Saturday, June 22, 1996

Report: Husband will sell all to defend wife accused of murdering sons

By Associated Press

DALLAS - His two oldest sons slain and his youngest boy in protective custody, a Rowlett man vows in a published report Friday to sell everything he owns to defend his wife against capital murder charges.

Darin Routier told The Dallas Morning News in a copyright report he was outraged his wife Darlie stands accused of fatally stabbing sons Damon and Devon and angry his surviving son was taken away from him.

"We went from a family of five to one," Routier told the newspaper in the first public comments since his wife's arrest Tuesday. "With her being in jail and my boys now gone, my life is gone."
He did not specify what he would sell or when to defend his wife.

"Now it's the state against the Routiers," he said. "Our whole world has been flipped upside down."
The couple's 8-month-old son, Drake, was taken into protective custody late Wednesday by the Child Protective Services Division of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services.

Meanwhile, a diary recovered from the Routiers' two-story suburban Dallas County home that contains an apologetic entry from the housewife will be offered to the district attorney's office as evidence in her trial, police said Thursday.

Mrs. Routier made an entry a month before the slayings in which she expressed a need to be forgiven for what she was about to do, a source familiar with the diary told the newspaper.

Two people familiar with the diary said the woman expressed suicidal thoughts in another entry, written several months after her youngest son was born.

Routier was sleeping upstairs with at the time of the stabbings.

Rowlett police Sgt. Dean Poos did not immediately return a telephone call Friday from The Associated Press to comment on evidence taken from the home.

But he and a state agency spokeswoman said placing Drake Routier in foster care was a routine move unrelated to the care provided by his father, who is not a suspect in the slayings.

Mrs. Routier remained jailed Friday in lieu of combined $1 million bond on two counts of capital murder in the June 6 slayings of 6-year-old Devon and 5-year-old Damon Routier.

"Whenever a child dies from suspected abuse and neglect, we remove the surviving sibling or siblings so that we can investigate and determine whether the child will be safe at home with whoever is left," said Margie Wright, program director.

She said the agency filed a motion for temporary custody. A hearing was scheduled July 3 before State District Judge Cheryl Shannon.

Wright said protective service staff wanted to talk with Routier before the hearing. But he said he was appalled his parental rights could be taken away even though he has not been charged with a crime.

"The bottom line is the mother is charged with this," said Wright. "The father is standing firm that she didn't do it. They're talking about bonding her out. If they bond her out, who's to say she wouldn't be right back there with the baby?"

Mrs. Routier was placed on suicide watch at Lew Sterrett Justice Center in Dallas after her arrest.