On February 2, 2013 Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield were fatally shot on a Texas gun range. Former marine Eddie Ray Routh, who had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, psychosis and severe mental illness, confessed to the murders. Routh had been a small arms technician who served in Iraq and was deployed to earthquake-ravaged Haiti before leaving the Marines in 2010.
Eddie Routh's mother, who worked as an aide at the Kyle kids' school, was the person who asked Kyle to take on her son in a program to help rehabilitate wounded and troubled veterans through exercise. The program, sponsored by Fitness Cares Foundation, was established in 2011; however, the company, Fitness Cares, or FITCO, "an elite fitness equipment industry," approached Kyle in 2012 to help promote the foundation by using his name to raise funds. In 2013, the foundation raised $263,067 in private donations: $112,603 (or 43% of funds raised) was used to purchase fitness equipment from the company, FITCO, to then give to veterans; and $96,583 (or 37% of funds raised) was spent on indirect costs/overhead (which included $26,485 for salaries, although none of the seven directors are paid, and a suspicious $11,406 for payroll taxes); leaving $53,881 (or 20% of funds raised) in donations to be invested ($10,014 of the fund balance was used to payoff expenses that exceeded revenue from the previous year).
Kyle agreed to work with Routh a week before the fateful trip to the gun range. Kyle and his neighbor and hunting buddy, Chad Littlefield — a facilities and logistics manager with a lab in DeSoto, Texas, who was not a veteran — decided to take Routh shooting on February 2, 2013. However, no one in Routh's inner circle, including Routh himself, knew that Kyle was planning to pick him up that day: Kyle made multiple calls to Routh's home phone that day, the last call being around noon, before he pulled up in Routh's driveway at 1:07 p.m.
For years the Routh family sought help through the Veterans Health Administration but found themselves adrift in a system struggling to meet the demands spurred by a decade of war and the aging veterans of past conflicts. In 2004, the V.A. Inspector General called the Dallas facility the worst in the nation; in 2012, a Dallas TV station interviewed veterans who alleged that the facility was so poor that it put “lives at risk.”
Routh had been in and out of a psychiatric hospital and the Veterans Affairs hospital in Dallas three times in the months leading up to the killings, and area police reports documented Routh’s mental problems.
Six months before a hunting guide found Kyle and Littlefield's bodies, police caught up with a shirtless, shoeless Routh walking the streets of his hometown. He was crying and smelled of alcohol, police said. His mother told police that Routh had just had an argument with his father who said he was going to sell Routh's gun. Routh left the house, threatening to "blow his brains out," she said. 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 would be placed in protective custody and sent to Green Oaks Hospital in Dallas for mental evaluation.On February 2, 2013, Kyle, driving his custom, black Ford-350 truck, and Littlefield, who was in the passenger's seat, picked up Routh at his home and drove him two hours to a shooting range. Routh was looking forward to an excursion with Kyle: “He needed someone to validate what he was feeling, that it was O.K. for other people to go through it,” his girlfriend said. However, when Routh awoke on February 2, 2013, he, along with his girlfriend and his parents (who were out of town), did not know Kyle was coming by to pick him up. Kyle called Routh at him home multiple times that day, the last time at 12:30 p.m., before pulling into his driveway at 1:07 p.m.
On January 19, 2013, Routh and his girlfriend were hanging around her apartment when he fell into a state of paranoia. He began ranting to her and her roommate about government-surveillance activities. He once told a friend that the helicopters overhead were watching him. Outbursts of this nature had become more frequent. He made sure to cover the camera on his computer (“He felt very strongly about that,” his mother said), and confided to family and friends, “They know what we’re doing.” He also worried that he would be forced to return to Iraq. And yet, for all his distress, Routh sometimes contemplated going back into the service. “He had a lot of guilt that he wasn’t still in the Marines, overseas helping people,” his girlfriend said. Inside the apartment, Routh began pacing in front of the door, clutching a knife. He said that he was prepared to defend her from government agents who were out to get them. For hours, she tried, unsuccessfully, to calm him. Finally, her roommate texted the police, who arrested Routh and took him to Green Oaks psychiatric hospital. He was transferred to the Dallas V.A. the next day.
After Routh arrived at the Dallas V.A., his mother and girlfriend visited him in the evenings. A week later, he did not seem much better. He was taking several medications, and his mother felt that he could hardly carry on a conversation. She urged the doctors to keep him hospitalized, at least until he was stable. Ignoring his mother's request, the V.A. discharged Routh the next day. When his mother drove to the V.A. to pick up her son, he was already out, wandering in the parking lot. She brought him home and told him about Chris Kyle. “I said, ‘This guy has a big reputation. He’s a really good man and he really wants to help you.’ And then he’s like, ‘Mom, that is so awesome’,” his mother recalled. “Eddie was happy. He could feel that somebody wanted to help him, somebody that understood better than me.”
Routh and His Girlfriend, Who Met on a Dating Website in March 2012
The next few days were difficult. Routh's girlfriend, who is Catholic, said he 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, Routh 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.” 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. His mother said that during the day “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 she 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,” she told him. “I would take it from you.”
On January 30, 2013, Routh's mother brought him back to the V.A., for a follow-up appointment. As a psychiatrist reviewed his chart, he noted that Routh had been prescribed only half the recommended dosage of risperidone — a powerful antipsychotic that has been widely used in V.A. hospitals to treat PTSD. The psychiatrist adjusted the prescription and ordered the medication to be sent to the Routh house in two days. Routh's mother was livid. When the psychiatrist questioned Routh, he looked to his mom. “He just wasn’t capable of speaking for himself,” she told the reporter. 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 instructed Routh to come back in two weeks. His mother recalled, “I thought, Two weeks! That’s a long time. I told the doctor, ‘You know, he can’t even answer your questions! He can’t even carry on a conversation. I really think he needs to be in the hospital’.”
While Routh sat in the backseat by himself with a small arsenal of guns and ammo, Kyle and his friend Littlefield, both of whom Routh had never met, sent text messages to each other about him, barely speaking to Routh. Kyle's text to Littlefield read, "This dude is straight up nuts." Littlefield texted back: "He's [sitting] right behind me, watch my 6," a military term for "watch my back." During the drive, Routh, who was under psychiatric care and taking anti-psychotic prescription medications (one being Risperidone, used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, with side effects that include aggressive behavior, agitation and anxiety), became convinced that the two men intended to kill him.
When they arrived at the resort around 3 PM, they turned up a snaking, 3-mile road toward the lodge, where Kyle parked in front of the main lodge and went inside with Littlefield to register, leaving Routh alone in the backseat of the truck. Then then drove another few miles to the remote shooting range. Kyle was given "exclusive access to the range" as was the case whenever "he came out" to the resort. On the day of the fatal shootings, he said he was going to use the range for about 45 minutes, a resort employee testified.
Shortly after arriving at the the shooting range, Kyle and Littlefield were shot at close range multiple times. With one handgun, Kyle was shot six times, including one shot that struck several major arteries and damaged his lungs. One shot went through his cheek and struck his spinal cord. Several of the shots were considered “rapidly fatal.” With another handgun, Littlefield was shot seven times, including four that would have been instantly fatal. One bullet went through the top of his head, indicating it was likely fired while Littlefield was on his knees. Testimony from the person who conducted the autopsies proves that all the shots, except maybe one, went through his front side. One of those shots traveled through his mid-section, causing massive internal bleeding. The shot to the palm of his left hand exited the front of his hand and could have been one of the shots that hit his face, neck and chest. The shot that the coroner said entered through his back seemed more likely to have entered from the front upper chest, exiting through his lower back. For two years prosecutors claimed that Kyle was shot four times in the back and Littlefield was shot five times in the back, but this is false. They continued to propagate this lie before the jury during testimony in Eddie Ray Routh's murder trial in February 2015.
Barnard said the neither Kyle nor Littlefield had a chance of survival. Click here to read the testimony of Dr. Jeffery Barnard, who conducted the autopsies on Kyle and Littlefield, and Howard Ryan, a forensic operation specialist from New Jersey. Both testified for the prosecution.
The bodies were found by a hunting guide around 5 PM. Littlefield's body was found on a shooting platform, while Kyle's body was found a few yards away in the dirt in front of the elevated platform. "Chris was face-down with his nose in the dirt," said a former resort employee who discovered the bodies. "Chad was on the platform on his back." Both men were armed with .45-caliber 1911-style pistols when they were killed, but neither gun had been unholstered or fired, and the safeties were still on. Prosecutors have not elaborated on how Routh initiated the attack or whether he opened fire on the two men at the same time. Kyle was killed with a .45-caliber pistol, while Littlefield was shot with a 9mm Sig Sauer handgun. Both guns belonged to Kyle, and the Sig Sauer was found in Routh’s possession later that night. The only loaded weapons at the crime scene were the two 1911-style handguns that were in Kyle and Littlefield's waistband holsters, with their safeties on.
Shooting Platform at Crime Scene: Kyle and Littlefield's Bodies Cropped from Image
After leaving the scene in Kyle's truck, Routh stopped briefly at his uncle's house and then drove to the home of his sister and brother-in-law, 65 miles away from the gun range. He admitted to the killings and told his sister, "People were sucking his soul." He left their home in Kyle's truck and headed to his parents' small home in Lancaster, where he had been living. He’d gone home to get his dog and planned to drive to Oklahoma. His sister called 911, telling the operator he claimed to have killed two men. "He said that he killed two guys. They went out to a shooting range. Like, he's all crazy. He's f***ing psychotic. I'm sorry for my language." Routh's sister, who drove with her husband to the police station immediately after calling 911, told police that her brother "was out of his mind, saying people were sucking his soul and that he could smell the pigs." Routh's sister told The New Yorker that her brother said “he killed them” — Kyle and Littlefield — “before they could kill him; he said he couldn’t trust anyone anymore.”
Routh's Sister's Terrified 911 Call
In Routh's sister's 911 call (video above), she does not say that her brother told her that "I sold my soul for a truck," which was reported by the mainstream media. The person who said that is Randy Fowler, an investigator with the Erath County Sheriff’s Department in Texas. Fowler wrote in the affidavit: "Routh drove to his sister’s home in Midlothian, about 50 miles from the gun range where the shooting took place, shortly after the incident. Routh was driving what his sister, Laura Blevins, described as a 'big dark or black Ford F-250 pickup that she had never seen before.' It substantiated Routh’s claim that he had murdered Chris Kyle and his friend, and he told the Blevinses that he had killed Kyle and that he had 'traded his soul for a new truck'." Routh's sister told The New Yorker that her brother asked her if the world was freezing over, then announced that he had a new truck. She then asked if he had traded in his car, a Volkswagen Beetle; he said no, but added, “I sold my soul for a truck.” It is this statement that the defense is using as a motivation for the crime, rather than insanity due to Routh's severe mental illnesses. It is important to note that there was no other vehicle at the crime scene when Routh drove off in Kyle's truck, so it was the only vehicle he could take to flee the scene.
Officers were waiting for Routh that evening when he arrived at his parent's home. A police video displayed for the jury at Routh's trial, which began on February 11, 2015, showed police at Routh's home trying to coax him from Kyle's pickup. Officers in the video are seen trying to talk Routh into surrendering as he makes comments such as: "The [expletive deleted] anarchy has been killing the world," "I can feel everybody feeding on my soul," "Is this about hell walking on earth right now?," "Is voodoo all around us?," and "I didn't sleep a wink last night at all." He also expressed concerns about being stalked by cats and at one point announced, "I need to take a nap" and said he wanted his parents to come home (his parent were out of town). "There's no trust anymore," the video showed Routh saying.
Police Dashboard Camera Show Officers Arresting Eddie Ray Routh
One police officer, who happened to be a neighbor of Routh’s, was recorded by his body camera telling him: “I don’t want to hurt you, buddy. We all grew up together here.” Routh reportedly told the police officer: “It happened so fast. I don’t know if I’m going insane.” Kyle refused to leave the vehicle and eventually sped off with police in pursuit. He stopped six minutes later after a police vehicle rammed into the truck. Police video showed Routh opening the driver's-side door, emerging with his hands up, and sinking to the ground. He surrendered peacefully, police said. An officer is seen on the footage giving himself the sign of the cross.
Routh told police: "It wasn't a want to. It was a need to, to get out of that situation out there today or I was going to be the one out there to get my head shot off."
Weapons and Shooting Platform at Crime Scene
Weapons, Shooting Platform and Crime Scene Markers
Kyle's Custom, Black Ford-350 at Crime Lab
"When he took their lives, he was in the grip of a psychosis," Routh's court-appointed defense attorney said, "a psychosis so severe that he did not know what he was doing was wrong." The defense said Routh's psychosis kicked in during the two-hour drive to the gun range as he sat amid "an arsenal" of guns large enough to support "a small army." During the drive, Routh apparently became convinced that the two men intended to kill him. Their texting back and forth to each other about Routh as he watched from the back seat, no doubt, had something to do with it. "He thought he had to take their lives because he was in danger," Routh's attorney said. According to an affidavit, Routh told his brother-in-law he "couldn't trust them, so he killed them before they could kill him."
According to reports on the opening days of his trial, Routh had a "fitful" last night before the killings. He proposed to his girlfriend (who accepted the proposal) but also paced throughout the home, warning her not to speak out loud "because people were listening."
The prosecution is alleging that Routh drank whiskey that fateful morning and may have smoked "wet" marijuana (cannabis laced with formaldehyde) before getting into Kyle's truck. A Texas ranger found Routh's anti-psychotic prescription medications (one being Risperidone, used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, with side effects that include aggressive behavior, agitation and anxiety), a whiskey bottle on the table, a bong, and rolling papers when he searched Routh's home after the arrest. However, on cross examination, the ranger said he saw no evidence that Routh was intoxicated or under drug influence at time of his arrest.
Routh's uncle, James Watson, 45, testifying for the prosecution, said the two of them smoked non-laced marijuana between 30 minutes and an hour and a half before Routh left to go to the gun range, and said that they may have had whiskey that morning. Watson was at Routh's home because Routh's then-girlfriend was concerned for his well-being after the two had argued that morning. The previous evening, Routh had proposed to Jen. “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 Routh's home. They got into an argument the next morning, however, and she left around 10 AM.
Prosecutors, trying to support their contention that Routh's motivation for the crime was to steal Kyle's truck, also had Routh's uncle testify about the truck. After Routh left the crime scene, he first drove to his uncle's home, where he stopped briefly. Watson testified that Rough said: "Check out my truck. I'm driving a dead man’s truck." On the "dead man's truck" comment, Watson testified: "I thought he was talking about himself... he would often make bizarre comments like that."
On deferred adjudication for assault on a paramedic in Johnson County, Texas, Watson denies he made any deal with prosecutors. Watson testified that he grew up with Routh and that he learned about religion and morality from his family. “We’re God-fearing people," he said. When the prosecutor asked, "Does he have a sense of morality?," Watson replied: "Yes, he does." When the prosecutor asked, "Does he know right from wrong?," Watson replied, "Yes, he does."
Routh’s attorney is making the case that his client is not guilty by reason of insanity. In opening statements he said that Routh was suffering from severe mental illness at the time of the crime and could not tell right from wrong. Prosecutors have described Routh as a troubled drug user who used marijuana and whiskey the day of the killings, but say he knew right from wrong despite any history of mental illnesses.
Part of the grand jury indictment of Eddie Ray Routh, handed down on July 24, 2013, was the judge’s gag order, effective immediately:
"Due to the 'unusually emotional nature' of the case, its 'unique nature of security issues' and the 'extensive local and national media coverage' that it has already received, the judge directed all relevant law enforcement and judicial bodies, as well as Routh and his family, to refrain from any interaction with the media that might 'interfere with the defendant’s right to a fair trial'."Despite the gag order, Routh’s lawyer was able to say his client will plead not guilty by reason of insanity and that he planned to present evidence Routh was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder when he killed Kyle and Littlefield. The gag order applied only to the Routh family: the Kyle and Littlefield families were free to speak to the media. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in January 2015, widow Taya Kyle said she believes the PTSD defense is a cop out.
Houston criminal defense attorney George Parnham said Routh — who has been imprisoned since the 2013 murders — is at a disadvantage because of the gag order issued on his family members and attorneys in 2013. At the time, the judge said he was issuing it because of the “unusually emotional nature of the issues involved in the case.” In light of the movie, Parnham said the gag order is now unfair. He explained: “It’s going to be very difficult for him to get a fair trial, not only because of the movie, but because of the media surrounding the movie. Mr. Kyle is a hero in many people’s eyes. Due to the fact that this movie has gained intense public attention, it’s doubtful that a fair jury can be selected anywhere.” Anticipating that finding an unbiased jury would be difficult, Kyle's court-appointed attorney filed a motion in 2013 to change the location of the trial, but it was denied.
Before the gag order, on February 27, 2013, it was reported that Jodi Routh, Eddie Ray Routh's mother, thanked the family of Chris Kyle for trying to help her son: "Jodi Routh hoped Chris Kyle could help her son 25-year-old, who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Eddie Routh is currently on medication and finally agreed to see his family. Today it was his mother Jodi and father Raymond who released an statement, expressing their sorrow their son caused to the Kyles and Littlefields, as well as thanking Kyle for trying to help her son." The family issued the following statement:
"Raymond and I want to express our deepest condolences to the Kyle and Littlefield families. We are incredibly heartbroken for your loss. We wish we could thank Chris Kyle for his genuine interest in helping our son overcome his battle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We want others with PTSD to know their struggle is recognized and we hope this tragedy will somehow help in getting greater care for and assistance to those in need. No words can truly express the sorrow we feel for the Kyles and Littlefields, their extended family and friends. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with you all." – The Routh Family
Brian J. Klingenberg · Survey Technician at Premier Factory Safety"
"Routh is a friend of mine, deployed with him and was in the same units as he was. Something must have spooked him, it's very unlike his personality to be violent..."
Corey Smalley, Waynesburg, United States:
"I lived and slept next to Eddie while in Iraq when he was not on prison duty. Although Eddie was like my brother, what he did is wrong and he needs to pay for it. If the people writing this crap [lies about Eddie] want the truth, look me up on Facebook (Corey Smalley). I will be glad to help you understand."
Read more at:
