on on this episode of deathw stories, a mother's threat is slashed and her two young sons are murdered. >> it was a blood bath and when a crime like that happens someone in the house did this. no motive, no explanation. >> by god somebody is going to pay for these two boys being murdered. >> the state will be seeking the death penalty in this case. >> it just didn't seem real. i know that i'm innocent. >> there's a body on the water. he was butchered and murdered.

>> get a conviction at all . going to florida in two days. i can't wait. >> are are you going to take the camera with you? >> yeah, i'll take the camera with me. >> these two were high school sweet hearts. they married when he was 20 and she was 18. they were the proud parents of three boys. >> what's your name? do something special. do a cart wheel. >> that hurt. >> are you okay? >> yeah. >> say hi. >> hi. >> can you do a flip? >> no. >> the family moved to an upscaled neighborhood in dallas after darren's computer business

took off. by all accounts they were living the charmed life, but that would all change on june 6th, 1996. >> it was an ordinary day. i remember going to sleep. >> that night she fell asleep in front of the tv with her two older sons. >> 911 what is your emergency? >> ma'am? what? >> he stabbed me. >> who did? >> darren was upstairs asleep with their infant and he said he heard her yell for him, he heard a glass break and that's when he came down stairs to find a blood bath. >> i went down stairs and i went

straight over to devon. >> he had two devastating wounds to his chest. they went through his body. he was impaled by a large knife. >> darren tried to perform cpr sfl when i put my mouth to his mouth blood sprayed all over me. >> ma'am, is anybody in the house besides and the children? >> my husband. he just ran down stairs. he's helping me. oh, my god. >> she had also been injured with stab wounds to her neck and arms. >> there's blood everywhere and she's bleeding and she's telling darren that some men came in here and did this. >> listen, ma'am, you need to let the officers in the front door, okay? >> the first two officers who

arrived i think essentially were just shocked. one of the boys was dead, but the other was alive. damon was found near a wall and he had been stabbed multiple times in the back. he was barely alive and he put down a bloody palm print to help himself up. >> 6-year-old daven was dead. when they tried to revive 5-year-old damon he took his last breath. >> the boys are dead and the she might be dying and i started screaming. >> she was rushed to bailor university medical in dallas and immediately taken into surgery. the necklace she had been wearing during the time of the attack was so deeply embedded in her throat had to be surgeryicly

removed, but it saved her life stopping the knife two millimeters from her artery. >> the surgeon who treated her took my hand and said she was lucky to have survived this. >> when she awoke two deticketives from the police department were waiting to interview her. >> the story was an aisil ant was in there. she woke up and a man was over her and she started fighting with him and she really wouldn't give any type of description because she said she couldn't remember. she couldn't remember his face or anything about him. >> at the crime scene detectives tried to gather pieces to a puzle. >> i think the police department was overwelcomed and she didn't know what to do. the way they were handling evidence and the way they were trying to take pictures, they have a camera guy going through there while others were picking up evidence and it was just absolute chaos.

>> the police department had only handled one other multiple homicide in its history so they called for help from retired dallas county lieutenant james kron. within minutes of his arrival he developed a theory that ruled out an intruder. >> there were numerous items laid out on the island in the kitchen and nothing was taken. she said that the aisil ant dropped the knife. the knife was covered in blood. they found evidence where it was laid on the carpet and laid on the counter in the kitchen, but they didn't find any evidence of the knife being dropped in the utility room. that's where she said she picked it up which didn't correlate with the evidence. darren hears glass break and the troubling thing was there was broken wine glass there and it was on top of her bloody foprin.

the red flags didn't make sense. when a crime like that happens, experience says it's someone in the house that did this. >> as word of the murders spread, news crews descended on the home. >> she said they killed my baby. >> one neighbor said her son michael had just spent the night tuesday. >> i'm so glad he wasn't there last night. >> after she was released in the hospital she and darren were driven directly to the police department where they were questioned separately. according to police in this critical moment her story shifted. instead of waking to face an intruder she claimed her son woke her calling mommy, mommy. she then saw a man with the knife and followed him into the utility room. >> i do not think those two

stories are mutually exclusive. she could have been awoken by a burglar and momenty have a memory lapse and then some perception she was woken by the baby. >> all i was thinking about was trying to save the babies. darren and i tried to save the babies, but it was too late and the babies were gone. we tried. we tried and we have to live with that forever. >> 12 days after the murders darren and dar ley returned to the police department for more questioning. they walked in voluntarily, but only one would walk out. >> investigators have the police department arrested darley. as for the father, at this point we do not believe he was involved in the murders. we believe that the white male

suspect described by darley as the man that attacked her and murdered her children never existed. >> i watch in hed it on the 10: news my daughter being arrested. i had no idea. i looked up and there she is in handcuffs cryi handcuffs crying. >> she was charged with capital murder and taken to the jail. >> it didn't seem real like it couldn't be happening. i was in a place of deep hurt trying to survive still in a shock that my babies were gone. . and 500 calories or less. the clean pairings menu. at panera. food as it should be. do you sign invoices likeour fathey're autographs?en,

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before being arrested for the murder of two of her sons, darlie routier was a mother to three boys. darlie was known as a doting mother who baked cookies for her boys and their neighborhood friends. >> it's terrible to think a mother would do something like that, but it's good to know that they caught the murderer. >> darlie's arrest came less than two years after suzan smith claimed an assailant had taken her two boys. >> as with suzan smith there were two young boys involved.

pretty quickly darlie was called dallas's suzan smith. >> she is not a suzan smith and we're going to prove this. >> >> concerned that she might be released on bail, child productive services came to take her son drake away from her mother. >> i said you're not taking drake, we haven't done anything wrong. she said well you think darlie's innocent so we can't be sure that you'll protect him. i said my daughter is innocent until proven guilty or has it changed now? >> drake was temporarily placed in a foster home and with darlie's trial approaching the media spotlight only intensified. >> sources say the routiers may have been in financial trouble and had recently taken out large insurance policies on the two bo boys. >> i stand behind darlie.

i know she didn't do it. i know all the millions of little pieces of this puzle that will come out in the trial. >> after their radio interview darlie's mother and darin were handed subpoenas for violating a gag order against talking about the case. to represent them they hired legendary dallas attorney douglas moulder who agreed to take on her case. >> it's an interesting case and i look forward to trying it. i'm happy. >> for what reason? >> he's the best. >> the fee was $250,000 and the routiers scrambled to raise all the money they could. >> we started selling everything in the house, all the family members started taking the children's college funds. we sold everything. >> greg davis was the lead prosecutor assigned to the case. >> the only announcement made today is the state will be seeking the death penalty in this case.

>> davis would only try darlie for damon's death. >> the reason the state tries for only one murder is if she's found innocent they can try her for the second one and that's a way for the state to load up a double barrel shotgun. >> given the media in dallas, the trial was moved. >> why that was agreed to is unfather om able to me. >> he was raised in that town. >> doug says to me he says if i ever get murdered i want you to promise that my murderer will get tried in kirk county. >> on january 6th, 1997 darlie's trial began. her family who had all been called as witnesses were banned from the court but darin and

sandy slipped under the radar. >> she asked would you please come to the trial. i have to tell you i've never been to trial in my entire life. i didn't know what to expect. >> she had no one in that courtroom other than me that she could turn and look to. >> true crime nov list who would later publish a book was in the room. >> he had a way of making you believe what he said was god's truth. he began painting darlie as materialistic and worried about herself. greg davis constantly portrayed her as a psychopath. >> on the stand retired lieutenant james kron laid out his case for a staged crime scene. jewelry left on the kitchen counter, the murder weapon moved

and a slashed window screen in the garage. >> intruders don't cut a screen because they know you can pry a screen off easily. i think it's a part of staging. >> next the dallas county medical examiner described darlie's wounds as superficial. >> they didn't go deep. that's why we call them superficial wounds. if there was a killer there doing those things to those boys he would have stabbed her multiple times through the chest just like he did those boys and she'd be dead. >> the state also folk yused on blood splatter. >> our blood expert was able to demonstrate how that happens if you're kneeling over someone and stabbing them. when it comes up is when the cast off happens, but obviously that's the manor they had to stabbed in that remained in that

jury's mind. >> for her defense doug called two doctors, one who said darlie was suffering from traumatic amnesia and another who felt darlie's wounds had not been self inflicted. he also focussed on the 911 call from the night of the murders. >> he stabbed them. >> the 911 tape, when i heard it, i was very convinced that she was a historical mother, but all of a sudden darlie was worried about touching a knife. >> don't touch anything. it's all right. it's okay. >> what grieving mother would even think of that. she went of being a victim to a murderer of two little children. >> finally prosecutors showed the jury a news report shot eight days after the slayings. >> happy birthday to you, happy

birth day to you. >> for some this may seem a strange thing to do and an odd place and time. >> singing happy birthday in a cemetery to a son who was stabbed to death just over a week. >> love you daven and damen. >> it was one of the strangest things i'd ever seen. not how you would expect a mother who's boys addrehad been murdered to grin. >> my gut reaction is what i think the majority of the public was, how could a mother who just lost her two sons do something like that and the cameras were there to capture it and i think that sealed her doom. >> during deliberations the jury asked to see the silly string videotape nine times. after only eight hours they returned with their verdict,

guilty. night had fallen when darlie arrived at the texas department of corrections. considered a suicide risk darlie was dressed in a white paper gown for her walk to death row. >> it just didn't seem real, like it just couldn't be happening. it seemed like a nightmare. >> do you have anything to say? >> is there anything you would like to say?

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♪ your ticket to a better night's sleep ♪ after darlie routier was sent to death row, her family ran out of money to pay her attorney. >> with we had to sign a paper even after she was convicted that for two years if we did any movies or books or whatever, we owed him the balance. >> the court's appointed jay cooper to lead darlie's appeals. >> as an appellate ant lawyer you get the transcript of the trial and work from the transcript. it's strictly from what's on the page. in this case what was on the page was erroneous in large parts and we had a lot of issues on reconstructing the trial

transcript. >> her trial transcript had over 30,000 mistakes. >> it was very serious the difference between yes and no and up and down. i had never seen that before in 25 years of practicing law. >> when sandra, the court reporter for the trial was questioned, she pled the fifth amendment. cooper felt confident the transcript could get a new trial. this drew concern from prosecutors. >> when it came to light, the state offered her a life sentence and all she had to do was admit she killed her children. >> what did she say? >> no. >> what does that tell you about her? >> she's strong, she's brave and she's innocent. >> but just hours before the scheduled hearing the judge denied darlie's motion. >> these demonstrators protested

a judge's decision to cancel a hearing in routier's case set for today. >> we're the voice for her. >> the issue with the court reporter literally changed the court reporting industry. and there are many people to this day who are astounded that that trial record did not result in a new trial for darlie routier. >> darlie's defense faced the uphill battle of appeals, but as cooper dug through evidence he came across a second videotape never shown to the jury which cast the silly string incident in a different light. >> the silly string was a major factor in her conviction from their mouths, but what was not shown was this two hour memorial video that took place before the silly string incident. >> the second video was secretly filmed by police attempting to

capture any guilty comments made at the memorial. >> the preacher was there, the family was there, prayers, crying, all the appropriate behavior. her sister brought the silly string. it wasn't darlie's idea. >> this was my son's birthday and my sister and her boyfriend went and got silly string. he loved silly string. we did for them what devon didn't get to have and what we knew that he would want and enjoy. they took that and they twisted it and they turned something that was supposed to be beautiful and tried to make it into something very ugly. >> when doug brought up the tape during the trial, the detectives

who were asked about it pled the fifth. >> we have a lady on death row in texas who during the course of litigation the only three people who took the fifth amendment were the lead detectives and the court reporter. >> the question was why hadn't he shown this second videotape to the jury. >> i don't know why they didn't show the tape. greg davis said you can put it in if you want, but they never put that portion of the tape in. >> i think it was a huge mistake not to show the jury this memorial service. i think it would have nullified any impact the silly string video had. >> as he continued to build darlie's appeal, he was confronted with another question. why had molder never raised her husband as a suspect. >> let's be practicapractical. there's two adults and two dead

children and darlie is sliced and cut and beat several. the most logica culprit would be the husband. >> in addition to defending darlie, doug had represented darin in his gag order case. >> we've alleged in several pleadings that mr. mulleder was suffering from a conflicts of interest. at the time that doug mulleder represented darlie, he had a continuing duty to protect darin. >> i was in the room when he and darin had that conversation. darin had said i don't want them going after me because i didn't do anything and he said, well, you didn't do anything, i don't see any reason to go after you. and that was that. >> it would be very difficult to point a finger at darin when the person on trial says my husband's not involved. >> at that time that was just

absurd to me. i didn't even want to hear anything like that. >> what you didn't really hear about at the time was the life insurance on darlie, of which darin was the beneficiary. it was $250,000. >> this insurance policy raised questions even with one of darin's own family members. >> this is my nephew and i loved him. i don't know if darin was involved. i know that that is a big question. everybody has their answer to that. in my heart i say no. in my head i have a few questions. >> to answer those questions sandy contacted multi millionaire brian pardo. he funds investigations for inmates he thinks are innocent. >> i felt it was extremely important to exclude darin and the only way he was going to be

eliminated as a suspect was to pass a polygraph because that's what the police like to do. >> can you name the person that stabbed your sons? >> no the results of the investigation were about to uncover dark secrets that darin had kept hidden for years. [burke] at farmers, we've seen almost everything, so we know how to cover almost anything. even "turkey jerks." [turkey] gobble. [butcher] i'm sorry! (burke) covered march fourth,2014. talk to farmers. we've seen almost everything, so we know how to cover almost anything. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ i am a lot of things. i am his sunshine. i am his advocate. so i asked about adding once-daily namenda xr to his current treatment for moderate to severe alzheimer's. it works differently.

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mulder and. >> darin denied any involvement in the murder of sons and to prove it he submitted to a po polygraph test. >> the polygraph examiner was with the police department. he came around the other side of the table and he sat down and he said darin, you have failed this examination. it looks to me like you perpetrated this crime. >> you were involved in the murder? >> no. >> in what way? >> you were there when it happened and you helped carry it out. >> no, i did. >> i can accuse you of stabbing your wife. >> when brian came back and pointed a finger at tarren, the whole family wept ballistic.

even darlie wrote me a letter and said you need to think about what you're doing and i have to admit i wrote back to her and said you're the one on debt row, you need to think about what you're doing. >> the polygraph wasn't the only revelation about darin. he hired a private investigator. >> he had done one insurance scam. that was with a car. he got the money for the car. >> in a signed affidavit darin admitted to both the car scam and his plot for a home robbery. >> i've known darin since he was 15 years old. possibly you could get me to believe that he set it up for a robbery because he talked about that. he would never hurt his children

or hurt darlie. never. i will never believe that. >> but the results of the investigation differed. >> darlie had no motive and darin had $250,000 worth of motive. i met with darlie and told her that we were very persuaded that darin was a participant in this act. >> when darlie was told some of the fact regarding darin and she totally lost it. for the first time in her mind she thought maybe darin was involved in it. >> i felt betrayed. here's the person that i had been with since high school, that i had three children with, and a good marriage, so i thought, and whether or not that had anything to do with this or not, to know that that had been

plotted behind my back hurt. it hurt. >> did it make you think that maybe he could have been behind this? >> it's made me have a lot of questions. >> while any case against darin would have been purely circumstantial, that didn't explain why doug mulder hadn't fended off some of the circumstantial evidence against darlie who was facing death row. >> really the biggest failing was the failure to use any forensic testing to advance a defense on darlie's behalf. >> the evidence i think was probably the strongest forensic evidence that the state had. >> the state contended that fibers found on a bread knife in the kitchen matched the slashed window screen. >> but they didn't do any testing to exclude other sources for that particular fiber or

even to pin it down really to the screen and only the screen. >> the bread knife had been dusted for fingerprints that raised questions. >> we tested random fingerprint brushes and four of them had the same chemical appearance as this one fiber that was found on the bread knife. >> it's typical in a criminal case that the defense is not satisfied with the state's case so if there was any dispute certainly you would have heard from that evidence. >> if the defense had any experts, where were they? where are they? why aren't they speaking out? >> the da's final argument said they didn't bring any ed to cou contra dikt. >> cooper team learned about three fingerprints at the crime scene that policed marked as

unidentified, but to match these to a potential intruder they first had to rule ot the family and policed failed to get prints from the boys' bodies. this left them with one very emotional choice. >> we had to have them exhumaned and have a specialist come in to take their fingerprints because they foot printed thuem. >> darlie hoped the boys' prints would soon provide evidence of what they claim all along, concrete proof of an intruder. .

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scene. >> the boys were buried together holding hands. so where the hands were together, the vault had flooded. and that totally destroyed the fingerprints. >> the only other option to identify the fingerprints was dna. but cooper's request for testing was denied. >> dna would help, but there's

other aspects in the case that i think are very helpful to us, so we're not just limited to the dna. >> cooper felt the prosecution's timeline of events also had flaws. >> well, the timeline that's drawn by the state, it was remarkable that they were going to sell it to this jury, because of the long time that she was on the telephone with 911. >> darlie's call to 911 lasted five minutes and 44 seconds. >> damon could only have lived for eight or nine minutes after those wounds were inflicted. this is according to courtroom testimony. so because she was on the phone with 911 for five minutes and 44 seconds she had a lot to do real fast. >> the biggest wrench in the timeline was the discovery of a bloody sock found in an alley 75 yards away from the home. >> that sock is a big piece of evidence.

>> one of the things that had to happen was the blood on the sock. because both boys' blood was found on the sock. >> they hadn't figured out what to do with the sock. there isn't but a couple of minutes for her to stab and kill the children, cut the screen, get this sock and run it down the alley in the dark, through a gate that doesn't really work very well, come back, then the state claims that she stood at the kitchen sink and injured herself. staged the crime scene. it really defies common sense to believe that all of that could have been done in that time frame. >> but during closing arguments, greg davis asked the jury what loving mother sleeps through the murder of her two children. and then he told the jury, the last thing each of these two children saw was their killer. >> everything pointed to darlie. nothing pointed to anyone else.

and i had a hand in convincing a lot of people that she did this. sold over 200,000 books. >> barbara davis' book had only been out for about a year when she received a call from a deep throat source within the district attorney's office and they said you need to meet with me. there's some things you need to see. >> and within about 20 minutes i had tears running down my cheeks. i had written the book based on my integrity and reputation saying that this woman had killed her children and i was staring at facts that she indeed had not. buying smartphones for the whole family is expensive. not at t-mobile® for a limited time, check out our half off smartphone event.

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after the publication of true crime writer barbara davis' scathing book, a secret source within the d.a.'s office showed her evidence that she'd never seen. >> when i saw the photographs, this was a small police department, never handled a murder case like this. and the pictures were taken out of sequence. major evidence was picked up and moved around because i saw it here in one picture, and they were here in another, contradicting any, any testimony of staging. i learned an hour before the silly string happened that they had a video showing the prayer vigil before the celebration, but the jury never saw the

solemn, appropriate celebration of the boys' lives. i began to see other photographs, her throat was cut where her dominant hand wouldn't do it. her left hand would have had to have done it. she had bruises up and down her arm. and a picture began to form in my mind, the horror of the injuries she had. if the jurors had seen it, it would have been a different outcome, but they didn't even look at the evidence. the last thing they did was play the silly string tape. and turn to charlie samford who was going, i don't want to do this, i don't think she's guilty, and saying now do you think she's guilty, and the freezing, tired worn out charlie samford said okay. >> when do you something and it's right, after a while, you settle. this never would settle. it never would leave me alone. >> like barbara davis, he was

shocked to learn about the surveillance tape and the photos of darlie's extensive wounds. >> there was a lot of evidence that we in the jury never did see. if i would have seen those pictures before, it would have made a lot of difference in what i thought. >> he says he wasn't shown all the evidence and the evidence he wasn't shown was actually evidence he was shown. >> when the prosecution gets on their high horse and says the pictures were right there, they sure were, with thousands of other things, and they made sure they were mixed in, and the jury was not going to sit through those pictures. >> have any of the other jurors had a change of heart? >> yes, but they don't want to, they don't want to do this. they see me coming down the aisle at walmart, they run the other way. >> in june of 2008, steven

cooper finally got the break he was looking for when the texas court of criminal appeals granted dna testing. >> it's good news. we've been fighting for it for five or six years. we're trying to get some proof of male dna in the house relative to the crime scene. there was a fingerprint on the couch table and that dna would certainly be one. >> if dna shows that there was in fact an intruder that night, how can darlie ever be repaid for all of the years of her life that have been spent in a nine by six cell on death row, and how can she ever be repaid for the years she's lost with her sole surviving son. >> darlie's son drake is now 19 years old. he's never before given an interview. >> i usually won't talk about it. a lot of people kind of knew that yeah, drake's here. his mom's on death row.

it's just part of my life. something i've had to live with for 19 years. >> he's been coming up here since he was, you know, pretty little. he was a little baby. so this is all he really remembers. >> drake lives with his father darin in lubbock, texas, darlie and darin were divorced in 2011. >> darin has done a good job of raising drake. he didn't get the hugs that a mom gives. >> i don't have contact, so i've never gotten to hold him or hug him since i've been in this place. >> there's just a glass in between us. i mean, can't do anything about it. >> in the summer of 2013, drake was forced to deliver devastating news to darlie. >> i was diagnosed with cancer, i mean, a year ago, june 26. >> drake was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia.

>> i was handed a cell phone in the hospital bed and heard her voice and i said, mom, i have cancer. i mean, that was probably one of the hardest things i've ever done in my life. >> you know, not being able to hold him. that was extremely hard. i didn't want to break apart for him. i wanted to be strong. >> drake's cancer still requires monthly chemo therapy, but his prospects are remission are positive. >> his body's healing. he helps keep me fighting for sure. >> darlie, will you ever admit to having killed the boys? >> even today, i can't believe that i have a daughter who's innocent on death row. i mean, it just, it changes your whole life. that's what you think about when you wake up. that's what you think about when you go to bed.

>> darlie's case is currently on hold pending dna testing. cooper believes that the results and specifically those of the bloody fingerprint will finally prove that there was an intruder in the home on the night of the murders. >> if we get it approved the appellate court has to try it or dismiss it. they're not go being to retry this case in my opinion. well-prepared attorneys with a good strategy will eat the prosecution alive. >> but time is not on darlie's side. >> in texas, if you've been sentenced to death, you have three appeals. darlie's lost her direct state appeal and lost the writ appeal from the state. if her federal appeals are denied, then the trial judge from that court will set a date of execution. >> i fully expect her to be put to death at one time. and at that time we can finally say that justice was done in that case, and this case is now closed.

>> this must be really hard for you. what would you say to your mom? >> i mean, i love you. i always will. i hope you get out soon. so. >> darlie is unique in the fact that she's maintained her innocence from day one. and she was convicted in my mind partially because of susan smith and what happened there. it became apparent because of the publicity that mothers kill their children. >> it created a perfect storm, and that perfect storm swept up a 26 year old housewife and mother with no prior criminal history and landed her on death row. >> i'm at peace. i'm at peace. i know i didn't do this. it gives me that peace inside. i can look people in the eye. i've done nothing but tell the truth. my innocent blood will be on

their hands, and they will have to answer for that one day. it may not be here. they'll have to answer for it. on this episode of death row stories, a brutal murder in texas. >> he went crazy. he started shooting all over the place. >> lands a 17-year-old offender on death row. >> young people were committing very adult crimes. >> but with questionable evidence -- >> there's no guns. there's no blood dna, nothing. >> and a death sentence looming. a d.a. has doubts. >> i was horrified by what i saw. >> and a boy's life hangs in the balance. >> evil people. i'm never going to change if they should