there was a sound of glass breaking. i sat straight up. can you imagine waking up out of your sleep with a man attacking you? and at that time, i could see devon. i told him to hold on. i told him to be strong. and he said okay, mommy. >> my little boy! >> somebody broke in darlie's house and he killed the boys and he tried to kill darlie. >> just a fraction of a millimeter more and she would

have bled to death. >> people are sucked into this mystery. >> at 10:20 p.m. this evening, investigators arrested darlie routier. >> you guys have the wrong person. you're making a big mistake. >> 26-year-old woman. perfectly happy. no criminal record. suddenly grabs a butcher knife and destroys her own children. it does not make any sense at all. >> i swear i did not murder my children. i swear. being in here for over 21 years for something i did not do -- >> okay, this may not be what we thought it was. ♪ >> who's the birthday boy?

damon, how old are you? >> 3. >> yeah. >> a lot of families don't have the dynamic of what we had as far as being able to be tight and spend as much time together as we possibly could. >> what's your name? >> devon. >> devon was kind of a little stunt man. he, at 2 years old, would do a back flip off a diving board. he was just not afraid of anything. where damon was just the opposite. he wouldn't go upstairs without an adult. >> they were as different as night and day. devon was always trying to make everybody laugh. he was always doing funny things, making silly faces. damon was still at the age where he would let me hold him still.

oh, god. i miss them so much. >> the routiers were a typical family. they were young. darlie was a stay-at-home mom and was very involved with her children, and they were just a normal family. darlie was viewed by those who knew her as a very doting mother, and the routier house was kind of a gathering place in the neighborhood. >> all the kids wanted to come there. darlie always had popsicles and goodies for them. she was just a real fun loving caring person. >> we're going to florida in two days, i can't wait! >> she's fun to be around. she's just one of those natural beauty kind of people. >> darlie was not that different than a lot of dallas women you would come across.

she had frosted hair, cherry lipstick, painted fingernails. they had met in lubbock at the western sizzler steakhouse. >> i was working there, and darin was like, an assistant manager, and he said he heard that i had a beautiful daughter, and i said "i do have a beautiful daughter!" >> she walked in the room, and i was just smitten. people would fall over themselves when they saw her. and she never realized it. she never knew it. >> they really had it, that just kind of love at first sight. >> i believe she got pregnant on her honeymoon because she had devon right about nine months later. >> and off they come to dallas. and darin started his own electronics company. >> when i got off of work, we would sit down on the couch and start making parts. so testnec was born. >> testnec was a company that made circuit boards and pretty quickly darin and darlie made

pretty good money from that business. >> there's the beach. >> we're going on a cruise ship. >> they were making money for the first time in their lives. he loved treating darlie. they spend $130,000 on a new home in rowlett. darin bought a used jaguar. he bought a 30-foot cabin cruiser to cruise on nearby lake ray hubbard. he was loving his life. >> the routiers seemed to have everything, until one night in june of 1996. >> when i went to sleep, everything was perfect. when i woke up, it's been a nightmare ever since. >> school had been out. the boys wanted to sleep downstairs, like a little campout. i had decided i was gonna sleep downstairs with the boys. >> what woke you up?

>> my little boy, damon. he was pressing on my shoulder and he was saying, "mommy!" and it's like i sat straight up when he said that and i saw the guy starting to walk away from me. >> darlie has always maintained that there was a man in the house that night. >> darlie says that strange man attacked her. >> i could see like the outline of a man that was going towards the end of the living area into the kitchen. there was a sound of glass breaking. i stood up and i started to walk to the kitchen. and there was a knife laying down on the ground, right

outside the utility room. i picked it up, it was just like an instinct. and at that time i could see devon laying face up, and i flipped on the lights and i remember screaming and screaming for darin. >> i run downstairs and she meets me at the bottom of the stairs. she was trying to tell me that devon is hurt. devon, devon, devon. the look on her face is just startling. >> 911, what's your emergency? >> somebody came in. >> ma'am. >> they just stabbed me and my children! >> what? >> they just stabbed me and my kids. my little boys! >> who did? >> they're gone! >> i get over to devon, and i start doing cpr. i start blowing into his mouth, and the first time i blow into his mouth air comes out of his chest. and i look out across the room and damon is laying on his

tummy. he's not responding to me either. he's kind of laying there kind of moaning. >> ma'am, i'm trying to get an ambulance to you. hang on. >> oh, my god, my babies are dying! oh, my god. darin was trying to save him. hold on, honey. hold on! hold on! i told him to hold on. i told him to be strong. and he said, "okay, mommy." and he shook his head. those were the last words i ever heard him say. >> i was sleeping at my house in plano when i went to get the phone. it was a woman who lived across the street from darlie, and she started screaming and telling me that devon and damon were dead and darlie was probably dead. >> the female adult along with the 4-year-old were transported to baylor dallas for treatment. the 4-year-old was pronounced dead at arrival at the hospital. >> before i could see her, i

could hear her screaming. she rounded the corner and she was just covered in blood head to toe. as soon as i thought that perhaps there was an arterial bleed in her neck, we rushed her to surgery. >> she had a gash on her arm that cut to the bone, and she had a slash across her throat that very narrowly missed her carotid artery. she very nearly died that night. >> we were all at darlie's side and she was a little bit groggy from just having the surgery, and she wanted to touch the boys' picture and just cry and cry and she was asking, "why, god? why my boys? why my boys?" >> to describe it as a heinous crime is an understatement. 7-year-old devon and >>t s fron days. people were sucked into this mystery. how could this have happened?

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>> police spent much of the day meticulously investigating the crime scene. they have taken some physical evidence from the home but also

admit they have as many questions as answer. >> it's like something we watch on the news. we never thought one day it'd hit us. >> it's scary to think that, you know, i don't think they have any suspects yet. >> the first thing you look at are who are logical suspects. in the death and injury of children, particularly in their own home, it tends to be one of the parents. >> i think it's fair to say at the very beginning, everyone is a potential suspect, but darin, his version of events that he had been upstairs with the baby appeared to be accurate. and secondly, she had never told anyone, including the police, that he had been the assailant. >> routier insisted that an unknown intruder attacked her and the children and got away. >> darlie's initial statement doesn't have a lot of detail. somebody harming my children, somebody harming me. >> when the police were there, they saw a cut screen in the garage which seems to indicate that someone cut the screen from the outside, stepped through the screen, and headed for the main

part of the house. they found bloody footprints on the kitchen floor, broken glass, bloody fingerprints and blood everywhere. >> she said that she had fought off the attack. the only description of the attacker was a white male wearing dark clothing and that she said she struggled with him and that he left towards the garage. >> are you looking for just one person? >> well, based on her statement, yes, i mean, that's where we are starting from. >> the first place they're going to go is go to the hospital to try to get anything they can from her. >> i do remember the two officers standing over the bed asking me questions left and right about darin. i was scared because, to me it was real easy to see what they were trying to get at.

>> when i got to work, one of the nurses came into my office and said i need to make you aware of this patient that we have. we're trying to protect her because we don't know who did this to her, and we want to be sure she's safe. >> she was bruised from her wrist up to her armpit. >> she was afraid to be by herself. >> darlie was scared to death. i ain't kidding. i've never seen anybody that scared before. somebody tried to kill her, killed our kids. they're out there. >> a last good-bye to two little boys, devon who would have turned 7 this week and his 5-year-old brother damon stabbed as they slept in their home with their parents close by. >> i remember going in and we were just holding darlie up, keeping her from falling on the ground. we chose to bury them together

in one casket. now they'll walk through heaven together. >> at the end of the service, balloons were released into a clear blue sky, a tribute to innocence lost. >> darin and darlie fully cooperated with police and conducted several interviews, seeming unaware that they were starting to suspect darlie. >> they told us that they had hundds of leads they were looking into. they told us that this man had left fingerprints, that they had found flesh underneath my fingernails. they were indicating to us in every possible way that, you know, it was just going to be a matter of time that they were going to find this man. >> the public had been supportive of her up to this

point. and then there is this local news footage that comes out. >> about a week after the murders, on june 14th, the routiers held a birthday party at the cemetery for devon who would have turned 7 that day and a local television station went out and caught it. >> and i said darlie, devon always had the most wonderful birthday parties, and we know that he's in heaven and i said let's just for one day try and get through it without crying a lot. >> we had a graveside prayer service and then later had kind of a birthday party because devon's birthday invitations had already gone out. some of the neighborhood kids came. >> they sprayed the silly string which took maybe 20 seconds. they sang happy birthday and you

hear darlie and darin both saying -- >> i love you devon and damon. >> you know, just like they are still there. >> why the confetti? why the balloons? why the happy birthday song? >> well, because even though we're sad because devon and damon aren't here, we try to hang on to what we can to keep -- to get us through these times. >> i recall how shocked i was at the sight of that, and i wasn't the only one who was shocked. lead prosecutor greg davis was shocked as well. >> i was really taken aback by her demeanor. i tell you as a parent, i found it disgusting. >> she was smiling and chewing gum spraying the silly string around. and just as a mother i thought, "that's just not appropriate." i mean, what's going on? >> so a couple days after the birthday party, we get a phone

call. we need y'all to come into the station. we hopped in the car, we ran up there, and we were excited that they were close to catching whoever did this.>> said, don't should have an attorney? and they both said innocent people do not need attorneys. >> they told us that they had to find out everything, you know, that it could be anybody. that they had to check out all aspects and so they needed to know as much about us as possible. well, that wasn't the case. they had already decided the first day who had done this. >> they took us into two different rooms. he wanted to take me to the house and just walk me through it. i get into the car. they take me. so we get to the house, told them everything that i said that night and they go, yep, that's exactly what you did because the evidence 100% supports that. good. when are y'all going to find out who did this?

>> i was at home that night watching television and they broke into the programming. >> at approximately 10:20 p.m. this evening, investigators from the rowlett police department arrested darlie routier. >> i was just like what? how could she even be a suspect? why are they arresting her? i couldn't believe it because i knew, i knew there's no way she could have done this. >> i started screaming. my youngest daughter started crying and we just -- we couldn't believe it. >> we believe that the white male suspect described by darlie routier as the man that attacked her and murdered her children never existed. we also believe that the wounds present on darlie routier were self-inflicted. >> at the police station, i could see down the hallway. they're all jumping up, high-fiving each other celebrating that they had arrested darlie. made me sick. >> i mean he went crazy.

he started screaming and hollering and crying and having a fit. it was practically like the boys died again. >> i yelled down the hallway, and they all came running. and i just told them, i said, you guys the wrong person. you guys are making a big mistake! >> i swear i did not murder my children, i swear. you're talking about something that is for someone. ♪ pretty good. could listening to audible inspire you to start something new? download audible and listen for a change. well, here's to first dates!

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>> in texas, a bizarre development in the stabbing deaths of two young boys. officials have now charged their mother with the murders. >> she says an intruder committed the murders, but police have compiled enough evidence to charge her with the crimes. >> the national press descended upon rowlett. >> in texas, a housewife -- >> -- a mother who claimed that an intruder -- >> what could make the mother kill her own children?

>> it doesn't make any sense at all. 26-year-old woman, perfectly happy, no criminal record, no history of abuse, no history of any kind of psychotic disorder, nothing, suddenly grabs a butcher knife and destroys her own children. >> i mean, the first time i had a speeding ticket for going like five miles over the speed limit was about six months before this had happened. i had never been in any trouble. >> the media coverage of darlie routier did not happen in a vacuum. it occurred one year after the verdict on susan smith. >> i would like to say to whoever has my children that they please -- i mean, please bring them home. >> susan smith told police that some black man had hijacked her car and driven away with her two sons in it. >> it has now been seven days since michael and alex smith disappeared.

>> nothing has turned up, but authorities show no signs of giving up the search. >> the south carolina community was grieving. they put on lengthy countywide searches, and then they realized they had been duped. >> susan smith has confessed to murdering her two young boys. >> for nine days she told that lie before finally breaking down and admitting to law enforcement that she had let her car roll into the waters of john de lawn lake with those children strapped inside, in their car seats. >> susan smith has been arrested and will be charged with two counts of murder. >> this was one of the biggest stories of the year. >> the enormous sense of outrage and betrayal felt by the citizens of union, south carolina. >> it feels like she had duped everyone, led to a national fury.

>> the susan smith case absolutely shocked the nation. in fact, "time" magazine put her picture on its cover with the headline, "how could she?" there had just never been anything like this. >> what made the susan smith case so defining was how much media attention she had received in announcing what had happened to her kids. when that story was proven to be false, this went from being an eight or a nine to an 11. >> so, 11 months later, here comes the murder of darlie's sons, and everyone is thinking, "this was the dallas version of susan smith." >> there are unavoidable comparisons with susan smith. >> susan smith claimed they were abducted by a man. >> unknown intruder attacked her and the children and got away.>.

she's another susan smith, is what they told me. >> they used those words? >> yes, but you have to remember, she confessed. darlie didn't. >> tunnel vision occurs when an investigator gets a sense, a theory of a case and can't really leave the lanes that are created by that vision. >> it was very clear early on that the police believed darlie had killed her children, and that was gonna be the focus of their investigation. >> a normal mother that has >> a normal mother, normal like everyone else doesn't go to sleep and all of a sudden just snap and become a psychotic maniac killer. >> oh, that hurt.

>> they just stabbed me and my kids. my little boys! >> who did? >> there isn't anyone who could have heard her reaction her scream, could ever believe she had anything to do with that. >> my babies, they're dying, they're dead! oh, my god! when are they going to be here? >> ma'am, they're on the way. >> that wasn't acting, that wasn't -- that was real. 100% real. >> my babies, they're dying, they're dead! how could anybody not listen to that tape and think that that's not real? that -- that tape is devastating. hold on, honey! hold on! hold on! >> you're telling me that a person who is normal, not violent, no mental illness could cold bloodedly kill her own

children for absolutely no reason whatsoever? doesn't make sense to me. >> if i had done this to my children, i would be the first person to stand up and say, "oh, my god, i need help, what have i done?" you couldn't -- a mother couldn't live with herself. >> at what point did you understand that you, yourself were under suspicion? >> the day that they arrested me. >> investigators from the rowlette police department arrested darlie routier. >> darlie routier was charged with two counts of capital murder. if convicted, she could face the death penalty. i wanted more from my copd medicine... ...that's why i've got the power of 1 2 3 medicines with trelegy. the only fda-approved 3-in-1 copd treatment . ♪trelegy. ♪the power of 1-2-3. ♪trelegy 1-2-3 trelegy. with trelegy and the power of 1 2 3, i'm breathing better. trelegy works 3 ways to... ...open airways,...

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>> darlie routier was charged with two counts of capital murder. if convicted she could face the death penalty. >> my kids had been killed. my kids!

i'm wanting whatever it's going to take to find out who did this. darlie said there was an intruder, and i 100% believe her. i was in shock. i was completely blindsided. just -- i couldn't even grasp what they were telling me, that they were saying i was under arrest for murdering my children. >> darlie's trial had been set for the first monday after january, so we had six months. i typically find that it's hard to be ready in a death penalty case in less than a year and a half. it was gonna be quick. there's no question. >> the crime scene tells a story, and it tells a hard story, and our thing is that story's not the same story that she's telling.

>> reporter: skip hollandsworth, a writer for "texas monthly," followed the case closely. >> these are the notes i write in the early spring of 2002 when i first began to get involved in the case. tons of interview notes, just to write one 6000-word for a story for "texas monthly" magazine. one event with 100 different perspectives, and everyone has some theory about what happened that no one else knows. >> detectives suspected that someone inside that home in rowlett had killed the little boys. >> it seems clear that despite the fact that she was stabbed in the neck that investigators focused on her almost from moment one. >> so there were a number of things at the scene that led the investigators to believe that darlie was the one who committed this crime. >> is your name darlie? >> yes.

>> starting with that 911 call, there's a definite effort to classify darlie as a non caring mother. >> one thing that investigators found very suspicious was a very odd comment that darlie made on the 911 tape regarding fingerprints. >> his knife was laying over there and i already picked it up! >> it's all right, it's okay. >> god, i bet we could have gotten the prints maybe. >> my reaction when i heard that was just disbelief. she's got two kids dying in front of her. the thing that comes to her mind is fingerprints! >> common sense tells me no mother would ever make a statement like that. the only inference we could draw was she was setting up why you're not going to find an intruders fingerprints on there. >> his knife was laying over there, and i already picked it up! >> when darlie talks about grabbing the knife, it sounds suspicious, like she's trying to

cover for herself. but the question is, did someone ask her a question about that knife? and that's the mystery. >> you know, they make a big deal on the 911 call. darlie didn't say, oh, all this happened 911, and oh, by the way i've already touched the murder weapon. >> they left a knife laying on -- >> don't touch anything. >> i already picked it up. >> remember, the dispatcher just told her not to touch anything. >> there's a knife? don't touch anything. >> when she said don't touch anything, it clicked in my head, you know, my gosh, i just touched a piece of evidence. >> the strongest evidence of innocent are the photographs of darlie. >> in all the murder cases i've tried, i've never seen any self inflicted wound in the neck like that. i mean, just a fraction of a millimeter more and she would

have bled to death. >> if you want to see a victim of a crime, that's the victim. >> she has a deep wound on the back of her right forearm. there are also cuts on darlie's fingers of her left hand. this is typical of what you see in a struggle from trying to grab a blade and by somebody throwing their arm up to ward off a blow. that would be a textbook defensive type injury. >> everyone agrees that darlie had wounds, but prosecutors and defense see them very differently. prosecutors believe she wanted to make it look like she had been attacked. >> it was a superficial wound. it just cut the skin. if you look at the injuries to the boys, deep stab wounds that went through their entire chest and back area. because we don't have a live

witness to contradict the story, what we're going to have to rely on is the physical evidence and the crime scene to do that for us. >> another key item involves a broken glass. >> what she told the police was she woke up on the couch the man was standing over her and he attacked her on the couch. >> darlie routier told the investigators that as the intruder was running through the kitchen, she heard a loud sound like broken glass. >> what's weird about it is that her blood is under that glass. >> darlie's blood if anything should be on top of the glass; it's underneath. >> the problem is, every person that steps into that crime scene potentially contaminates it. >> any crime scene like that is going to be chaos, because the first order of business is to save lives.

so whatever they push or shove aside or step in that comes second. >> so using the position of the broken glass on top of footprints to conclude that it was an inside job and she had staged everything doesn't make sense. >> another huge issue is the screen. >> we go back to the screen that's been cut by this supposed intruder. there's no indication whatsoever than anyone either entered through that window or exited out that window. the dust that's on that windowsill is undisturbed. if you assume that he exited out that window, he would've stepped very quickly into a flower bed with mulch on it. the mulch has not been disturbed, there's no footprints. nothing to indicate that that area has been traveled through at all. >> the prosecution said that

there wasn't an intruder here. they said that the window sill, you know, was not disturbed. >> 20 years ago darin routier demonstrated why the states theory made no sense. >> are you on? as you can see there's no mulch underneath this window, the mulch is at least 6 to 7 feet over in this direction and this is the window sill that they said was not disturbed. as you can see, you can walk right through this window without disturbing anything on the window sill. >> so the dust wouldn't have been disturbed, and there's concrete outside the window so the mulch wasn't disturbed. it's just silly. >> there are just a lot of nagging things about this case that do not make any real sense. >> we analyzed a lot of evidence. >> when you have a circumstantial evidence case,

then it's all by the little pieces of evidence that prove her guilt. >> they say there's a staged crime scene, self-inflicted wounds. >> that there's a cut screen. >> there was the broken glass. >> the 911 tape. >> and it goes on and on, the number of things that sort of lead you towards darlie. >> from the beginning, investigators themselves tended to focus almost exclusively on this quickly developed idea that it was the mother who did it, and that basically meant that they didn't ever have to go out and investigate alternative suspects. >> and so the question becomes, if darlie didn't do it, who did? >> i saw this person's head turned, watching, just watching darlie's house. i started to walk towards the car, and they pulled out very abruptly. fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely.

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>> rowlett was known as a it's right on lake ray hubbard where a lot of people have boats, so it was viewed i think as a kind of place to settle down. >> oh, my god! >> we rarely if ever got a violent crime out of rowlett. >> they killed my babies! >> things like that don't happen in rowlett, texas. it's a quiet suburb. >> this case was going to be a challenge for the rowlett police department. they don't have the experience that a much larger police force might have. >> obviously somebody committed the crime. the question is who?

>> there's an intriguing bloody finger print near the murders. >> doesn't match darlie, doesn't match her husband, doesn't match the kids. >> and so the real mystery is, whose print is that? >> one of the theories is that this was a botched burglary. darin had been having trouble with his jaguar, and it had broken down that day, so the jaguar wasn't in the driveway, and darlie's pathfinder wasn't either. if it's true this was a botched burglary, the fact that the cars weren't where they usually were could have indicated to them that the house was vacant. >> it turns out the day of the murder, a neighbor had reported a suspicious black car in the area. >> about seven or eight days before the murder, there was a

black car sitting directly in front of my sidewalk. i saw this person's head turned, watching, just watching darlie's house. i started to walk towards the car, and they pulled out very abruptly. >> there were these tips about a black car. >> in that kind of neighborhood, where everybody sort of knows everybody and at least knows each other's cars, a black car circling the streets was suspicious. >> i did have an occasion to see the black car again the day of the murder. the boys were murdered at 2:30 in the morning. this was probably about 12:30 or 1:00 in the afternoon. >> did you go to tell the police about it? >> yes, i did. >> i have looked at the case file in the basement of the court of criminal appeals, and i have seen nothing that

made me think that the rowlett police truly followed up on that lead. >> i was the one going out looking for the car with binoculars and the gun next to my seat to try to find who did this and did that for weeks because they gave up. they weren't gonna be looking. >> the rowlett police department declined to comment on this case, and not just about the mystery black car, but also the other item most interesting to the defense. a sock. >> an adult's athletic sock was found with a small bloodstain from both boys in the alley a few doors away. >> the sock down the alley is probably the most important piece of evidence in this case. >> it was found right here by thdrain. it is a good possibility the intruder thought he was throwing the sock into the drain and missed.

it shows the intruder left the house and exited by the alley. >> the investigators were coming up with all these conclusions about what happened inside the house, and then one cop found a bloody sock. and the blood belonged to two people, damon and devon. how did that sock get down there? >> this was a big problem for the prosecution. >> it's always been our belief that darlie routier placed that sock in that alley. >> if she had done this crime, why wouldn't she just throw it in the backyard or at the end of the driveway where it could clearly be found immediately by police? >> she wants to make it appear that there was an intruder who left the scene and left evidence behind. >> why would darlie dab some blood from one son and then another son on one sock, run out the back gate, run down the alley for 75 yards, wearing nothing but a t-shirt, drop the sock, run 75 yards back, a total of 150 yards.

that is a long way. that's one and a half football fields of running. why would she take a sock? why wouldn't she have taken the butcher knife and dropped it? >> the notion that she could have stabbed her children, staged this crime scene, run down the alley behind the house, planted the sock, come back, slit her own throat, called 911, and the authorities showing up before the boys pass away is -- it's not credible. >> once it came to light that the sock that was found down the alley was from the routier house and contained both boys' blood, what should have happened is that they should have stopped right then and said, "okay, this may not be what we thought it was." is ri >> how are you feeling today? >> great, first day of the truth. >> we're here to win. >> it's hard to over estimate how intensely interested people are in this tr

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>> it was about 2:30 in the morning. the call came in as stab. >> oh, my god! >> i was seeing the worst thing any parent could see. >> in texas, a mother who claimed an intruder killed her who young children -- >> he gives her one across the throat and bam, bam, bam on the boys. >> i started blowing in his mouth and the first time i blew in mhis mouth, air is coming ou of his chest. >> a normal mother does gobt to sleep and all of the sudden become a killer. >> i never thought she was

guilty to this day. >> anyone who thought that there've was something wrong with this woman was the silly strong. >> here v greg davis plays the video and says here's a woman who just lost their children and she is literally dancing on grave. >> that is just not appropriate. >> to be accused of the worst thing a parent can be accused of. i miss my babies. >> i think darlie wins a new trial. >> that would be the key in the case. >> the trial got moved to kerrville, which is a rural and very conservative part of the state. they couldn't get a fair jury in dallas because of all the publicity. it was saturating the entire

area. >> her original court-appointed attorneys had convinced her family that a change of venue would be a good idea. >> it's the texas hill country. it's a very law-and-order community. conviction rate, i suspect, would be certainly about 95%. some friend said, "if i ever get murdered, i want you to make sure that that guy gets tried in kerr county." >> there's always a risk that the media coverage that you're concerned about could end up being minor compared to jury pool you're now facing. >> every day, the crowd of spectators here gets bigger. it's hard to overestimate how intensely interested people are in this trial. they would fill every seat in the courtroom, many would be turned away. >> normally speaking, in capital murder trials, the court is judicious trying to ensure and protect the rights of the accused. that didn't happen in this case.

>> her bleached blonde hair and her flashy clothes and the fact that she liked to buy pawn shop jewelry and she had breast implants. that kind of image did not play well in conservative kerr county. >> i knew that it was going to be a hard trial going into. it wasn't me going in there and the state having to prove me guilty. it was me going in there and proving my innocence. >> i vowed to myself at that particular moment that i was going to defend her the best i could. a court-appointed attorney is considered to be a lower level attorney. we couldn't just go with that. >> routier's court-appointed attorneys were dismissed, and now doug mulder is lead defense counsel. >> doug mulder was a legend at the dallas d.a.'s office. he got more not guiltys in murder cases than any other lawyer in dallas. >> when i met mulder for the first time, i mean, he's cocky. he came across like heas

little bulldog that would rip your leg off if you let him. it kind of felt like that's what we needed. >> i didn't accept this until i had actually visited with darlie. when i initially talked to her, i never thought she was guilty and don't to this day. >> in a death penalty case, it's not unusual for an attorney to spend months, even a year preparing for the trial. here the attorney had weeks. >> how are you feeling today? >> what you're strategy mr. mulder? >> we're here to win. >> we knew doug mulder was going to be ready, but we weren't rookies. i'd been prosecuting about 13 years by that time and done a lot of cases. lot of death penalty cases. >> ladies and gentlemen, on june the 6th of 1996, the evidence

will show this woman here, darlie lynn routier, and no other person, is the individual who stabbed and murdered her own children as they lay sleeping in their own home. >> i just remember feeling like these people are wrongfully trying to accuse me of murdering my children and trying to kill me. i remember just feeling so scared. >> character evidence is supposed to be completely inadmissible because it allows the state to obtain a conviction without actually proving the crime itself. but it was the centerpiece of this trial. >> the reason character evidence is often not admitted at trial is because it can be so powerful and yet not that relevant. >> greg davis character-assassinated darlie. they never come up with the motive, and they said, "well, we don't have to come up with the motive. but here's all the things that we want to say about darlie." >> hi. i'm here.

there's the beach. >> where are we going? >> going onto the cruise ship, win some money. >> we kind of had a parents' night out on a little overnight cruise. we were quite young, so we had fun. >> hey! first drink. >> you have to look at darlie routier in the totality. as i said in my opening statement, "the evidence will show you that the real darlie routier is, in fact, a self-centered woman, a materialistic woman, and a woman cold enough, in fact, to murder her own two children." >> she was always bubbly and blowing kisses, but the prosecution totally turned that against her. they really spun a web to make her look like this selfish, materialistic, conceited person,

and because she was a beautiful woman that was young, they could make the story line be what they wanted it to be. and -- and that's exactly what they did. >> who goes out and spends $2,000 on a set of breasts? that was one of the things that really caught our attention. pictures that we saw of the clothes that she was wearing -- very flashy. very flashy. expensive clothes, jewelry. i don't buy any of that stuff, but she bought a lot of that stuff. the way she lived doesn't make her a killer, but it does bring suspicion. >> the evidence is gonna show in this case that the routiers are in a financial jam.

they've gone through this extended spending spree. they're buying new furniture for their brand-new home. they're going on numerous vacations. she wore ten rings daily. >> as far as the jewelry at the prosecution mentioned so many times during the trial, you know, all that jewelry was second hand jewelry, gifts from my husband, what's wrong with that? >> the prosecutors laid out a scenario that the routiers were going through severe financial problems that was causing a lot of strain on the marriage, that darin owed like $10,000 in back taxes and $12,000 in credit-card debt, that his business was floundering. >> two months before this happened, we had a slow period in our business, but that wasn't anything uncommon in the business that we're in. >> the routiers' debt situation was not unusual. lots of young couples go into debt to live a better life. that's not evidence that some kind of extraordinary turmoil

was going on in that house. >> i believe that she came to look at those two children as impediments to the good life, and we had evidence that indicated that that was not something that darlie was happy with. >> prosecutors are basically arguing without saying it two less kid means less expenses, means more money for her. >> i was a normal person just like anybody else, any other mother with children. wasn't any better, wasn't any worse. >> this is the house. isn't it wonderful? >> injecting all that character evidence into the trial simply made the jury think that darlie was the type of person who actually would do that to her children. >> the boys were my world. they were my joy. they were what i lived for. >> there is never a good rational reason to take the life of a 6-year-old. but you have to understand, i

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>> you could die for these crimes, the murder of your two sons. >> but the worst has already been done to me. my boys were murdered. that's the worst thing out of all this. i mean, them putting me to death is nothing compared to my boys being murdered. >> every day, the crowd of spectators here gets bigger. >> it's really the dark side of our nature, and people are curious about those things. >> when i heard about darlie's case, it didn't take me long to make up my mind that this was

something that needed to be followed, and so i wanted to go see for myself. i was in the court room during the entire trial which was five weeks long. >> on this day, we heard the first mention of the journal routier kept. the lawyers for the state call it a suicide note, showing her depressed state of mind that led her to later kill her two sons. the defense calls that nonsense. >> on may 3rd, one month and three days before the murders, darlie wrote a note in her diary to her three sons -- >> i hope that one day that you'll forgive me for what i'm about to do. my life has been such a hard fight for such a long time and i just cannot find the strength to keep fighting anymore. i love you three more than anything else in this world. please do not hate me or think in any way that this is your fault. >> darlie gave birth to drake eight months earlier. she was dealing with some postpartum depression at that time.

>> that whole week, i had been having a hard time. it was like, everything. i could be watching a commercial on tv, and i would cry, it would make me cry. i started to write about the thoughts that i was having. then i just realized, "what am i doing? this is stupid." >> with postpartum depression, it's pretty common for women to have suicidal thoughts. now, that's i'm going to kill myself, not i'm going to kill someone else. and i think in her case it was self-directed. in fact, she has another entry in the journal talking about how much she loves her children and how much she wants to see them grow up and she wants them to be fine citizens contributing to society. >> parents don't normally think about taking the life of their own children, and they don't. but we know also that mothers don't normally contemplate suicide, either. >> what is the state's theory -- that she's suicidal or

homicidal? it just changes. it's, "we're gonna just portray everything bad against her we can." >> the crime scene itself that is the most potentially problematic for her. you've got the screen, you've got the glass. >> they collected, in addition to the murder weapon, a bread knife that was found in the kitchen. charles linch, a forensic expert, looked at it microscopically and had it analyzed. he found two particles on the bread knife. one, he found fiberglass rods. secondly, he found a rubbery compound. why is that important? because we go back to the screen that's been cut by this supposed intruder. >> there becomes a huge fight over how that screen got cut.

>> what is the screen made of? two things -- fiberglass rods encased in rubber indicating to us this is the knife that was actually used to cut the screen. >> that piece of evidence is devastating to the defense because it shows that someone inside the house cut open the screen. how in the world else could a fiber from that screen in the garage get on a bread knife in the kitchen? >> one notable danger with such an analysis is the fear of cross-contamination. fibers are notoriously light. >> if in fact the window was dusted first, and then the knives were dusted. when they dusted the window, they could've picked up screen material, and then when they dusted the knife, could have deposited that on there. charles linch said in an affidavit, "at the time i

received this butcher block, the butcher block itself and all the knives in it had been dusted for fingerprints." so this brings up the possibility of the fingerprint person inadvertently contaminating that knife. >> the state's presentation of the forensic evidence at trial really didn't stand up to scrutiny. and that's why it's important to get forensics experts who are capable of doing analysis of the crime scene properly and then explaining it to the jury. because that could make the state's whole case collapse. >> now here's the problem. there's no experts from the defense to counter the prosecution experts. >> with every expert that you have on the state's team, you want to hear from the defense side and see if they contradict each other or say the same. i wanted to hear what they had to say. i was excited to hear what they had to say. explain this to me. i'm a layman. tell me why i shouldn't believe. give me a reason, and i simply never got one because they simply never called an expert. >> it was a critical mistake

because the jury believed that the defense just had nothing to say. >> so doug mulder and his defense team come in, and they don't hire any other forensics experts. so when they get to trial, there's nobody there who can rebut that part of the prosecution's case. >> i believe there were enough flaws in the state's case that i thought we had a good chance. especially in light that there was absolutely no reason for this woman to go haywire and kill her children. she wasn't on drugs. she wasn't on alcohol. there was no explanation for it, and there was absolutely no motive. >> they went out there and announced within 20 minutes there wasn't any intruder. the dye was cast, and from that point on they spent their time trying to develop a case against darlie instead of investigate the case like they should have. >> some people believe that doug mulder may have been a bit overly confident. >> i'm comfortable the evidence

is coming so in so far, and i don't expect any suprises. >> the state's evidence against her was really quite weak and based primarily on character judgements, and he probably thought with his track record that he could just win the case on his oratory. which might have happened if the trial had been held in dallas, but it was held in kerrville. >> i know that somebody else did this. so, if i'm put to death, i'll leave this world with a free conscience. it's not about life or death. it's about what's right and what's wrong. >> this was one of the biggest stories of the year, and the defense was about to reveal a bombshell about the tactics of the police with a piece of evidence that had not been revealed. >> my jaw almost dropped. i've never, in 20 years, ever

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who would do this? i think if i lived to be 100 years old, i will never be able to tell step by step of everything that happened that evening. they just stabbed me and my children. hold on, honey! hold on! hold on! >> it was important to our case to call the first responding officer, david waddell, from the rowlett police department, because he told the jury what darlie routier was doing when they got there. >> there is a police officer at your front door. is your door unlocked? >> where's the ambulance? they're bleeding, hurry! they're going to be dead. please hurry! >> it was about 2:30 in the morning. the call came out as a stabbing. i could see darlie routier usin the family om talkinge on the tel. >> oh, my god, oh, my god!

>> one of the boys is laying on the floor, and he looks up at us. he's got his eyes open, and he's trying to breathe. i told her that she needed to help him, but she just wouldn't help him. told her to get some towels and try to stop the bleeding, and she never tried to help him. >> i'm crouched down by devon looking up and seeing this police officer and when he looks at me, he has a deer in the headlight look on his face. i'm yelling at him wanting him to help, pointing at damon and saying, "give him cpr," and he didn't move. >> starting with waddell and that 911 call, there's a definite effort to classify darlie as a non-caring mother. >> anything that can possibly be used against darlie, the prosecution tossed it out here.

>> under our criminal justice system, every defendant starts out with the presumption of innocence. that person sitting at council table, they are innocent of the crime charged. period. until the jury decides beyond a reasonable doubt that they're guilty. >> if any one thing convinced the public there was something wrong with this woman, it was the silly string tape party. >> greg davis plays that video for the jury, and he says, "here's a woman who has just lost her children, and she's literally dancing on their graves." >> i didn't think there was anything wrong with it, and i still don't think there was anything wrong with that. people can say what they want to say about that, but that was nothing more than me being able to tell devon happy birthday. >> there's many ways to mourn the loss of a child or parent, but having a birthday party and throwing silly string around in a graveyard?

i found it very repulsive that she would do that. "they would've loved this." no, they wouldn't have loved this, 'cause if it hadn't been for you, they wouldn't be in that spot in the first place. >> the prosecution has been on a roll here. not anymore, the lawyers for the state have been knocked back by a big surprise sprung by the woman's lawyer, doug mulder. mulder put the lead case investigator, rowlett detective jimmy patterson, on the witness stand. >> why do you wanna call detective patterson as a defense witness? >> why don't you ask detective patterson or come back monday and you'll find out. i wanted to call him today. >> he's a pretty hostile witness to you, don't you think? >> well, i don't know if he's hostile now, he might be hostile when i'm through with him. >> the defense was about to reveal a bomb shell about the tactics of the police with a piece of evidence that had not been revealed. >> they started to testify about

some of the things that they knew, and when detective patterson was questioned as to a memorial service that was held for the boys -- >> he says, "i'm not gonna talk about that. i take the fifth amendment." >> my jaw almost dropped. i'd never in 20 years ever heard a detective taking the fifth amendment. >> patterson faced with this issue took the fifth amendment and would not testify. we called his second detective, and he takes the fifth amendment and won't testify. >> these are the lead investigators, and the state has not called them. why is that? >> the reason prosecution didn't call patterson to the stand? there is a moment that few knew about, a memorial that took video. >> that morning, the police set up surveillance and mic'd the

grave for sound and had a camera in a van nearby recording activities at this memorial service. and apparently, they thought somebody was going to stand over the children and confess. >> the issue here is did they illegally place recording devices at the grave site and so the question became, was this a legal act? ultimately the cops were not charged with any crimes for the recording devices at the gravesite. >> we had scheduled a prayer service at the cemetery, and we prayed, and we cried, and we loved each other. >> rowlett investigators basically planted a wire. they may have violated federal law by doing that because people at a gravesite have a reasonable expectation of privacy. >> protoekt them and father,

pray they're rejoicing -- >> when you take the fifth means you have some culpability somewhere, or you're afraid you do. and detective patterson was afraid that what they had done was illegal. >> that evidence was never presented. the jury never saw that. you have to wonder what would have happened if the jurors had seen the other video, which showed another side of darlie. >> particularly in a close case, jurors wanna see the defendant take the witness stand. >> the word was out. the mother accused would take the witness stand. the people came and they kept coming, until the court room was packed. >> all of that stuff that had been out about what she had said and done already needed to be answered. there's always been a lot of discussion about the decision to have darlie testify. >> darlie's decision to take the stand at trial, in hindsight, stand at trial, in hindsight, probably was not a good idea.

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>> the trial of a mother accused of killing her two sons. >> darlie routier told police an intruder stabbed her boys, but police and prosecutors said she did it. >> the mother accused would take the witness stand.

>> the people came, and they kept coming until the courtroom was packed. >> i thought it was important for people to hear me tell them that i did not murder my children. >> almost everybody who saw it thought she was a terrible witness. she got very defensive, very argumentative, and very dismissive of the points that the prosecution was trying to make with her. >> what happened there on the stand? you seemed to be doing so well. >> mm-hmm. >> and then everything started going badly for you up there. >> he kept cutting me off, and then finally when mr. mulder got back to me, you know, then we explained everything, but of course, at that time, the damage had already been done. >> when doug mulder went through her version of the story, there wasn't really any tears or emotion, which was striking. >> she didn't look at us at all. i mean, she did not show anything toward the jury box. she looked straight ahead the whole time. >> i'm not a person that you can just flip on and off like a light switch to have your

emotions displayed. not everybody's the same. if this were a man sitting here, no offense, you know, you wouldn't see the same thing. nobody would ever question it. it would be okay because it's okay for a man to be strong. but it's not okay for a woman to be strong? >> it's a double-edged sword for women. they say they want to see emotion. they want to see remorse. if you show too much, then they say you're acting. if you don't show enough, they say you're cold. >> on day 19 of the trial, january 31st, the state made their closing arguments to the jury. >> greg davis' final arguments were pretty harsh, and at the very end, he said, "these precious children looked up and saw their mother murder them. that was the last thing they saw."

>> and, at that point, she called me a liar. i was caught a little bit off guard. normally, defendants don't talk to you during your arguments. it told me i was really getting to this woman, and the anger was on full display for the jury when she made that statement to me. >> i think she just could not contain herself anymore, and that's when she spilled out, "liar!" >> the jury has just seen a contentious examination of a witness who was, at times, emotional, at times argumentative. that's going to be fresh on their minds as they begin deliberations in this case. >> upstairs, 12 people, seven women and five men, are deciding what the future holds for a young mother from rowlett -- freedom, life in prison, or a sentence of death. >> we were dismissed, sent into the jury room. there were a few that wanted to

see some of the pictures, but a lot of them wanted to watch the video tape of the birthday party. that stuck on me, big time. that doesn't show me you love them. >> i think the jury had every right to see the tape. in the final analysis, how valuable was it? that's up to the 12 people that had to render a verdict in this case. >> jurors say that they watched that silly string footage multiple times during deliberations, which indicates that it absolutely played a big role in their decision. >> the silly string party was the icing on the cake. >> i remember the overwhelming feelings all at one time -- scared a angry real. i cannot actually believe

they're doing this to me when i didn't do this. i did not kill devon and damon." >> they reached a verdict at 3:50. we're just waiting to get into the courtroom now to find out what it is. (neil) the kids made) a little performance for you for mother's day. (gideon) happy! (harper) mother's! (neil) day! (sheila) oh i love it! (gideon) bye mamaw! (harper) sorry he's such a weirdo! (sheila) oh, i'm used to him. don't worry! i'm and i'm an emt.erer when i get a migraine at work, it's debilitating. if i call out with a migraine, that's one less ambulance to serve a community.

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>> they reached a verdict at 3:50. we're just waiting to get into the courtroom now to find out what it is. >> the jury deliberated for seven hours before it was announced that there was a verdict. >> so, everyone came rushing back to the courtroom. the verdict was guilty.

>> darlie routier was convicted of murdering her 5-year-old son, damon. >> despite her claims of innocence, housewife darlie routier was found guilty. >> -- sentenced to die by lethal injection. she could become the first woman to be executed in texas in more than 130 years. >> my family had to carry me out of the courtroom because i couldn't believe that they had convicted her. >> honestly, darin, what's the next step? >> you fight! that's what you do. >> obviously, we're disappointed, but there really isn't much we can do about it at this stage. >> what would you do differently? >> i don't know of anything i'd do differently. >> i suspect mulder thought he could win this, because he's doug mulder. he had this great reputation. there was no real evidence against his client. she had no criminal record. so he did it the easy way.

and in fairness to him, he was absolutely rushed with his defense. >> this was a tough one for you? >> you bet it was a tough one. >> why? >> well, you know, i've got a lady's life in my hands and whether right or wrong, i can't help but feel responsible for that. i put everything i had in it, every emotion i've got in it. i believe in her. >> darlie, do you have any comments? is there anything you would like to say? >> i didn't murder my children. >> you took darlie, who was beautiful and had her hair dyed and had breast implants, and you put her in this small town, and, guilty or not, they're gonna judge her. >> very quickly after darlie was handed tom dth row. she's been there ever since.

>> the cell is 6 by 12. everything is steel and concrete. all the meals are eaten in the cell. i have my moments where i break and fall apart, but i don't have anybody to talk to about that. all the wrongs that have been done, being in here for over 21 years for something i did not do. not only that, but to be accused of the worst thing a parent could be accused of. i miss my babies. >> coming in post-conviction, my focus is on new things. what are the things that we can find out now that couldn't be done back then? >> interestingly, four, five

years after the conviction, darin revealed that he'd been soliciting people to do a burglary of his house so they could make a false insurance claim. >> darlie was up for an appeal, and her appellate attorney had this affidavit stating that i had something planned, insurance fraud, and my name underneath it. "would you sign that," i said, "to help darlie, i will." they were hoping that maybe it would have some influence over an appellate court, because they were hoping for a new trial. i just wanted to help darlie. i don't know who did it. i don't know i have absolutely no idea. if i had even an inkling of a thought of anybody who could have done this, i would hunt them down myself and shoot 'em. i'd put 'em in the ground. those are my kids, and they ruined my life. >> if anything should have convinced them there was an

intruder in the house, it's the sock down the alley. >> this sock is the single most important evidence to support an intruder theory. >> people say, "how could any mother sleep through such a thing?" well, maybe she didn't sleep through it. maybe she was unconscious. >> personally, i think that he used the sock with some anesthetic on it to put her to sleep. he puts the sock and the anesthetic over her mouth. she's now unconscious. he gives her one across the throat. he runs over and bam, bam, bam on the boys. >> in a violent attack like that, it's perfectly understandable to me portions of what she remembers were either lost to her memory or jumbled in her memory because she was falling in and out of consciousness. >> a crucial piece of evidence in this case is the bloody

fingerprint found near the scene. and identifying who that print belongs to is absolutely critical as to whether there's another suspect or individual involved in this crime. >> the state has always taken the position that it didn't have sufficient points of comparison, they call it, to run that through the fbi's database. >> but, we've developed experts who say, "no, there are sufficient points for comparison." >> it could well be the print of the person who actually did this. so, we filed a motion for discovery. we asked for dna testing of a number of materials, including the sock. >> there were allegations that i thought were important, and i thought needed to be looked at. >> the federal court judge, judge ferguson, actually granted us the ability to run the 85-j fingerprint through the database. but, the state of texas was opposed to doing that.

we've been waiting on that for about nine years now. it's extraordinarily frustrating. that could be the piece that everybody has a great story to tell, and our job as producers is to help pull that story out. my name is taylor, and i am a producer for tv and podcasts. the whole production is on my surface laptop. it's very powerful, and just speeds up your whole day. i always have at least 4 or 5 programs open on my computer. i do need to be able to work everywhere. 16+ hour days are pretty common, so i need a long battery life. it feels weird to be on this side of the camera for sure. [laughs]

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>> darlie has been on death row for 22 years, and she still does not have an execution date. because of additional dna testing that the courts granted for her, the appeal process is still under way. >> over the last two decades, we've put thousands of hours into this case. but, representing darlie long ago changed from something i had to do, to something that i wanted to do. darlie's innocent, and we want to show definitively why the evidence the state used against her is bogus and that there is additional information that the defense team did not develop that could warrant a new trial. >> the fact that they're even able to get this new testing is a huge win for the defense. and if the results come back in a way that is favorable for the defense, that is by far their

best shot of getting a new trial. >> but in the meantime, she just waits. >> darlie and i got divorced in 2011. >> when she looked at me, she saw devon. because he looked just like me. and when i see her, all i saw was pain. a lot of people think that because i divorced darlie, that i don't believe in her anymore, and that's far from the truth. darlie is 100% innocent. she always has been, and she always will be. i didn't divorce darlie because i felt that she was guilty. i divorced darlie so that i could move on. but, i love darlie. she's the mother of my children. i'll always love her. >> i have a picture back in my

cell that's one of my favorite pictures, and it's of me and devon and damon -- on the beach, building sand castles. and in this particular picture, i had leaned over and kissed devon. it's a good memory. even if my name is cleared and i'm exonerated, there's no winning for me because nobody can give me devon and damon back. >> hi! >> what are y'all doing? >> making a sand castle!