A Texas Prosecutor Dedicated to Death Row
(“Invisible Intruder,” Forensic Files, and “Darlie Routier,” The Last Defense)
After the past two posts about the unfair treatment Darlie Routier has received at the hands of the criminal justice system, it seems only natural to provide some intelligence on Greg Davis.
I was hoping to find something scandalous or incriminating about the Texas prosecutor, who still clearly takes pride in having landed Routier on death row in connection with the 1996 stabbing deaths of two of her little sons — a crime she has always blamed on an unidentified assailant.
Davis discussed the case on camera in the Forensic Files episode “Invisible Intruder” in 1999 and in the series The Last Defense in 2018.
He and Routier’s other detractors have consistently used personal smears against her: She was “self-centered” and “materialistic,” she was grieving in an undignified manner, she gave the babysitter a wine cooler, she got DDD breast implants, and so on.
But what about Davis himself? Does this millennial-era Oliver Cromwell have any impurity in his past?
Well, much to my disappointment, nothing obvious.
The only official trouble that popped up was an action from 2010, when a grand jury indicted Davis, then a Collin County assistant district attorney, on charges of tampering with a government record.
The matter involved allegations that some DA’s office employees falsified information to indicate they were working on official business when they were actually campaigning for a district clerk.
But a judge granted a motion to quash the indictment against Davis in January 2011.
After new Attorney General Greg Willis took office that same year, Willis chose not to retain Davis. But Davis quickly got a new job, as deputy first assistant DA in McLennan County. He served under District Attorney Abel Reyna.
Davis exited that job in 2014. He left on his own accord, and no accusations of misbehavior turned up on internet searches. But the announcement merited a number of negative reader comments, including:
“Sherry Moses Greg Davis is more of an ass than an asset. I don’t know how he can live with himself for putting an innocent woman on death row. God will be his judge.”
“Barry Green Being part of the Henry Wade administration and obtaining almost two dozen death penalty verdicts is a resume I would not want.”
As of 2014, Davis had helped put 20 people on death row, and several have been executed. (The conviction of at least one of them, Albert Leslie Love Jr., was reversed, in 2016.)
TV station KWTX in Waco reported that “Davis is said to be the most successful capital murder prosecutor in the state of Texas.”
Davis has said he believes there’s a good chance Routier will be executed, which would leave her surviving son motherless.
The next big news about Davis hit in 2017, and it sounded positive (sorry).
The FBI was investigating ex-boss Abel Reyna because he allegedly “dismissed criminal cases for his friends and major campaign donors for political and personal gain,” according to the Waco Tribune-Herald on November 10, 2017.
In an affidavit, Davis indicated that Reyna’s corruption was the reason he chose to leave the job. (Reyna lost his reelection bid in 2018.)
So, it looks as though Greg Davis — who is now a retiree living in the Dallas area — is basically a narrow-minded individual but with some integrity.
And to his credit, in his TV appearances, he seems earnest and not particularly in love with the sound of his own voice.
Just the same, if anyone knows of any skeletons in this guy’s closet, I’m all ears.
That’s it for this post. Until next week, cheers. — RR
Watch the Forensic Files episode about Darlie Routier on YouTube or Amazon Prime
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-a-Million
Target
Walmart
Indie Bound
Thanks for this, RR. Another way of phrasing your view of Davies is that he’s good at his job as a prosecutor… As I observed earlier on this topic, it’s emphatically NOT his job to be ‘fair,’ but to paint the defendant in the worst light; just as the defence’s job is the opposite. It’s then up to the jury to discern truth between these versions. So, if you’re determined to think the best of Routier, shouldn’t you blame the jury, not the prosecutor? As long as the prosecution doesn’t withhold potentially exculpatory evidence, attempt to lie about factual matters or interfere with fact to suit – such as interfering with evidence – it is merely doing its job in being partial. Defendant character assassination may well be part of that, and is therefore reasonable. It’s up to the defence and jury, respectively, to refute it, and to assess it for relevance and accuracy.
I’m bound to say, then, that you’re too hard on the prosecution and too soft on the convicted! Granting that it’s worse to find the innocent guilty than the reverse, there are bound to be defenders that have an equally impressive record of acquittal (of the guilty?), raising the possiblilty that there have been more murders ‘cos the defence was too good / the prosecution was too poor. Put like that, good prosecutors aren’t all bad…
I hear you, and maybe he’s someone we’d want on our side to put away a real murderer. But he didn’t have to bring up the Silly String and “Gangsta’s Paradise.” That was just hitting her below the belt.
Well, a court is something of a battlefield – war – of which all is fair in… I disagree hitting below the belt is wrong. If you believed, for other reasons that the silly string, etc, that a mother had murdered two of her three children, you’d be inclined to hit below the belt. If, to the best of your knowledge, you believed she was guilty as a prosecutor, you’d introduce to court all that maximised the likelihood of conviction to remove an evil woman from society. It’s only from your perspective of uncertainty of her guilt that you could say what you do, but (i) he was doing his job; (ii) he probably believed her guilty; and also (iii) if it was below the belt it was incumbent upon the defence to say so and why – all the observations you’ve made (with which I largely agree). Of course, the judge could have ordered this inadmissible or any part of it to be ‘struck’ and disregarded by the jury. Assuming s/he didn’t it’s ‘cos it was not deemed below the belt.
Hitting below the belt…? It happened! Darlie Routier is a killer. She tried to smother Drake the day before she murdered Devon and Damon. Darlie Routier is a pathological liar, a malignant narcissist. The idiot she married is no better. . Good job Greg Davis!
Jade: I agree with the notion that you can’t hit below the belt in court: it’s a battlefield of wits – the swords, if you like – in which you hope the truth wins with the armour of fact. I think she’s probably guilty but don’t consider it beyond ANY doubt. As for those who keep banging-on about her ‘character assassination’ – what on earth do they think happens in court??? She wasn’t convicted because of her character but because of the facts as presented; her character was attacked just to hammer the nail home (as I would expect a competent prosecution to do – particularly if they were convicted of her guilt).
There’s some naivety on this site about the adversarial nature of trial for murder – and in this particular case with a feminasty bias (how dare she be chided ‘cos she was too feminine/masculine/slutty/submissive/patriarchically-victimized). That’s all a crock of….
I just found this site, so my apologies for the delayed comment. It’s irrelevant as to whether a defendant has just murdered her 2 kids or not. The prosecution is not the necessary bad guy here tho. The media took this story & ran with it….Nancy DisGrace ran with it too. When prosecutors have a good cause, there’s no need to smear the defendant’s character to obtain conviction. Now, 20 plus years later, Greg’s tactics give rise to waves of sympathy & distrust. Had he just stick to the facts of the actual case…what the law allowed to be introduced….just sayin!
No. The state’s job is to be bound by facts and give every single person a fair trial. He hated her because she was blonde and pretty and they were too lazy to do their jobs. There wasn’t enough time between the stabbing and the 911 call for her to stab herself, stage the scene, and plant the sock.
So you say – but if the facts were nearly as clear-cut as you suggest, appeal would’ve worked. It’s simply not as you characterise (and as most who weren’t in court but think they know better than the jury do…)
What is ‘fairness’? (cf Pilate’s question: “what is truth?”) Of course prosecutors would agree that a trial should be ‘fair’; who wouldn’t? BUT in practice the two sides are trying anything to sway the jury within the bounds of legality (and sometimes not – hence prosecutorial misconduct, typically in failure to disclose exculpatory evidence): that is the reality of adversarial law. It is the judge – and jury’s particular – job to discern the truth between the versions presented by prosecution and defence. And as you should know, the defence is indifferent to actual guilt – it’s what can be shown/proved in court by each side that matters.
Like it or not, this is the reality of criminal law.
Actually, you do not know what the crime began, now do you? The crime was already committed by the time 911 was called. So you do not know if she had time or not. There’s nothing to indicate the exact time of the 1st murder or anything up until the 911 call. So you have an end time. That is all. This is not a good argument to prove Darlie’s innocence.
Ok then what about Davis has withheld Brady material. Want to see a picture of the real Greg Davis? He used jury for his divorce, read that material (before 1996) and get a snapshot of how twisted he thinks. He lost so not a good move.
So much more. It was never innocent until proven guilty.
What Brady material did Greg Davis withhold?
RR, “hitting below the belt” is common, predictable courtroom tactics. It’s as fair game as detectives lying to a suspect to coerce him to confess, as in a case where a young sailor was charged with murder onboard a Navy boat. He was finally identified some thirty years later. They asked him if he premeditated the crime, or if he did it impulsively, and explained if it was impulsive, the statute was seven years, and “they just wanted to clear the books”. He went for the bait, claimed it was impulsive, but was arrested for murder anyway, since they already had evidence it was, in fact, premeditated. Dirty pool? Sure. Did it lead to the truth? Sure did. In August, 1960, 19-year-old Alexander Robillard shot and killed two police officers who stopped him driving a stolen 1959 Pontiac Catalina. He was tried, convicted, sentenced, appealed and executed. By November, 1961, he was more forgotten than Roseanne.
As a crime victim multiple times, I’m persuaded Texas has an admirable record for not tolerating bullshit from criminals. That’s a lot more than can be said for irresponsible, pantywaiste idiocracies like California, where you commit murders like Manson’s, get sentenced to death, then you’re up for parole.
Prior to the 1950s, punishments for crime were to set an example for others: “if you rob the liquor store and kill the clerk, you, too, will get the chair.” Then it was reduced to an academic question, “If you rob the liquor store and kill the clerk, what is a just and fair punishment? Three years because you were under 18 and this is your first offense? Or twenty years because you’re a career criminal?” For a decomposing society that commits crimes to support five decades of drug habits, without which they couldn’t pay their rent, being locked up a few years, with free coffee, free TV, free Internet, 3 free meals, free rent, free utilities, free phone calls, free medical, and lots of old buds from the hood to share war stories with, the incentives are pretty obvious. Punishment as a deterrent was tossed out the window decades ago… and we still cluck our tongues and wonder why the neoprened-spine US has overcrowded prisons.
Every criminal justice system in the free world has wrongful convictions and executions, even Texas, and I applaud prosecutors like Greg Davis who skip the salad and get to the meat.
As a matter of fact, you are wrong. TX has a “Hang em high, whether it’s fair, whether they guilty or not” attitude. “Tough on violent crime” is great. I’m all for it. But murdering people regardless of guilt is totally unacceptable. What if it was your innocent kid or grandchild on DR? How would you handle that? And before you even try to say that’s not ever going to happen, well it has happened and it will again. Btw, a supreme court justice says, “It is entirely possible for a factully innocent man to be executed in this country.” Justice Scalia, google it, he died a few years back but said that within the last 8 years. The TX criminal court said the exact thing on Melissa Lucio’s appeal just this year.
Reply to Marcus: One of the most sleazy but useful tactics a successful attorney can pull off, is to introduce something he knows will be sustained upon objection. And when the judge directs the jury to disregard the comment, everybody within earshot knows that never happens. Humans being what they are, the thought is firmly implanted in the jurors’ minds.
I disagree with the idea that it’s the prosecutor’s job to present the defendant in the worst possible light. It’s the prosecutor’s job to evaluate an allegation and, when finding sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, to present the facts.
Mike: Once the matter goes to court, the prosecutor is certainly not engaging in evaluation (and we’re talking about court’s here, not what happens at the prior stage, which is when evaluation as to the case, prospect for conviction, etc, occurs). Some matters are plainly ones of fact; others, such as the defendant’s character are rather more subjective – and I’m sure you aren’t denying that subjectivity enters the courtroom. Matters of what’s known as ‘transactional evidence,’ which require interpretation, are not matters of fact but of judgement. If facts equal truth, then neither prosecution nor defence are in fact seeking it (whether they should or not), but rather that their VERSION of the facts – their VERSION of the truth – is the one accepted by the jury.
While the prosecution is of course there to achieve justice (and has to claim to be), in practice when the matter reaches court the State has already made a preliminary judgement as to guilt – of course – and is intent on conviction – unless evidence that refutes its preliminary position is presented. A tentative prosecutor, scrupulously ‘fair’ to the defandant, is almost by definition a poor prosecutor. He should, quite simply, pursue his goal unless and until evidence is presented that reasonably suggests innocence. He is allowed considerable discretion in doing that, within the bounds that the law and the judge present to mediate the law, allow.
Prosecutorial misconduct is an illegal act or failure to act, on the part of a prosecutor; especially an attempt to sway the jury wrongly to convict a defendant or to impose a harsher than appropriate punishment. If there had been such misconduct in this case, that could have been found.
Certain posters such as RR have tacitly implied that the prosecution engaged in misconduct in ‘trashing’ Routier, regardless of its not being found. This is to misunderstand the nature of courtroom transaction.
Most prosecutors will only take cases they feel they will win. But a double murder of children is not the type of case they can slip by & ignore. This case was very high profile. There is no way Greg Davis was going to lose this golden case in sunlight with the whole world watching. Prosecutors are voted in….people look at their win/lose record. You get some loser cases, you will be voted out of office. The type of person that will be a prosecutor is not the type that will allow any case to be lost! Bottom line? There is no totally honest prosecutor. Read appeals, see all the cheats and wrongs they do. Just because you are honest, doesn’t mean they are…..Their job is like a coaches, to win, win, win! Evidently, Mr. Davis did a smack down of a job. I do not believe he’s lost anything in the appeals for over 20 years. But i would like to see what all Darlie Lynn’s defense team found in those files in the prosecutor’s files.
Jason: You’re quite right that the police, for example, can lie to a suspect in order to get them to incriminate themselves. Cops: ‘You’ve denied knowing anything about the crime and were ever at the scene, but your partner’s just told us you were there and pulled the trigger.’ Suspect: ‘It was him, not me, who fired.’ [Partner’s never been spoken to by cops.]
Perhaps the best reason for ‘taking the Fifth’!
It’s interesting that most of the women who’ve replied to RR side with Routier, while most of the men side against her.
I’m a mom and I agree with most of RR’s points (the only one I somewhat disagree with is the planting of the screen fiber on the knife – I’ve always been suspicious of “planting” allegations but in this case with a prosecutor so intent on upholding his death penalty conviction stats in the lethal state of Texas, in this case I agree it’s possible).
Her main point is that the woman was the subject of character assassination, and not only that, but her FEMALE character was assassinated, and that this might or even could have led to not only the conviction but the death penalty.
When men’s characters are criticized by prosecutors, what comes to mind is their actions such as being a cheater or layabout. But this woman’s character is maligned for wearing jewelry and having a breast enhancement. We can all agree that men who cheat or don’t work deserve some criticism. But for men to criticize women for having large breasts is hypocritical. Who do you think we get them for??? You love large-breasted women, yet you’re willing to put a woman to death for them? Now I’m getting as angry as I think RR is.
The case was circumstantial and speculative, and there was a crappy juror. She deserves a new trial. Where’s that link to the ACLU?
The defense of Routier smacks of sexism IMO. Please tell us all where even a shred of evidence of another suspect exists in the case — including DNA — and then we can discuss any audacity by Davis.
Or perhaps sometimes we certainly can judge an episode by its title, “Invisible Intruder.”
Jim: I’m broadly with you on this, with the caveat that absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence (of another party). There does seem to me to have been more ‘indulgence’ of the notion that Routier may be innocent ‘cos she’s a woman/mother than I suspect wouldn’t be the case for a man. Yes, the evidence is largely – if not wholly – circumstantial, but plenty have been convicted on such evidence. And I don’t believe the jury are so dumb as to have convicted ‘cos of the silly string/materialism/’slut’ claims – the kind of irrelevant character attack that’s routine by prosecutors against men and women, which the jury and defence expect – and discount.
It may be that there is subconscious bias in favour of a mother given our abhorrence of the notion of a mother killing her children and the attendant ‘disbelief.’ It’s easier on us to assume it was an unknown man. In some ways I wish it were…
They claim Greg Davis has no dirt, what about the fact that he went after Darlie based on personal slander. He deliberately with held facts in her case that would have changed the outcome of her trial. Both Doug Mulder and Greg Davis knew that Darin had snuck out of the house right after him and Waddell come in. Waddell arrived and Darin ran out to meet him in the yard. Waddell made Darin go back into the house with him. Waddell didn’t say anything to Darin at the time, but Darin immediately ran past his living son Damon to go back over to Devon. Officer Waddell stated that he knew immediately Devon was gone, and he said Damon was alive and breathing trying to crawl, yet Darin ran right past Damon to go back to Devon to do cpr on him. Darin claims Waddell asked him to do that but this is not true. Darin was doing cpr on Devon and Waddell turned his focus on to Darlie. This is heard on the 911 call. While their backs were turned Darin snuck out of the house giving him the opportunity to lose or plant that sock in the alley. Waddell said at that time he assumed Darin left to go for help, but he didn’t. About 90 seconds later Darin appears back in the home just before office Walling entered. Walling said when he came in down the hall he saw Darin standing by Devon but he was red faced as out of breath as though he had been running. Knowing all these details Greg Davis and Doug Mulder intentionally withheld this information from the jury. Neither of them ever brought up about Darin running out the front door to meet Waddell. Instead Greg Davis made up this horrific story about Darlie stabbing her boys, leaving them alive then running the 75 yards down the alley to plant this sock that had no help to her case whatsoever. He then claims she comes back and stabs Damon again, then leaves the boys alive just to call 911. The entire theory was ridiculous considering Greg Davis knew Darin was the one who had the motive and opportunity to lose or plant that sock. Greg Daivs’s own brother said Greg personally hated Darlie because she reminded him of his ex wife. The way Davis prosecuted this women was cruel and unfair. He intentionally twisted her words in order to made the blood evidence fit. Davis knew Darlie never said she ran through the kitchen on the side where the glass was broken. She said she took a couple of steps on that side and turned around to go back and turn the light on. When she went back through the kitchen she went on the side where the sink was. Davis knew this, yet he convinced the jury that she was lying because the bloody foot prints appeared under the blood drops and he feet were not cut. It was obvious some of the glass in the kitchen had been moved. Davis also knew it was possible that Darin was that intruder. He knew Darlie was not there a the foot of the stairs when Darin appeared. Darin waited until Darlie left that hallway before he made his appearance. When she returned with the phone Darin suddenly appears and she tells him to hurry. It was clear Darin was not already there doing cpr on Devon before Darlie dialed 911. They never brought up the fact that an attack on the family went on for several minutes while Darin claims he was asleep upstairs, but them he claims he was woken by the sound of light glass breaking? Really Darin? Even over the sound of the dog barking, you still heard this light sound of glass breaking after three members of your family are slaughtered. Darin later realized this story was not believable so on The Last Defense Darin changed his story once again by saying that he never heard anything from any of them until he heard Darlie screaming. What is even more shocking about this is officer Waddell honestly believed Darin was trying to save his son when he did cpr on Devon after he entered the house. He had no idea that Darin already knew and announced Devon dead at least three minutes before he ever entered the house. I explained to him that he intentionally avoided his living son by saying he didn’t help him because he had no pulse. I showed officer Waddell this proof. He had no idea that the cpr Darin did on Devon was all fake. There is so much twisted info in the case. Darin was never investigated and I believe this was because Darin knew detective Patterson’s criminal son. It was obvious Darin should have been the main and only suspect, but when Darlie’s lawyers were planning on implicating Darin in the crime. Darlie Kee, (Darlie’s mother) and Darin stepped in and Doug Mulder was hired under the condition he not implicate Darin. Darin just walked away free never being investigated in the crime. If the jury knew today what we now know about Darin, Darlie would never have been sent to death row. The lawyers tried to warn Kee, Darin and Mulder, but they turned a blind eye and robbed Darlie of the reasonable doubt that would have changed the outcome of her case.
LOL, you sound desperate. But isn’t Darlie innocent, according to all you supporters? Why would you be trying to find some loophole or technicality to free her on when she’s completely innocent? Just more sour grapes because you refuse to believe women, mothers, can brutally murder their own children. Darlie murdered Devon and Damon and now she’s paying for it. Keep it simple. No intruder, no unfair trial, no prosecution malfeasance, just Darlie with the knife.
I have read everyone’s response here and after seeing all of the evidence, it seems fairly obvious she did not do it and it also seems fairly obvious that Greg Davis’ pride is misplaced. It is funny, because most people who are involved in advisory services and are confident in their position welcome scrutiny with open arms, especially prosecutors who want to make sure they do the right thing. There is an element of humility. In this case there is no humility from Greg Davis.
Greg Davis says she is a “self-centered, materialistic woman.” Of course he can convince idiots like the juror Kerri Parris. She is upset that Darly spent $2,000 on breast implants? I ask the question, “why did Darly chince on breast implants?” Kerri Parris is not a peer. Most women like nice things – so what?
When you see guilty women talk, they talk about themselves. When you see her talk, all she talks about is her boys. As a man who has dealt with a wife with post partum depression, Greg Davis is an idiot and it is unfortunate that this idiot was a prosecutor. He thinks he got to the woman’s guilty conscience when she yelled liar. Of course she yelled liar. His disposition and arrogance was about winning for himself, not about the truth.
For those who may question where I stand on this stuff.
Life long Texan
Republican – never voted Democrat on anything
For someone who believes in the after-life, for people to sing happy birthday, that is not surprising. It can actually be a little therapeutic. On Christmas, my mother has a birthday cake for Jesus and sings “happy Birthday” but I guess she killed him 2000+ years ago and danced on his grave. Idiots like the one juror really believes that. Unfortunately, jurors can be idiots and judges can be morons too.
I was in a case where a little boy had over 20 broken bones and the jury gave him to a family member who “may have been in the house.” The jury did this because they thought the boy would be in the foster care system for the rest of his life. The jury believes that even though our family was ready to adopt him. The judge never allowed the jury to know about us.
Glad to hear someone else sees Greg Davis as what he is — narrow-minded. Lol, Kerri Paris is no peer to any half-way intelligent human.
Well, OBVIOUS foolishness by a prosecutor can only serve to undermine his/her whole case (except for judge/jurors incapable of seeing the obvious), thus potentially favouring the defence… However, it’s unlikely that a judge would be that obtuse even if a majority of the jurors are.
R’s conviction is based not just upon the initial finding but on appeal, with different judges, so it won’t do to suggest that a bad juror/judge ‘did it’ for her. R’s defense alleges numerous errors made during her trial, in the official transcript of it, as well as the investigation of the murders, especially at the crime scene. An appeals court dismissed these claims, as did a court ruling on her habeas corpus petition (through which a person can report unlawful imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether the detention is lawful.) So as for it “seeming fairly obvious” that the verdict is wrong – it’s not in the least obvious! Of course she may be innocent, but it’s concerning the ease with which commenters dismiss judicial findings as ‘obviously’ wrong in favour of their own, limited perception (they weren’t in court!). Davis may well be a dick – but R’s conviction was, thankfully, not based on his say-so.
It’s easy to be taken in by prosecutors’ assurances that justice was done and they couldn’t possibly convict an innocent person, until you look at the case of someone like Dale Johnston, who spent six years on Death Row in Ohio. Then two other men with no connection to him confessed to the murder and provided evidence of their guilt.
Robert: Well, prosecutors have a job to do and make careers from successful prosecutions – so the public shouldn’t be taken in. They may well, and have been, wrong – many times. But it’s the jury who convict, not prosecutors: a powerful check and balance, together with a number of appeal opportunities.
What we can’t do – although some posters here do – is simply assert that a conviction was wrongful (even ‘obviously’ wrongful), as if prosecutors made the decision and everyone else involved is too stupid to resist them…
If Routier is innocent we have to believe that it will be established through appeal – for if we insist she is, despite the view of the judge (ultimately several) and jury, we’re saying we know better than them when we weren’t even in court to hear (and see) the evidence! We only know that miscarriages occur because they were put right, albeit sometimes with the assistance of third parties, so we should be heartened by that fact…
His own brother would not trust him. So, try asking him why.
If your own brother won’t trust him, why would someone who is not family trust him? I wouldn’t hurt him. He commits a crime a crime and faces no charges? Someone who is suppose to uphold the law, breaks the law!
I would also ask him why the word superficial was used. Does he know the context of the word as to how the doctor used it? Either he did not and wanted the jury to believe the injury was minor when that is NOT how the doctor used the term. He intentionally misled the jury!
It seems that she needs a miracle for her to be released.
Maybe she can get someone from the innocence project involved or Kim Kardashian to speak up for her.
God please help her.
I’m rewatching ‘The Last Defense’, and honestly? The case against Darlie is SO flimsy when a sane, thinking human could say “What if the husband tried getting all 3 of them killed? He was kind of shopping around for a robbery anyway”. We know how much the insurance was for the kids, but how much was on Darlie?
But Greg Davis is stating, with conviction “a mother wouldn’t do this or that….she’s already thinking about fingerprints on the 911 call”. Her postpartum status is brought up, her “flashy/showy” behavior is brought up, her hair dye and implants. You’re almost waiting for him to accuse her of being a witch.
Yet there’s fingerprints that were never examined, prints in blood- so you kinda had to be there at the stabbing. What, where, and why on the rape kit? Did she screw herself with the knife after she threw a sock in the alley, dashed back to the house and slashed her own throat? What about the pubic and facial hairs that were found!?
There’s a lot of unanswered questions happening on his watch, so it looks like he’s sticking to that story of pointing fingers at that selfish, evil woman.
There is SO much evidence that isn’t collected, conflicting testimony in regard to evidence, and detectives taking the fifth.
If it looks like a coverup, and it quacks like a coverup…
This was such an easy case to decide because the evidence was overwhelming. The bread knife cut the screen, the murder weapon was from the home, Darin’s sock with Darlie’s DNA in the toe, and the kids’ blood on it, placed in an obvious position beside a garbage and storm drain (where it could have been disposed of).
A wealth of blood evidence. Darlie’s clean up attempt at the sink where she stabbed herself. Cast off blood evidence on her blouse. Her bloody footprints under the broken glass, even though she stated she chased an ‘intruder’ and he broke the glass while she was chasing. No glass in her feet.
Then there were the many changing stories Darlie gave as the evidence was revealed. Darlie has had more DNA testing performed than any death row inmate in history. Still nothing exculpatory. The bloody smudged partial print (exhibit 85j) was run through AFIS and came back unidentified (likely unidentifiable) in Jan 2020. Testing in 2015 determined it had no male DNA. Darlie’s right ring finger isn’t ruled out.
I’m 100% on this one, and have been for a long, long time. No evidence at all of an ‘intruder’. Nobody escaped through the utility room, and out that garage. Darlie is guilty. Get the child murderer on the calendar.
Agreed. As for motive/reason, the most likely seems to be mental instability (at the time, anyway), judging from diary entry (instability isn’t the same as illness: a person can be deeply unhappy and wish to end their life per chronic emotional upset, instability, or disturbance without a diagnosis other than depression – which is far removed from the necessary mental illness that disconnects one from reality. Routier MAY have experienced extreme low mood but there’s no evidence she didn’t know what she was doing.) She also claimed at one stage she knew who the perp was but wouldn’t say. Some disclosure of guilt? I can’t believe the other explanation: that this was about money – and it’s not necessary to.
May 3 1996 diary entry:
“I hope that one day you will forgive me for what I am about to do. My life has been such a hard fight for 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…I don’t want you to see a miserable person every time you look at me. Your dad loves you all very much and I know in my heart he will take care of my babies. Please do not hate me or think in any way that this is your fault. It’s just that I…”
The above entry was minimised by the Routiers – she didn’t intend what she suggests she did. How odd! Yes, of course it could’ve been ‘histrionics’ – but in light of what happened that must surely be treated with skepticism… They needed to minimise ‘cos it and other writings suggested the inconvenient possibility (gross likelihood in my view) that she was thinking, at least, of suicide, and did what some other suicidal parents have done and ‘took the children with her’ – only in this case she dispatched them but was either unsuccessful, or had second thoughts, about herself. This is also the double-edged sword viz her own ‘nearly fatal’ injury (‘would I do that to myself if I wanted to murder my children?’) Well, yes, she would or could if she had some intention to take her own life!
I really can’t see how anyone reasonably doubts her guilt (the feminist ‘she was shamed’ critique of the case against her is a foolish red-herring: whether she was or not is immaterial – she’s guilty).
Do you seriously believe Darlie was put on trial for murder and the state used only “smears” as evidence against her. Now I’ve heard everything. Don’t ever answer a summons to jury duty if you don’t understand that the prosecutor must show the jury that you are the type of person who could murder your children so your character becomes part of your trial. There is enough physical forensic evidence to try Darlie ten times and every time she’d be found guilty. That evidence is only stronger now with the 2015 YSTR DNA testing on evidence including the murder weapon, the sock and her nightshirt that excludes an unknown male committing these murders, they also exclude her husband.
But what was her motive? She had nothing to gain.
I just found this site, so my apologies for the delayed comment. But the song, the implants, the gum smacking, the bleached hair, & whatever else about her appearance or the music she let the boys listen to…..none of that means a hill of beans. No motive is needed for a case against someone. You need to really look at the “evidence” & put all the pieces together on any of these cases. Filter out the crap, look at the stuff that matters & was in court.
Time to execute her. She did it. I remember the beginning and all the evidence. The nurses talked about the apathy she displayed toward her sons in the hospital. Nothing showed another person was in the house but her, her husband, and the children. It’s really time to end this fiasco. If you want to give her life without parole, fine, but she did it.
What never seems to enter the discussion in any comment thread regarding true crime is the fact that fairness is never part of any criminal trial, AND that the truth has no role to play. Ask any first year law student what they’ve been taught regarding truth in a criminal trial and be prepared to hear that which you would not expect. I speak from plenty of experience in the courtroom, and can fully support the fact that truth is not a defense attorney’s most important consideration, even when statutes require both sides to take very specific actions based on provable statements or other quantifiable evidence.
Interesting observations — thanks for writing in!
I have a lot of issues with Greg Davis.
He deliberately withheld information in the Darlie Routier case that would have changed the outcome of the trial. He got Darin to admit that he lied about his alibi.
He knew that Darin was seen in the alley near the sock by the second responding officer.
He knew Darin lied about the cpr he gave to his son Devon.
He knew Darin lied about Damon not being alive when the police and medics arrived.
He knew Darin lied about when and why he went upstairs.
He knew Darin planted his own wallet in Dallas just to make it appear an intruder was in the house
I have tons more where this came from.
Interesting stuff — this is the first time I’ve heard of this.