STEPHENVILLE, Texas (AP) — Eddie Ray Routh spoke of insanity, anarchy and the apocalypse when police tried to arrest him after the shooting deaths of “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle and his friend.
Much of the dramatic evidence presented by prosecutors so far in Routh’s capital murder trial, including the police video of his arrest, has outlined for jurors his actions and words on the day Kyle and Chad Littlefield were killed at a rural Texas shooting range two years ago. Testimony is set to continue Friday.
–
Texas Ranger Michael Adcock testified Thursday that Kyle and Littlefield were armed at the time of the shootings but it did not appear the weapons they carried were ever removed from their holsters. A medical examiner testified that Kyle was shot six times, Littlefield seven. Both had several gunshot wounds that would have been fatal.
Routh’s mother had asked Kyle, whose wartime exploits were depicted in his 2012 memoir, to help her son overcome personal troubles that had at least twice led him to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Routh had been a small arms technician who served in Iraq and was deployed to earthquake-ravaged Haiti before leaving the Marines in 2010.
