Darlie Routier: part 4

When Darlie foolishly agreed to let her husband off the hook and testify that he was not the one who assaulted her and her children, she signed her own death warrant, as all the evidence pointed to an inside job -- no sign of an intruder. Her own family must take a large part of the responsibility because they agreed to hire a lawyer who was already representing the husband in another case and was ethically constrained from even suggesting that he could have been the "intruder." I am now convinced that he is in fact the guilty party. If there could have been no intruder, and Darlie could not have done it (see my earlier posts), then the only possibility is Darin, her husband -- who had already contemplated staging a phony home invasion; who'd been spending recklessly for years and was now heavily in debt; who had over $200,000 in insurance money to gain upon Darlie's death; who had already expressed contempt for her over some  weight gain and driven her to contemplate suicide.


As I demonstrated in my previous post, it's not all that difficult to come up with a scenario starring him as a self-absorbed, cold-blooded killer. In this post I'd like to add a few more wrinkles.

One very interesting piece of information I only learned of recently was the fact that Darin appeared on the scene naked from the waist up. While in itself there is nothing suspicious about that, the absence of a shirt could be a very important piece of the puzzle. If "the intruder" hadn't been wearing a shirt, Darlie would certainly have noticed that and reported it. She obviously saw someone wearing a shirt. And considering the nature of the assault, his shirt would have been covered in blood. The theory I outlined last time fails to take this into account. If Darin is the one, then his shirt would have been extremely bloody when he re-appeared to call the police. So what could have happened to that shirt?

As I now see it, Darin's plan must have been to return to the  house and call the police as soon as possible. His only serious problem would have been the bloody shirt. He couldn't very well re-enter the house to call 911 while wearing that shirt and there was no convenient place to hide it. This would explain why "the intruder" immediately exited via the garage, as Darlie reported, rather than remaining in the house after assuming Darlie was either dead or dying. Darin would have needed to discard that shirt some place where no one could find it. I think he ran very quickly to  the storm drain in the alley, only a couple of short blocks away, just next to the spot where the bloody sock was found:

As it was the middle of the night, the chances of his being noticed were slim. After removing the shirt, he would have stuffed it into the storm drain, accidentally dropping the bloody sock (which he'd been using as a glove) as he did so. He'd have then run back to the house, with the intention of cleaning all the blood off the knife, leaving a bloody trail from the family room through to the garage and out the window, and then calling 911 to report a home invasion and murder. While approaching the house, however, he'd have heard Darlie's screams and realized that she was still alive, which forced a change of plans. Instead of re-entering via the garage, which would have looked extremely suspicious, he decided to run around to the front entrance and, as I indicated in the previous post, create the impression that he'd just run down the stairs. He might even have quietly gone up the stairs and then noisily ran down to create the illusion that he'd been upstairs all the time. Which is what Darlie chose to assume.

Here once again is the floor plan, indicating how easy it would have been for him to give the impression he'd just run downstairs, though in reality he'd entered via the front door:

Of course this is all speculation. There is no direct evidence implicating Darin, so even if Darlie's attorneys had provided a scenario similar to mine, they'd have had no way to prove it actually happened that way. As it seems to me, Darin is forever off the hook for this reason, there is probably no way he could be convicted of this crime. However, if her attorneys had been free to suggest the possibility that Darin could have done it, motivated by the prospect of collecting a considerable insurance payout, that would have made an effective argument for reasonable doubt, and she might very well have been found innocent. Unfortunately, as I understand it, reasonable doubt applies only to the trial itself and can't be used as an argument during any appeal. Burden of proof is reversed during an appeal, as there is no longer a presumption of innocence. The appellant must prove his or her innocence, which may, in this case, not be possible.

Darlie's only hope may be for a pardon from the Governor. However, while she has a great many supporters, it will probably be impossible for anyone with law enforcement experience to pardon her, as there is no credible evidence of an intruder, and as far as I can tell none of her supporters seems interested in suggesting that Darin could be the guilty party. What a tragedy!