Thursday, June 20, 1996

Mother Accused of Stabbing Sons to Death

By KEVIN O'HANLON
Associated Press

ROWLETT - An upbeat Darlie Routier lead a birthday celebration Friday, complete with balloons and Silly String, at her murdered sons' graves.

Wednesday, she was in jail, accused of brutally stabbing the boys to death then wounding herself to cover the crime.

Mrs. Routier had told police an intruder stabbed 6-year-old Devon and 5-year-old Damon while they slept in their living room and then stabbed her before fleeing.

She spent two days in the hospital recovering from wounds police now say were self-inflicted. They also say the so-called attacker "never existed" and the evidence didn't match the 26-year-old homemaker's story.

"We had a crime scene that was talking to us on its own, telling us that what Mrs. Routier was telling us didn't happen that way," said Sgt. Dean Poos, a spokesman for the police department in this suburb about 20 miles east of Dallas.

Mrs. Routier was arrested late Tuesday and held on $500,000 bail on a capital murder charge in connection with the June 6 slayings.

Authorities remained tight-lipped about a possible motive, but First Assistant District Attorney Norm Kinne, said: "What reason would anyone have to do this?"

In previous interviews, Mrs. Routier expressed disbelief at the events that claimed her sons' lives and rocked the community of 27,000.

"He went to two defenseless children first, and then he went to me," she said after a graveside ceremony in Rockwall commemorating her eldest son's birthday last week. "I don't know why God spared me."

She was also seen clutching her sons' photograph and spraying Silly String at the grave the two boys share while family members sang a chorus of "Happy Birthday."

"They wouldn't want us to be down here being sad even though our hearts are breaking," Mrs. Routier said.

A neighbor who at times planted flowers with the boys' father, Darin Routier, said the slayings reminded him of Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman convicted of murdering her 3-year-old and 14-month-old sons after saying a carjacker had abducted them.

"It may be the same type of thing," said Dr. Robert Higgs as he tended to his rose bushes. "It's just a tragic thing. We've got a decivilizing of America."

Across the street, a homemade birthday memorial to Devon stood in the front yard of the Routiers' stately, 2-1/2-story brick and frame home, nestled along a winding street in an upscale development near Lake Ray Hubbard.

Stapled to the 2-foot-by-2-foot particle board was a birthday card that read, "Dear Devon, You're someone too special to ever forget, so here's a big wish for your best birthday yet. Have fun - see you soon."

Several signatures on the card had faded in the blistering sun.

A few feet away, some balloons were tied to a wrought iron bench. A wreath bearing the children's' names stood by the front-yard fountain.

Mrs. Routier told police she and the boys were sleeping in front of the television in the family's first-floor living room when an intruder came through the window and attacked her family.

Her husband was sleeping upstairs with the couple's 8-month-old son at the time. He is not a suspect, but the investigation is continuing, police said.

"He believed what she said until we stepped in with this," Poos said. "There was nothing to indicate he was covering" for her.

News reports, quoting unidentified sources, said blood evidence showed Mrs. Routier was stabbed in the kitchen rather than in the living room as she maintained and the one bloody set of footprints in the house belonged to her.

Reports also said investigators found a knife in a kitchen drawer with metal fragments on it that matched a cut window screen Mrs. Routier said the attacker used to enter her home.

Police would not comment on reports the family had been in financial trouble.

Kinne discounted reports she may have killed the boys to collect insurance.

"We haven't been able to establish that that's a part of this at all," he said.

Mrs. Routier's mother, Darlie Kee, said the couple had two $5,000 policies on the boys, "barely enough to bury the babies."

U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas had no files on the couple or Routier's small electronics business on file.

Kee criticized police, accusing them of succumbing to public pressure.

"They don't have anybody else, and everyone's pushing them to make an arrest on this because it's two little kids," she told The Dallas Morning News.

Mrs. Routier's mother-in-law, Sarilda Routier, also stood by her, saying she had "never known a better nurturer."

She recalled how years ago Mrs. Routier tried to nurse back to health a baby rabbit that a cat dragged home despite being told by everyone, including a veterinarian, that it wouldn't live through the night.
"This is the one who they say cut up her babies?" she said. "Darlie is the sweetest mother I have ever known."

Poos said he felt sorry not only for the children, but also Darlie Routier.
"Obviously, to a much lesser extent than the children, she's a victim in this, too," he said.