Darlie Routier Trial: 1997

Police officers arrived minutes later and were horrified by the carnage. Routier, clad in a blood-soaked nightshirt, bled profusely from her throat but was still on her feet. Instead of tending to the suffering Damon, as police asked her to do, she kept screaming to police that the attacker might be hiding in the garage. Damon drew his last bloody breath as a paramedic frantically tried to save him.

A K-9 team and police searched the house. Investigators found no one in the garage. A trail of blood went from the den, through the kitchen, and into the garage, but mysteriously disappeared in front of a garage window. Police saw that the window screen had been sliced open, but they found no blood on the windowsill. In fact, dust on the sill lay undisturbed, as did the damp soil just beyond the window.

The gory trail that began in the Routier den then crossed into the kitchen, where a bloody butcher knife lay on a counter—next to Routier's unopened purse and several pieces of expensive jewelry. Blood glistened on a countertop around the sink and on the floor. A vacuum cleaner lay on its side.

Officers immediately noted that the kitchen sink itself appeared suspiciously clean. After they sprayed the area with Luminol and turned off the lights, however, the entire sink basin and surrounding counters glowed with blood. Officers also found a small child's bloody handprint on the leatherette sofa in the den. Someone apparently had wiped it away.

Investigators found no signs of forced entry at the Routier house. They discovered a bread knife in the kitchen that they later believed had been used to slice open the garage window. Police noted the crime scene showed virtually no sign of a violent struggle. They found only a lampshade askew and a bunch of flowers on the den floor. The flowers' fragile stems remained unbroken, as if they had been placed on the floor instead of thrown. Blood underneath the vacuum in the kitchen indicated it had been overturned after blood was splattered on the floor.

Officers on the scene came to one, unanimous conclusion: There was no intruder into the Routier home on the night of June 6, 1996. Someone had staged the crime scene. Darlie Routier was lying.

On June 18, police arrested Routier for the first-degree murder of her sons. Prosecutors decided to try her only for Demon's murder. If she received a life sentence in that trial, or if she were found innocent, the state then would try her for Devon's killing.

News media swarmed into Kerrville. Judge Mark Tolle issued a gag order, which Darlie immediately violated, granting an emotional radio interview from her jail cell.