This Darlie Routier case is another great injustice and serious injustice in America. It's a few years since I investigated the case, but to my mind, then, the husband obviously did it, and he got away with it because of bungling Texas detectives and shady lawyers in Texas, who jumped to conclusions. Divorce had been planned, and the husband was involved in insurance scams.
As far as I can remember there were several irregularities, like for some reason the court transcription clerk for some reason inaccurately transcribed the court proceedings.
There seem to be unseemly wrangles between the forensic experts involved with the case. One of them was Terry Laber who was also also involved in the Jeffrey MacDonald gross miscarriage of justice case. Laber has an affidavit on the internet expressing his objections to the forensic prosecution evidence in the Darlie Routier case:
www.fordarlieroutier.org/Evidence/WritAffidavits/laber.html
There is some background information to the Darlie Routier case from the internet which for some reason I can't link to this forum:
"Shortly after Horinek was convicted and sent to prison, Bevel, a sought-after trial witness whose home base is Oklahoma City, traveled to Kerrville, Texas.
He had been hired to testify for the prosecution in the capital murder trial of Darlie Routier.
Fatal mistakes?
If Bevel’s incriminating testimony against Routier was wrong – as two other blood spatter experts believe it was – there were a series of seeming missteps that compounded the damage, putting Routier on a collision course with the state’s needle.
Routier and family members say they were overwhelmed when Routier’s young sons, Devon and Damon, were stabbed to death in the family’s home. The family quickly became entangled in a web of law enforcement and media.
The sensational crime occurred shortly before 2:30 a.m. on June 6, 1996. Darlie Routier, who sustained cuts to her shoulder, arm and throat, had been sleeping on a nearby sofa in the family’s downstairs living room while Devon, 6, and Damon, 5, slept on the floor in front of the television. Darin Routier and baby Drake were asleep upstairs. Darlie Routier claimed she had awakened to an attack from an unknown intruder, who fled through the utility room to the garage.
Within minutes of being summoned to the scene by Rowlett police, crime scene investigator James Cron said he determined that the murders had been an inside job. Attention was quickly focused on Darlie Routier, and she was arrested days after the boys’ funeral. She and family members claim that police never thoroughly investigated other possibilities, even though several neighbors had reported seeing a suspicious black car near the family’s home on several occasions just prior to the murders.
After her arrest, Routier was given two court-appointed attorneys, Doug Parks and Wayne Huff. Friends advised the family that the court-appointed lawyers should be replaced with a high-powered attorney with a reputation for winning big cases.
At that time in Dallas, there was perhaps no lawyer with a bigger reputation than Doug Mulder. Three years earlier, Mulder had won a stunning courtroom victory – an acquittal for Dallas pastor Walker Railey, accused in the attack that had left his wife, Peggy, comatose. That case, too, had made national headlines and, as with Routier, public opinion was strong that Railey was guilty.
Convinced that Mulder was the man who would save her daughter, Routier’s mother, Darlie Kee, scraped together $94,000 to hire him.
“We got money from everybody that we possibly could,” Kee said.
The deal that Kee and her son-in-law allegedly cut with Mulder may have ultimately helped seal Darlie Routier’s fate.
As part of the alleged bargain, Mulder agreed to deviate from Parks’ and Huff’s defense strategy in one key area: he would not raise reasonable doubt for Routier by casting suspicion on the only other adult known to have been in the house when the attacks occurred: Darin.
The alleged agreement to protect Darin is detailed in the writ of habeas corpus filed as part of Routier’s appeals process. The writ refers to affidavits by Kee and Darin Routier claiming that there had been such an agreement. “As a result of this promise, Darin and Kee asked Mulder to represent Ms. Routier at trial,” the writ states.
Mulder denies that there was any such arrangement.
“In fact, (implicating Darin) was the first thing that made sense to me,” he said. “But (Darlie) was adamant in her position that she saw the man from the back and that it wasn’t her husband. I couldn’t pursue it on my own.”
Parks later signed a sworn affidavit confirming that his defense strategy had been to implicate Darin in the crime. He also stated for the record that he had conveyed to Mulder that he felt that Mulder had a conflict of interest with Darin stemming from his representation of him when Darin and Kee had been accused of violating a gag order.
Kee explained why protecting her son-in-law had been part of the deal she claims was made with Mulder: “I saw what the justice system was doing to Darlie,” she said. “And I didn’t want it happening to another family member.”
Darin Routier has denied any involvement in the murders of his children. However, in July 2002 – five years after his wife was sent to death row – he signed a sworn affidavit admitting that in the months before the murders, he told “multiple people” that he wanted someone to burglarize the family’s home as part of an insurance scam. He further stated in the affidavit that Mulder had agreed not to implicate him as part of his defense of Darlie.
Another key error may have occurred when Parks and Huff were booted. The pair had enlisted forensics and crime scene experts Terry Laber and Bart Epstein of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The men flew to Texas, where they examined evidence, met with Rowlett police investigators and inspected the Routier home.
Prosecutors with the Dallas County District Attorney’s office were preparing to claim in Routier’s upcoming capital murder trial that the injuries she incurred had been self-inflicted – a ruse to disguise the fact that it was she who had killed the children.
Laber and Epstein came to a different conclusion.........."
