Tag: Darin Routier

Darlie Routier’s Son Lives the Crucible
(“Invisible Intruder,” Forensic Files, and “Darlie Routier,” The Last Defense)

After last week’s post about the persecution of Darlie Routier, many readers searched for information about her youngest son, who was 7 months old when a knife attack left his brothers dead on June 6, 1996, in Rowlett, Texas.

Despite the upheaval of the murders of brothers Damon and Devon Routier and the imprisonment of his mother for homicide, Drake Routier grew into “the most adaptable kid I’ve ever seen,” his father, Darin, told reporter Liz Stevens, who wrote about the Routiers in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The article, published when Drake was 2 years old, described him as normal, lively, and resembling his mother with “startled blue eyes” and a “delicate mouth.”

Now in his early 20s, Drake has beaten the odds in a number of ways. In an on-camera CNN interview, he doesn’t act like a young man who’s consumed with bitterness or anger. And he apparently has stayed out of trouble with the law. (No small accomplishment in an age when the children of politicians and celebrities tend to pop up on mugshots.com.)

Drake has said he believes in his mother’s innocence, and he has visited Darlie, 48, regularly in the Mountain View Unit, where she’s one of six women on death row in a state with the most active execution chamber in the U.S.

Here are 5 realities, drawn from internet research, about his life:

Reality #1. Drake’s father, Darin Routier, didn’t take custody of him right away after the murders, because he wanted to get his finances in order, Liz Stevens reported. After putting Darlie in jail with bail set at $1 million, the state of Texas placed baby Drake in a foster home in 1996. A court later gave custody to his father’s parents, Sarilda and Leonard Routier. Meanwhile, Darin, once a successful computer hardware entrepreneur, lost the family’s huge Georgian-style house, cabin cruiser, and 1986 Jaguar. He started over in Lubbock and eventually had Drake move in with him.

Reality #2. Drake found out in 2013 he had acute lymphocytic leukemia, which is “the most common type of cancer in children, and treatments result in a good chance for a cure,” according to the Mayo Clinic. He allowed CNN to show photos of him during the time he was undergoing chemotherapy. On October 13, 2016, Drake finished his last cancer treatment at the Children’s Medical Hospital in Dallas, according to a message his maternal grandmother posted online. An AP story dated June 18, 2018, reported that Drake was in remission, according to Richard A. Smith, a defense lawyer for his mother.

Reality #3. Drake told CNN he’s had to accept his identity as the kid whose mother is on death row. Darlie and other family members have been denigrated in the media ever since her arrest 11 days after the murders. During the trial, “prosecuting attorneys labeled Routier’s relatives ‘trailer trash’ and portrayed the Rowlett couple as tacky nouveau riche with twisted priorities,” according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The public chimed in, too. A pawn shop clerk “noted that Darlie often came to her store braless and used foul language,” the newspaper reported.

Reality #4. Drake’s visits to his mother, who’s been on death row for 21 years, take place with a sheet of glass between them. In addition to denying friends and family members physical contact with death row inmates, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice limits visits to two hours in duration and encourages “conservative dressing.” For example, visitors past the age of adolescence cannot wear shorts or skirts shorter than three inches above the knee.

Reality #5. Although deprived of his mother’s embrace, Drake has grown up with many other people who love him. For instance, Jerry Dale Jackson, the father of Darin Routier’s girlfriend, Cindy, considered Drake to be his own. Jackson’s obituary in the Weatherford Democrat in 2017 listed Drake as one of his grandchildren.

That’s all for this post. Until next week, cheers. — RR

---

Read Part 3: Greg Davis: Darlie Routier’s No. 1 Antagonist

Watch the Forensic Files episode about Darlie Routier on YouTube or Amazon Prime