Darlie Routier: part 2

As long time readers of this blog know, I have a healthy skepticism when it comes to criminal profiling. (I sometimes have to laugh out loud when watching a show like "Criminal Minds" -- it's comical to see how those people are always so sure of themselves). What all too often happens is that the person identified from the start as the most likely suspect is subject to intense scrutiny -- every word, every inflection, every gesture is probed for signs of deceit or pathology. And all too often, the old adage "seek and ye shall find" is borne out. If you are looking for signs that someone might be lying or contradicting himself or dissembling or acting you will very likely find them. I saw this over and over when following the Ramsey case investigation and yes, I find it in the Routier investigation as well.


Darlie claims that she suddenly "woke up" to see a man in dark shirt and jeans, presumably an intruder, running out of the family room and into the kitchen. She couldn't describe him very well as the lights were off and his back was turned. She said that she then followed him into the kitchen, where she saw him go into the utility room.

She said that he then dropped a knife, which she picks up and places on the kitchen counter. At some point she notices that she "had blood on me." She then returns to the family room, where she discovers her son Devon lying on the floor with his eyes wide open. The other son, Damon, was standing and she claims that she did not at first notice that he too had been attacked. She starts screaming, calls for her husband, Darin, who then appears out of nowhere apparently, because there is no mention in  her testimony of her seeing him run down the staircase. She then grabs the portable phone to call 911, and also heads for the sink to soak some towels, which she then places on Damon's back in an attempt to staunch the blood. She then sees Darin on the floor, trying to resuscitate Devon, but as he blows into Devon's mouth, blood pours out of his wounds. (The above description is based on the court transcript.)

The police arrive fairly promptly and an investigation begins. It doesn't take long before detectives report no sign of forced entry and no sign whatsoever of an intruder. At that point, naturally, all suspicion falls on Darlie, whose story does seem hard to believe. How is it possible for her to sleep through an attack during which her throat is slit? How convenient that the intruder had his back to her so she had no way of identifying him. How convenient that she picked up the murder weapon,  thus providing an excuse for her prints being on it. Fragments from a recently slit window screen are found on a kitchen knife, proof positive that it was she herself who slit that screen to stage an intruder entry point. Her demeanor is also cause for suspicion, as she doesn't seem sufficiently distraught. And a few days after the murder, when she is filmed smiling and laughing during a "birthday" party for Devon, that clinches it as far as the profilers are concerned, since no genuinely grieving mother would behave like that -- shortly after that incident she is arrested and charged with first degree murder.

As I've said, this is a case that has me stumped. If an intruder had been present, then some trace of his presence would almost have to be found, especially because this was a knife attack, which would in all likelihood have left him dripping with blood. On the other hand, I see Darlie's testimony in a very different light from that of the investigators. While her description of suddenly coming to after having been stabbed in the throat seems hard to understand, it's even more difficult to understand why someone staging a phony intruder attack would want to make such an unusual claim. It would have been much more believable to concoct something straightforward: "I went to the kitchen to prepare a snack, and when I returned to the family room I saw this strange guy with a mask over his face stabbing my children. When  I tried to stop him he started stabbing me and then ran out." What would she have had to gain by claiming to have slept through a knife attack? And as far as the knife is concerned, this was a knife from her own kitchen, which would already have had her prints on it, so if she'd been staging, what would she have had to gain by picking it up?

A forensic analysis of the blood evidence reveals several details that seem suspicious, notably some evidence suggesting an attempt to wash away a footprint and clean up at the sink, along with some other things that seem inconsistent with her version of what happened. But when we ask ourselves what she would  have had to gain by obliterating a footprint or cleaning up the sink or deliberately changing her story, we come up empty. Whose footprint would she have wanted to erase; why bother to clean up blood from a scene she'd already described as bloody? As far as changing her story, we see examples of that sort of thing in many cases where the authorities are convinced of an innocent person's guilt. Yes, Patsy Ramsey was accused of changing her story, as was Amanda Knox, yet as I believe I've demonstrated, both are innocent. Amanda's case was ultimately thrown out of court. It's not difficult to see how someone traumatized by having her throat slit and seeing her children covered in blood might have trouble getting her story straight. A cold blooded killer would have no such problem.

I've already described my methods several times on this blog, and they are very different from the way most crime investigators approach a case. For me, the evidence, the forensics, the psychological evaluations (profiling) are secondary -- in a typical trial every single piece of evidence and every single psychological evaluation can be contested, and interpreted in a variety of ways. I certainly don't believe we should ignore the evidence, but for me the two crucial elements in any case are: 1. the known facts and 2. logical inferences based on those facts. So, applying my method to this case:

FACT: Darlie's neck wound was not superficial, as initially assumed, but very nearly fatal. According to the doctor, her throat had been slit so deeply that the knife missed her carotid artery by only 2 millimeters.

INFERENCE: Darlie's throat wound could not have been self-inflicted.

CONCLUSION: Darlie is innocent.

Which leaves us with a baffling conundrum. If Darlie is innocent and there was no intruder, then who stabbed her and killed her two little boys? And, as with the Ramsey case, "when we eliminate the impossible, then whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be true" (courtesy of Sherlock Holmes).

More next time . . .