he started saying he was a werewolf and a vampire, Raymond took him back.
Eddie's medical record states that he was initially diagnosed with PTSD on July 23, 2011. Jodi continued to believe the VA would save Eddie, even after he started to dread each visit. "They're not doing shit for me," he once snapped, as she urged him to go. He had a point, in fact. Laura recalls sitting with her brother on one appointment during which the doctor stayed deskbound, eyes fixed on a checklist. "I felt like she asked the same list of questions to everyone," Laura says. "Then she said, 'Okay, well, we'll see you next time.' She couldn't have cared less what his answers were."
The Dallas VA would not speak about Eddie, citing patient privacy.
Eddie Routh was offered eight different prescriptions and repeatedly put into group therapy sessions. He rarely had individual counseling and didn't benefit from the groups, according to his mom. He lapsed into self-medicating, complaining that the drugs made him feel worse.
http://www.menshealth.com/best-life/who-killed-chris-kyle?fullpage=true
March/April 2012 - In early 2012, Routh's license was suspended because of a D.U.I. Around April, Routh met his girlfriend, Jennifer Weed (pictured above), on a dating website, Plenty of Fish. They started dating casually and became exclusive in May 2012.
Weed, who received a bachelor's degree in psychology from St. Edward's University in 2010, was working as a victim's advocate for the Dallas County District Attorney's office at the time they met online. She was hired on October 14, 2010 and left the job sometime in 2012, before the murders of Kyle and Littlefield. Routh's two hospitalizations for psychotic episodes began six months after they met online. The murders on February 2, 2013 of Kyle and Littlefield occurred 10 months after Routh and Weed met online.
In April 2012, Eddie met a girl online. (She has asked to be identified only as Jen.) He made her laugh; he was attentive and had a refreshing lack of pretense. He was romantic, but unconventionally so. Jen tells of the time Eddie spent a weekend helping at a friend's farm north of Dallas. He'd been working a field for a couple of hours on a sweltering afternoon when Jen walked out of the house to bring him water. Seeing her making her way toward him, he powered down the tractor, hopped off, and scampered around picking her a bouquet of wildflowers.September 2, 2012 - Routh hospitalized at mental hospital then the VA hospital after threatening to kill himself and his family during an argument with his father at a backyard fish fry. Jen Weed had been present that day but left before the argument transpired.
Also about this time, Eddie adopted a puppy, a black Lab mix he named Girley. He doted on her "like she was his own little girl," his mother, Jodi, says. He basked in the kind of unconditional love only a dog can give, and he was reluctant to ever be without her.
For a time in 2012, he seemed to reach equilibrium. With the abiding presence of Jen and Girley, "he felt like he had something to give again," Jodi says. One day he sat down with a yellow legal pad and wrote "life goals for next 5 years." First up: education. He applied for VA college benefits and was accepted into Lincoln Tech, a trade school.
But as autumn approached, Eddie's mind again started to unspool. He had developed an obsession with waste, not wanting to throw away even the slightest bit of trash or morsel of food. [Source: Men's Health]
On September 2, 2012, the Rouths hosted a fish fry in their backyard. At some point, the conversation turned to Eddie's tuition. His education money was stuck in the VA bureaucracy. About the only thing of value the family possessed was a collection of firearms, many of them heirlooms that had long been in the family. His father offered to sell them to pay for Eddie's school. Eddie, who'd spent the afternoon drinking, would have none of it. Father and son began fighting. "I'll blow my brains out," Eddie shouted at one point. "You don't need me around here anyway," he said. Jodi hustled the guns out the front door in the arms of some friends. Barefoot and shirtless, a tearful Eddie stormed through the back door, called for Girley, and set out on foot. The former Marine was suffering from PTSD, though his family didn't understand what he was going through, according to a September 2, 2012, police report. He was placed in protective custody and sent to Green Oaks psychiatric hospital in Dallas for mental evaluation.September 2012 - Routh lived with Jen Weed for a little less than a month after being released from the mental hospital. Routh told Weed he would come to her apartment once leaving Green Oaks Hospital "after the pigs released him." Routh blamed his family about the family fish fry incident and begged Weed to let him live with her. Weed agreed. She testified that there were no outbursts during this time. After living together one month, the two were getting on each others nerves and broke up. Routh returned to his parents' home, 20 miles away.
Late November 2012 - Routh and Weed get back together around Thanksgiving 2012.
January 2013 - Routh would gaze blankly at nothing, unresponsive to the touch or voices of people around him.
By the time Christmas had come and gone, Eddie was becoming trapped in spells during which he would gaze blankly at nothing, unresponsive to the touch or voices of people around him. His eyes "wouldn't look like there's someone alive in there," says one friend. One day in January, his uncle Jamie called Jen, saying he'd just gotten off the phone with Eddie and was worried. Jen drove to Eddie's house and found him sitting on the sofa in an unblinking trance. "He didn't even acknowledge that I walked in," she says. "After about five hours, I finally got him to say a few words and eat some food."
Another day around this time, Eddie woke up in the morning and told his mother he felt too distressed to go to work. That evening, he wandered into Jodi's bedroom, looking more frightened boy than Marine, sat beside the bed, and asked his mother if she would hold his hand.
"A big strong Marine doesn't need his mama, you know what I mean?" Jodi says. "I was trying to get him to tell me, 'What's bothering you? What's wrong today?'" She put a hand on his cheek and turned his face toward hers. "Whatever he was seeing was really bad because he had such a scared look on his face. His eyes weren't looking at me. He just wasn't there. I just kept saying, 'Look at me. I'm your mom. Look at your mom.'"
January 17, 2013 - Routh phoned his girlfriend, Jen Weed, to pick him up at his parents' home in Lancaster, where he had been living. She said, "He came running out of his house and jumped in my car, screaming, 'Go, go, go!'" His behavior grew more erratic. She said he called her a demon "trying to steal his soul. It was very out of character."
January 19, 2013 - Around mid January, Routh was erratic and not going to work. On January 19th, after refusing to allow Weed and her roommate to leave their apartment, Routh was hospitalized at Green Oaks mental hospital and then the VA hospital.
The night before, he started accusing Jen of trying to steal his soul—much of his paranoia was founded in either religion or government—and saying he was going to die that night. Jen testified that Routh began calling her names (“crack whore”). She said it was the first time she’d seen him that way. "He had never spoken to me that way before...It was very out of character," Jen said. He said he needed to leave to see his mom because he was going to lose his soul. Jen testified that he told her that she was trying to steal his soul. Routh took a shot of vodka and eventually calmed down. Finally, around 2 a.m., she calmed him enough that he could sleep.January 25, 2013 - After about a week's stay in the VA hospital, Routh was released. Weed said after his release, she visited him at home. She found him normal while on medication, but then crying and sad.
The next morning he seemed better, but then he started shaking and sweating profusely. He started pacing in front of Jen's door brandishing a knife, but did not threaten her. "He insisted people were out to get him and we were going to stay in the apartment because it was safe," she testified. "He decided that the government was going to hurt us if we left the apartment," she says. Jennifer wanted to leave, but Routh grabbed a decorative ninja sword and said, "No, you can’t leave." Routh said “They’re coming to get us, don’t let them in.” Jen's roommate was in her own room at the time. Jen texted her roommate, saying to stay in there and warned her Routh was in a mood. He put down the weapons whenever Jen walked toward him.
Jen testified that Routh didn’t threaten her with the weapons. Routh said he would protect them all. Routh kept saying they couldn't leave the apartment because people were out to get them. Jen's roomate had a second job and needed to leave, so she texted a police officer and he came. [This went on for two hours before the roommate texted police.] Routh was taken to Green Oaks mental hospital and then transferred to the VA hospital. Jen tesitied that he did not smoke any weed and had only had a shot of liquor that night. Jen visited him at the VA hospital. He was apologetic but had no recollection of what happened.
The next few days were difficult. Weed, who is Catholic, said that Routh was fixated on “demons and devils.” He went with her to Mass on Sunday, hoping that it would help him. At home with his mother, he fluctuated between being angry and wound up, and being dazed and emotionless. “I could see him having flashbacks,” his mother recalled. “You know when you’re daydreaming? You just kind of get that glaze in your eyes? That was what was happening to Eddie. I knew what he was seeing was not good, ’cause he looked like a scared little child. He didn’t look like a man.”January 25, 2013 - Routh's mother, Jodi, introduces herself to Chris Kyle at the parking lot of his kids' school, where she worked as an aide in the special-ed program. She asked if he could help out her son with son workout equipment (Fitco Cares Foundation).
At night, he popped out of bed at the slightest sound, running into his mother’s bedroom to make sure that she was safe. “I thought someone was trying to get you,” he told her. During the day, his mother said, “he still wasn’t able to carry on a good conversation. He wasn’t making good sense. He was crying a lot. He would come lay down in our bedroom. We’d bring in the dog and lay in the bed and he’d say, ‘Mom, will you hold my hand? I’m so scared. I don’t feel good. I’m not good.’ ” As his mother held him, Routh said, “I just wish you could be in my head for just a second, just so you could know what I’m feeling like.” “I wish I could,” his mother told him. “I would take it from you.”
When Kyle dropped off his children that morning in the parking lot of the school, Jodi stopped him and introduced herself. She told him, her son, Eddie Ray Routh, was a twenty-five-year-old former marine who was suffering from P.T.S.D. She had heard about FITCO Cares, and was desperate to find him help. Kyle suggested that she write down her contact information and send it home with his kids.January 30, 2013 - Routh went for a follow up visit with his mother, Jodi, to the VA hospital.
A few hours after she had introduced herself to him in the school parking lot, she was called down to the principal’s office and found Kyle there, waiting. He could sense her desperation and had come back to the school to hear more. They found an empty classroom and sat at a horseshoe-shaped table. Jodi explained some of what Routh was going through. Kyle confessed that he, too, struggled with P.T.S.D. Fortunately, he did not have to rely on the V.A., because he had private health coverage. (According to one of Kyle’s medical records, he had sought counsel from a physician for “combat stress” after his 2008 deployment, though at his exit physical he declared that he had “no unresolved issues.”)
Kyle said that he could take Routh fishing or hunting or, perhaps, to the rifle range. He couldn’t do it this weekend, though, because his brother’s wife was about to have a baby, and he was heading out of town. One of Kyle’s former SEAL teammates, Mike Ritland, said that firing guns was a “common ground we all have, whether you’re Marines or Army or Navy. It’s a way of blowing off steam—a stress release for both guys.” Jonathan Shay, the psychiatrist, is less confident that “going to the gun range and busting some caps” makes sense as “a healing experience.” P.T.S.D. veterans, he said, carry “wounds of the mind and spirit, and one of the ways in which these wounds manifest themselves is through explosiveness.”
Kyle promised Jodi, “I’m going to do everything I can to help your son.” They hugged—“a really good hug,” Jodi recalled. She began to cry. “I was so happy that somebody was listening and that somebody was willing to help,” she told me. “I knew he meant it. He wanted to help Eddie. And he didn’t know Eddie. He had never laid eyes on Eddie. But he knew from what I told him that my kid was suffering, that he was hurting so bad. And he knew it was hurting me. That was the first time in a long time that I had felt a little sense of relief. I felt some hope for Eddie, that it wasn’t just going to be bad for him, and that maybe something good was gonna happen.” Jodi went home and stuck Kyle’s number on the refrigerator.
The next week, Jodi and Kyle waved at each other when she saw him dropping off his kids at school. One day, around the time of Routh’s follow-up appointment, Kyle told Jodi that he planned to call Routh, so that they could get together the coming weekend. She recalled, “The next day, I saw him again, and he pulled up close to where I was, and I stopped the truck and opened the door. And I said, ‘Hey, I forgot to ask you, but what’d you get? A niece or a nephew?’ He goes, ‘I got a niece.’ He was so happy. He had such a big smile and he was just so proud of this little baby. And that was actually the last time I talked to Chris.”
In the weeks leading up to his final hospitalization, Eddie had been trying to cut back on alcohol, honoring a promise to Jen. But now he was back to drinking hard. Jodi took Eddie back to the VA on January 30. His mind was so unfocused that Jodi had to answer the doctor's questions for him, she says. She begged them to admit him. He just wasn’t capable of speaking for himself,” she told a reporter from the New Yorker.February 1, 2013 - The night before the murders, Weed said Routh was smoking pot, and seeing and hearing things. She spent the night with Routh at his parents' home (his parents were out of town, in Abilene). Weed and Routh's mother testified they had no knowledge that Kyle and Littlefield were picking up Eddie on the day of the murders.
She explained to the psychiatrist that Routh wasn’t sleeping and “couldn’t think straight.” She pleaded with the psychiatrist to readmit him to the hospital, where “he’s not going to be a danger to others or to himself.” But the psychiatrist, according to Routh's mother, shook his head and said that hospitalization wasn’t necessary. Routh's mother then asked the psychiatrist if he could refer Routh to a residential program for people with PTSD, in Waco, Texas. The psychiatrist told her, “He’s not stable enough for that program.” He was sent home.
By then, the stress of caring for Eddie had left his mother spent. She needed to see her husband, who had begun a job out of town. She and Raymond agreed to meet in Abilene that weekend. She drove out straight from work on the afternoon of Friday, February 1.February 2, 2013 - Routh at age 25, confessed to shooting and killing Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield.
That evening, Jen arrived to spend the weekend with Eddie. Sometime later in the evening, he proposed marriage. “We were in the kitchen,” she recalled. “I was getting him his medicine. I turned around, and he got to one knee and asked me to marry him.” Routh didn’t have a ring—he was broke—but pledged to save up for one. Jen accepted the proposal, and spent the night at the house in Lancaster. (After the knife episode, Jen’s apartment building had banned Routh from the property.)
That night, Routh had a psychotic episode and got very little sleep. Early the next morning, Routh and Jen argued about his dipping Copenhagen. He told her he wanted to break up. He also told her to leave the home. Jen testified that during the argument, Routh told her: "Fuck you, go eat a peanut and die." [Jen is she's allergic.] Before leaving, she texted his uncle, Jamie Watson, 45, to come over because she was concerned about leaving him alone. She left around 10 AM when his uncle arrived.
Watson, who testified for the prosecution, said he and Routh smoked non-laced marijuana and may possibly have drank whiskey between 30 minutes and 1.5 hours before Routh left to go to gun range with Kyle. He said they talked about Eddie's relationship problems and the Bible. Watson told prosecutors that Routh grew up around him and that Routh knows right from wrong because he learned about religion and morality from his family, who are "God-fearing people." According to Watson, during his first police interview, he did not disclose smoking marijuana with Routh. When he testified for the prosecution, Watson was on deferred adjudication for assault on a paramedic in Johnson County, Texas. Under cross examination, he denied making any deal with prosecutors for his testimony. He testified that Routh left the house that day without saying goodbye to him or telling him he was leaving.
Eddie called his sister, Laura, early Saturday evening from their uncle Jamie's house, where he'd stopped briefly after leaving the gun range, saying something about a shitty day and that he wanted to come over and talk. The drive took about 20 minutes. The day had been sunny and breezy, and Laura had her windows and doors open to welcome the springlike air. Eddie let himself in and sat at her dining room table. Laura was not happy to see him. Ever since the incident at Jen's apartment, Laura and her husband, Gaines, hadn't wanted Eddie around. They were afraid he might do something that would scare their daughter, who adored her uncle Eddie.
"I murdered him," Laura remembers him saying.
"Who? What are you talking about?"
"Chris."
"Chris? Chris who?"
"Chris Kyle and his friend."
On the witness stand, Laura testified that when her brother arrived at her home the day of the killings, he said: “Is it just me or is the world freezing over?.” "He was talking about pigs sucking his soul." Routh told his sister he killed two guys at gun range because they were out to get him. Laura said she didn't believe her brother at first after he said he killed two people "because he said crazy stuff before." When she saw the pickup outside: "It kind of took me back. I thought I was going to throw up." Laura testified: "He said he took their souls before they could take his. I asked him what he meant by that, and he said they were out to get him." She added: "The man who was my brother was not at my house. The person who came to my house was not the person I know as my brother." Laura continued: "When I was looking at him, he kind of looked like he was out of it, almost in a daze or something."
About Routh, Laura's husband, Gaines Blevins, testified: "He seemed confused, like he didn't know what was going on. He actually said he didn't know what he should do." Gaines testified that Routh was incoherent at times and babbled aimlessly. Gaines said: "I didn't really know what to say. The hair on the back of my neck stood up a little bit." Routh didn’t want to call police and said he thought he should "just go." Before Routh left, he said he had guns in his truck and could show them. Routh was asked to leave the property. After Routh left, the Blevins locked up the house and headed to the police station. They called 911 as they drove. They stayed on phone until they reached the station. Laura gave a statement to police, which was videotaped.
Eddie seemed to drift in and out of reality, so Laura wasn't sure what to believe. "I thought he was just talking out of his ass," she told Men's Health magazine. He started saying other peculiar things: "Are you and Gaines in hell with me?"
"I could smell the fucking pigs."
"I sold my soul for a truck."
Laura was just trying to get him out the door.
When she and Eddie walked outside, Laura saw Chris Kyle's truck, with its oversized custom tires. Her stomach clenched at the thought that her brother might be telling the truth. On the steps of her porch, he turned around and called her Beezer, her family nickname. He told her he loved her.
"It was like he was my tiny little brother that I needed to scoop up in my arms and make everything better for him. But I was so lost. I hugged him, and I said, 'I love you too, but I do not love your demons.'"
A look she had never seen washed over his face. You know how in horror movies when it gets to the scary part and the villain's eyes will just turn black? It almost felt like that in that moment."
As Laura frantically dialed 911, Eddie was heading north on U.S. route 67 toward home. He told his sister he was bound for Oklahoma, but Laura suspected he would not have gone anywhere without Girley. She was right: Eddie drove to his parents' home in Lancaster to pickup his dog. Laura dialed 911 immediately after Eddie left. The police where waiting for him at his parents' home when he got there.
April 2014 - Routh was baptized in jail by the senior Minister of the local Church of Christ, John Parker, who has been visiting him regularly. It also came out during the testimony that a bible had been found by Routh’s bed after the shootings.
December 25, 2014 - 'American Sniper' movie released in select theaters
January 16, 2015 - 'American Sniper' movie goes to wide release, 3,555 theaters initially, and then expanded to 3,705 on January 23 and 3,885 theaters on January 30.
January 30, 2015 - Texas governor declares every February 2nd "Chris Kyle Day"
February 2, 2015 - Two-year anniversary of murders.
February 6, 2015 - Jury selection for Eddie Ray Routh trial begins: 400 summoned; 189 showed up; 39 excused or disqualified. Total of 263 jurors have been qualified and will return Monday for jury selection.
February 9, 2015 - A jury of 10 women and two men (plus two alternates) selected for Eddie Routh trial. Opening statements at 9 AM.
February 9, 2015 - CNN premieres special, Real-Life ‘American Sniper,’ a "special will look at Kyle’s life."
February 11, 2015 - Trial begins. On first day of trial Chad Littlefield's mother cries on the stand as she tells jury that today would have been her son's 38th birthday.
January 15, 2015 - Academy Award nominations announced: 'American Sniper' nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Adapted Screenplay.
Movie did not receive any nominations from the awards leading up to the Oscars; i.e. Golden Globes or Screen Actors Guild, which is unprecedented.
February 20, 2015 - HISTORY channel premieres The Real American Sniper. It "tells his powerful story in this poignant one-hour World Premiere special"
February 22, 2015 - Academy Awards ceremony. Last week, the judge in Routh's trial reminded jurors to avoid any media coverage but did not ban them from watching the Oscars.
February 23, 2015 - Trial cancelled so Taya Kyle could rest from her trip back from the Oscars the night before in Los Angeles. Judge announced at end of trial on Friday that trial could be cancelled on Monday because of weather, but that was just a ruse. The weather on Monday was wet but not icy. The trial was cancelled Monday so that Taya could attend the Oscars and after parties on Sunday. When trial was resumed on Tuesday, it started late because Taya wasn't ready.
February 24, 2015 - Trial starts 20 minutes late because Taya is running late after flying back from the Oscar and after parties, even though the trial was cancelled yesterday for her so she could rest. Trial closing arguments begin.
February 24, 2015 - After about three hours of closing arguments from both sides, State District Judge Jason Cashon turned the case over to jury around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at 6:36 PM CST.
Deliberations began at 6:36 PM CST and the jury ordered dinner in.February 25, 2015 - Six of the jurors spoke exclusively to ABC News about the trial and verdict (video).
Jury has verdict 90 minutes later at 8:04 PM, even including time to eat dinner.
They find Eddie Ray Routh found guilty of capital murder for killing Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield. He is sentenced to life in prison.
February 26, 2015 - Stephenville city secretary Cindy Stafford was one of 10 women and two men who found Eddie Routh guilty Tuesday of capital murder. She talked with the E-T about what it was like to serve as a juror in the county's most high profile case in history. Ten jurors who served on the capital murder trial of Eddie Routh boarded two buses to begin making their way to DFW airport where they will board a plane and fly to New York City to appear on ABC’s 20/20 Friday night.
February 26, 2015 - Congressman Roger Williams (R-Texas) introduces the Chris Kyle Medal of Honor Act, a bill that would authorize and request the president to award the Medal of Honor posthumously to Navy Seal Christopher Scott Kyle for acts of valor during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
March 2, 2015 - The Stephenville Police Department and Erath County Sheriff's Office received a formal "thank you" for their services during the capital murder trial of Eddie Ray Routh. "The departments teamed up to tackle the large effort of providing security during the two-week trial.
March 3, 2015 - Routh attorneys file an appeal and motion for new trial.
March 6, 2015 - Routh held transported from Erath County jail to the Middleton Unit in Abilene Friday morning where he will undergo testing before he is transported to a Texas prison where he will begin serving his life term.
Photos from Court After Jury Reaches Verdict:
The prosecutors and their expert witnesses accused Eddie of making up the story about pigs AFTER the murders to feign pyschosis, but this is refuted by the fact that his sister, in her taped interrogation at the police station immediately after Eddie left her home on the day of the murders, told police that her brother "was out of his mind, saying people were sucking his soul and that he could smell the pigs." Also, in a taped interrogation on the day of the murders, Routh rambles about the "wolf in the sky" and pigs.
Defense's expert witness, Dr. Dunn, interviewed Routh for 6 hours 15 minutes in April 2014.
Dunn testified: By the Friday night before the killings, Routh "believed pigs were taking over the earth."
Dunn: When Routh's girlfriend, Jennifer Weed, visited him Friday night before the slayings, he believed she was also a hybrid pig-human.
Dunn: Routh said he didn't like seeing Weed eat bacon: “He was thinking she was a pig hybrid. Why would you eat the flesh of your people?”
Routh told Dunn: "When I first got here to jail, I thought I was going to be cooked for people to eat."
Dunn: Routh also believed that Kyle and Littlefield could also be pigs. He was nervous when the men didn't talk to him.
Dunn: Routh thought the world was being taken over by pigs.
Dunn: Eddy got mad when Chris received a text from his girlfriend, Weed. He thought he was on a one-way trip to lodge. On the way they passed two white cars. Eddie thought the cars had hybrid pigs in them to kill him.
Dr. Dunn also testified to what was shown to the jury of the videotaped police interrogation of Eddie Ray Routh on the day of the murders:
Dunn read passages from Routh's taped confession. Routh rambles about the "wolf in the sky" and pigs. Dunn says it's signs of illness.
Dr. Dunn also testified to what was shown to the jury of the videotaped police interrogation of Routh's sister, who he visited immediately after the murders and who then went straight to the police:
Of Routh after he came to house the day of killings, Laura Blevins told police: "He was talking about pigs sucking his soul."
On cross examination, the prosecution said: The jail is directly next to a BBQ joint and could be why all the references by Routh to pigs. [But he talked about the pigs to his sister before he was apprehended and taken to the jail.]
On cross examination, Dunn testified that:
Routh thought his girlfriend, Weed, was a hybrid pig the night she came over before the murders.
Routh said his girlfriend's ears looked like pig ears.
Routh told Weed he wanted to break up and she didn't want to. Dunn says Routh convinced she didn't want to because she was a pig.
Routh also thought his neighbor was a cannibal and since their sewer lines were connected; Eddie though his neighbor ate Eddie's waste.
At the gun range, Kyle and Littlefield unloaded the guns, and Routh thought it was odd that they didn't ask him to help.
At the gun range, Kyle and Littlefield had loaded handguns on their waistband holsters.
Routh was unarmed until Kyle gave him one of his guns to shot at the practice targets while he was also shooting (all the guns at the scene were Kyle's). Routh loaded the gun, a 9mm. While Kyle and Routh shot at the targets, Littlefield stood back and watched.
Routh said it was odd that Littlefield wasn't shooting at the range. "He felt like he was in danger, like something was going to happen."
Routh said he waited until Kyle unloaded his weapon at the shooting range target, and then he fired at Littlefield.
Routh told Dr. Dunn that he thought he neutralized the threat, then shot Kyle to keep from being shot.
He saw Kyle turning and he shot at him 2-3 times. And then he saw that Littlefield was twitching, so he shot him in the head.
Routh's account is he shot Littlefield first, once, then Kyle 2-3 times, then Littlefield again, using the same hand gun, a 9mm. This would be a total of 5 shots using one gun.
Investigators say Routh shot a total of 13 times using two handguns, and that the 6 wounds to Kyle were from a .45-caliber handgun and the 7 wounds to Littlefield were from a 9mm Sig Sauer handgun, which was found in Kyle's truck when they arrested Routh around 9 PM the night of the murders.
Dunn asked Routh why Kyle and Littlefield didn't kill him immediately at the gun range. Routh believed that they were waiting for the right time.
Routh told Dunn: "As soon as I did it, I realized I made a mistake." Routh said he knew it wouldn't look good that he killed.
"He figured if he was going to get arrested, he might as well get something to eat," Routh told Dunn about getting Taco Bell.
Routh told Dunn that he realized it would've been better if he had called police from the gun range after killing Kyle and Littlefield.
Dunn says he believes Routh was suffering from schizophrenia and didn't know his conduct was wrong at time of killings.
Routh was displaying disorganized thinking, delusions when he killed Kyle and Littlefield, Dunn says.
Dunn says Routh was exhibiting signs of schizophrenia two years before the slayings. The signs became more pronounced later.
"There was something really wrong with Eddie Ray Routh on the day of the offense, and that something wrong was a mental disease," Dunn says.
Dunn reads passages from Routh's taped confession.
Dunn says: "If you're going to be killed, then you have the right to defend yourself. He defended himself..."
Dunn says: "I'm not saying that's logical. It's logical in his sense."
Dunn reiterates that he believes Routh's psychosis was not substance abuse.
Dunn says that even in April 2014, when Dunn met with him, Routh still believed Kyle and Littlefield planned to kill him.
Prosecutor Jane Starnes cross examined Dunn about his assessment of Routh.
Starnes asking Dunn how drugs can alter behaviors, personality. Doctors don't make diagnoses until someone is sober, Dunn says.
Starnes asking Dunn if Routh might've lied to him during their interview, if that could've skewed Dunn's diagnosis.
Starnes going back over Dunn's testimony with him. She's saying Routh's diagnosis with schizophrenia isn't enough for insanity defense.
Starnes says the key point is whether Routh understood what was right and wrong. Dunn says that Routh knew in a general sense that killing is wrong.
Routh told Dunn: "It's a pretty sh**** thing killing someone." Dunn says Routh knew police were going to arrest him.
Dunn says he doesn't believe Routh has PTSD, because he didn't have significant trauma. But, Dunn says, Routh does have schizophrenia.
Dunn has finished testifying. Jury out of room.
Defense attorneys are about to rest their case.
Routh will not testify.
Defense attorneys officially rested their case.
The defense had called two expert witnesses, but the judge would not permit the testimony of its first witness, Dr. Overstreet, saying he wasn't qualified. Therefore, only one expert witness testified for the defense. On the other hand, the judge permitted the testimony of two expert witnesses for the prosecution, both with similar qualifications to Dr. Overstreet, so the judge was prejudiced in his decision to disallow the testimony of Dr. Overstreet.
The following is a summary of Dr. Overstreet's testimony, which was not given in front of the jury.
Defense attorneys have called Charles Overstreet, a professor of psychology, at Tarrant County College. He was in Army medical service.
Overstreet was a major in U.S. Army. Deployed to Iraq several times as head of combat stress control unit. Mental health provider there.
Overstreet visited Eddie Ray Routh in jail twice to assess his mental state. Also went through Routh's VA medical records.
Overstreet says Routh was regularly diagnosed with psychiatric disorders.Was on anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, mood stabilizers anti-hallucinogens.
Overstreet says Routh displays symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, PTSD. Paranoid schizophrenia typical first onset at age 25, Routh's age at the time of the shootings.
Overstreet on Routh: "He was suffering from a mental disorder... and he did not know the consequence of his actions at the time."
Prosecutor Alan Nash asked Overstreet about his experience. He's not a licensed physician. Has master's degree in psychology.
Overstreet says PTSD is not a diagnosis you would use in an insanity defense.
Overstreet says that he believes Routh didn't understand at the time of the slayings that what he did was wrong/illegal.
Dr. Overstreet says Routh is paranoid schizophrenic and PTSD. Didn't know actions wrong.
Defense ask judge to not allow state to use the word wrong. Judge denied that request.
Nash questioning Overstreet about what Routh perceived as threatening behavior from Kyle and Littlefield.
Overstreet says: "There doesn't have to be an overt threat... because it's the state of the mind of the defendant that is the problem."
Nash asking Overstreet how Routh described shooting Kyle and Littlefield.
Overstreet says Routh first believed Kyle and Littlefield planned to kill him when they were riding in the truck to the gun range.
Attorneys and judge still determining whether Overstreet can testify on his assessment of Routh before the jury. Working to define insanity.
Heated cross examination of witness with jury not present.
Dr. Overstreet - PTSD is from being in hostile environment and exposed to gunfire.
Dr. Overstreet - Routh was suffering from paranoid delusions in car to gun range and at the range.
Dr. Overstreet explains that his delusions made him think Chad would shoot him.
Dr. Overstreet - once he killed the "threat," Littlefield, he killed Kyle because he was now a threat too.
Dr. Overstreet has never been appointed by the court to argue insanity.
Council has been arguing for an hour and a half about the admissibility of testimony.
The jury has not been present for any of this.
The judge agrees with prosecution this witness is not admissible.
After hearing with judge, Overstreet will NOT be testifying in front of the jury.
Prosecutors questioned whether he had enough experience, knowledge to testify as expert witness. Judge ruled that he didn't.
New doctor to be called.
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