The man accused of killing Chris Kyle, subject of the hit film “American Sniper,” and Kyle’s friend said he didn’t have a choice.
“I had to kill men today. It wasn’t a want to, it was a need. I had to, to get out of that situation I was in today,” Eddie Ray Routh said in a confession video that was played Monday in a Texas courtroom.
He is charged with murder in the February 2, 2013, shooting deaths of Kyle and Kyle’s friend, Chad Littlefield, at a firing range.
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A hunting guide found Kyle, 38, and Littlefield, 35, who also was a veteran, motionless and called 911. The men were dead when officers arrived.
Jason Morris and Chris Lett reported this story from Stephenville, Texas. Dana Ford wrote it from Atlanta.