Ex-Marine who killed Sniper author, his pal is guilty, gets life

A forensics dummy is brought into the courtroom during the capital murder trial of former Marine Cpl. Eddie Ray Routh at the Erath County, Donald R. Jones Justice Center in Stephenville Texas, on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015. Routh, 27, of Lancaster, is charged with the 2013 deaths of Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield at a shooting range near Glen Rose, Texas.
A forensics dummy is brought into the courtroom during the capital murder trial of former Marine Cpl. Eddie Ray Routh at the Erath County, Donald R. Jones Justice Center in Stephenville Texas, on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015. Routh, 27, of Lancaster, is charged with the 2013 deaths of Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield at a shooting range near Glen Rose, Texas.

STEPHENVILLE, Texas -- A former Marine was convicted Tuesday in the deaths of American Sniper author Chris Kyle and another man at a shooting range two years ago, as jurors rejected defense arguments that he was insane and suffered from psychosis.

The trial of Eddie Ray Routh has drawn intense interest, in part because of the film based on Kyle's memoir about his four tours in Iraq as a Navy SEAL.

Since prosecutors didn't seek the death penalty in the capital murder case, the 27-year-old immediately received an automatic life sentence without parole in the deaths of Kyle, 38, and Kyle's friend Chad Littlefield, 35.

The nine-day trial was held where the pair were killed, in rural Erath County, about 100 miles southwest of Dallas. Jurors returned a verdict after about 2½ hours.

Criminal law experts said the verdict hinged on whether the defense could prove Routh was insane and did not know the killings were wrong at the time they were committed.

The prosecution painted Routh as a troubled drug user who knew right from wrong, despite any mental illnesses. While trial testimony and evidence often included Routh making odd statements and referring to insanity, he also confessed several times, apologized for the crimes and tried to evade police after the killings.

Jurors had three options: find Routh guilty of capital murder, find him innocent, or find him innocent by reason of insanity. If found innocent by reason of insanity, the court could have initiated proceedings to have him committed to a state mental hospital.

Kyle and Littlefield had taken Routh to the shooting range at Rough Creek Lodge and Resort on Feb. 2, 2013, after Routh's mother asked Kyle to help her troubled son. Family members said Routh suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from serving in Iraq and in Haiti after a devastating 2010 earthquake.

A forensic psychologist testified for prosecutors that Routh was not legally insane and suggested he may have gotten some of his ideas from television. Dr. Randall Price said Routh had a paranoid disorder made worse by his use of alcohol and marijuana, calling his condition "cannabis-induced psychosis."

Routh declined to testify, but his defense attorneys called half a dozen witnesses Tuesday, including a forensic psychiatrist who described how the troubled veteran was repeatedly hospitalized and medicated at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities for "psychosis" after his honorable discharge in 2010.

Defense attorneys also noted that Kyle had described Routh as "straight-up nuts" in a text message to Littlefield as they drove to the luxury resort.

Among evidence entered by prosecutors was a recorded phone call between Routh and a reporter from The New Yorker magazine in which Routh said he was annoyed Littlefield wasn't shooting, but instead seemed to be watching him.

Defense attorneys said Routh, who had been prescribed anti-psychotic medication often used for schizophrenia, believed the men planned to kill him.

"I had to take care of business. I took care of business, and then I got in the truck and left," Routh said in the phone call.

A resort employee discovered the bodies of Kyle and Littlefield about 5 p.m.; each had been shot several times. About 45 minutes later, authorities said Routh pulled up to his sister's home in Kyle's truck and told her he had killed two people.

She called police, who later located Routh sitting in front of his home in the truck. A police video shown by prosecutors showed officers trying to coax him from the truck while he makes comments including: "I don't know if I'm going insane" and "Is this about hell walking on earth right now?"

Information for this article was contributed by John L. Mone of The Associated Press and by Molly Hennessy-Fiske of the Los Angeles Times.

A Section on 02/25/2015

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