Was "American Sniper" shooter psychotic when he killed two?
STEPHENVILLE, Texas - Was Eddie Ray Routh in the grip of psychosis when he shot and killed Chad Littlefield and "American Sniper" Chris Kyle on Feb. 2, 2013? Judging by opening statements in Routh's murder trial, that is the question at the heart of the case against the Iraq war veteran.
What is not in dispute is that the now-27-year-old Routh shot Littlefield, 35, and Kyle, 38, during an outing at an outdoor Texas shooting range. According to Erath County District Attorney Alan Nash's opening statement, Routh shot Littlefield four times in the back, once in the face, once in the head, and once in the hand; he shot Kyle five times in the back and side, and once in the head.
Nash said that on the morning before the shooting, Routh drank whiskey and smoked marijuana - including "wet," which often refers to a marijuana joint dipped in formaldehyde. After the shooting, he said, Routh stole Kyle's truck and, among other things, went to Taco Bell, and told his sister he planned to flee to Oklahoma.
"This defendant knew what he was doing was wrong," said Nash.
But defense attorney Tim Moore had a different interpretation of Routh's state of mind. He told the jury that Routh had a history of mental illness, including having been hospitalized for threatening to kill himself, and that doctors had previously diagnosed him with psychosis.
Kyle and Littlefield were out with Routh that day not, as Moore put it, "as buddies," but because they were trying to help a troubled veteran: "[Routh] had had issues and Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield were kind enough to try and help them. While they were attempting to help them he took their lives."
Moore continued, telling the jury that when "[Routh] took their lives he was in a grip of a psychosis. A psychosis so severe that he did not know what he was doing was wrong...he thought in his mind that it was either him or them. That he had to take their lives because in his psychosis he was thinking they were going to take his."
