Who is Eddie Ray Routh? Ex-Marine's insanity defense for killing Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield rejected
The insanity defense of a former Marine, who killed a United States Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield, has been rejected by his trial jury. Eddie Ray Routh killed Kyle and Littlefield in 2013 at a Texas shooting range.
After a trial that heard the unpredictable nature of Routh, jury members found him guilty of capital murder. Routh and Kyle were from the same high school, but the latter was 13 years senior to him.
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Who is Eddie Ray Routh?
Routh enrolled in the US Marines in 2006, and started working as an armorer. A year later, Routh was transferred to Iraq and then moved to a seven-month Middle East deployment on the USS Bataan. Also, after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Routh worked there for four months, which reportedly disturbed him and he came back home. After returning he said to his father he had been, “fishing hundreds of bodies — men, women, children — out of the ocean, piling them up and throwing them into mass graves”.
It has been said he struggled to get back to his normal self and also faced issues with his mental health and keeping a job. As per reports, in 2011, Routh was even diagnosed with PTSD after being admitted to the Dallas Veterans Administration hospital. Following the diagnosis, he was given powerful medication. Along with that, he also started taking marijuana and alcohol, which reportedly contributed to his experiences of a serious depressive illness.
After years of struggle and being in and out of hospitals, Routh appeared to be in a better place and he moved in with his girlfriend, Jennifer Weed. But things changed for the worse when he took his girlfriend and her roommate hostage with a knife in their apartment. Police had to intervene and he was shifted to the Veterans hospital again.
Why did Routh kill Kyle and Littlefield?
After Routh got discharged from the hospital, his mother Jody approached Kyle for help in her son’s matter. He agreed for help and took Routh and his friend Littlefield on a trip to a shooting range. During the trial, it was said that the evening before the trip, the killer had taken alcohol and marijuana. He had complaints about the victims too and said they “wouldn't talk to me”. Routh also mentioned that the variety of weapons in the vehicle disturbed him. He assumed that the men would kill him. “They were just taking me to the range, so I shot them. I feel bad about it, but they wouldn't talk to me. I'm sure they've forgiven me,” Routh said.
After killing both the men, Routh then took Kyle's black Ford truck and fled to his uncle's house where he said, “Check out my truck. I'm driving a dead man's truck.” He has now been found guilty of both the killings and was given life imprisonment without parole. It has been said he will serve his jail time at the Louis C Powledge Unit in Anderson County, Texas.