Thursday, June 27, 1996

Police: no evidence of intruder

By Associated Press

DALLAS (AP) - Two Rowlett police officers testified Wednesday that they found no evidence to support capital murder defendant Darlie Routier's contention that a male intruder brutally murdered her two young sons.

However, defense attorneys grilled the officers on their investigation, their management of the crime scene in the fashionable Routier home, and their questioning of Mrs. Routier.

County Judge Phil Barker ordered the case bound over to the Dallas County grand jury - a formality because the panel already had been reviewing evidence in the matter for hours.

Mrs. Routier, 26, is charged with two counts of capital murder in the June 6 slayings of 6-year-old Devon and 5-year-old Damon Routier and is being held on $1 million bond at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center.

She called police shortly after 2:30 a.m. and told them that an intruder wearing dark clothes and baseball cap stabbed the brothers while they slept in the living room and then stabbed her before fleeing.

"She told us that she followed or chased him out of the house. She said she picked up the knife in the utility room, where the man had dropped it," Lt. Grant Jack testified, under questioning by prosecutor Greg Davis.

However, police said they noted inconsistencies in Mrs. Routier's statements from the start of the investigation.

The wounds on the two children were deep, penetrating and well-centered in the chest or back, Jack said. The wounds on Mrs. Routier included a slash on her neck, a shallow shoulder wound and a minor cut on one of her hands, he added.

The suspected murder weapon is a 5-1/2-inch knife with a single, serrated edge believed to have come from a wooden block in Mrs. Routier's own kitchen.

"There was no blood evidence that would be consistent with a knife being dropped," Jack continued. "There were no (bloody) footprints past the sink area."

No blood was found on the window screen or window sill or garage through which the intruder supposedly fled, Jack testified.