Precious Angels: Mom Tried For Murder

(CBS)  Crime scene investigator Jim Cron was convinced the crime scene evidence had spoken clearly. "There' not one thing at this crime scene that said Darlie Routier did it. It's the totality of everything, all the evidence, says she did it," he says.

Investigators were also puzzled by the Routier's behavior. Eight days after the crime, a local news crew videotaped Darlie and her family at the boys'grave, celebrating what would have been Devon' seventh birthday. They sang happy birthday and sprayed silly string. Why? "Because Devon and Damon played with silly string all the time," Darlie says.

The video was later shown on local newscasts. Dallas County assistant district attorney Greg Davis was among those who saw it. "Here' a mother who' supposedly been the victim of a violent crime. She' just lost two children. And yet, she' out literally dancing on their graves," he says.

Eleven days after the murders, Darlie was charged with murder. She proclaimed her innocence.

The state decided to try Darlie for the murder of 5-year-old Damon. Because of his age, that killing was a capital offense in Texas. Darlie's family pooled their resources and hired two high-powered defense attorneys, Doug Mulder and Richard Mosty.

On January 6, 1997, the trial opened. The state began building its case by recounting its long list of circumstantial evidence, including testimony from a forensics expert who told the jury that fragments from that garage window screen which had been cut, were found on a second knife in the Routier kitchen.

Prosecutors believe that, at some point, Darlie cut the garage window screen with that second knife. Then, they say, after stabbing her sons with the other knife, she ran down the alley to plant the bloody sock, raced back home, slit her own throat, finished staging the crime scene, and called 911.

To bolster its circumstantial case and provide a motive for the killings, the prosecution, led by Greg Davis and Toby Shook, focused on Darlie's character. The DAs depicted her as a pampered, materialistic wife, distraught because her husband's computer business wasn't making enough money to pay the bills.

The prosecution seized upon a journal entry Darlie had made while suffering from post-partum depression after the birth of her third son, Drake. In it, she seemed suicidal. It was written a month before the killing and addressed to her three boys.

To the prosecution, the motive was clear: A depressed, self-involved Darlie had killed her boys in an attempt to maintain an extravagant lifestyle.

But even with all of that, perhaps the most devastating evidence against Darlie was the silly string video. The defense countered by attempting to discredit the DA's circumstantial case. The defense also argued that Darlie could not have had the presence of mind to stage the crime scene. Darlie's attorneys claimed there were no witnesses, no confession, and no motive.

Then, against the advice of her lawyers, Darlie took the stand. She withered under cross-examination by prosecutor Toby Shook. "She claims to have amnesia, yet the amnesia was very convenient. If she needed to explain a piece of damning circumstantial evidence, she'd come up with a new story. She'd have a memory of it," he recalls.

The case went to the jury on January 31, 1997. The following day, the jury reached a verdict: Guilty. Darlie was sentenced to death.

In her account of the crime and trial, "Precious Angels" author Barbara Davis left no doubt that she also believed Darlie Routier was guilty.

But then, weeks after the book was published, she met with a source who showed her photos that she alleges were not presented to the jury. Davis says the photos showed bruises that Darlie couldn't have put on herself.

Prosecutors and even Darlie's defense attorneys disagree with Davis, saying that every picture of Darlie's wounds was admitted into evidence.

A police surveillance tape secretly recorded views of the boy's gravesite. The tape showed that, on the day of the infamous silly string celebration, the Routiers' first held a solemn memorial service for their boys. Because of legal concerns about the hidden camera, the tape was never shown to jurors.

Convinced Darlie was wrongly convicted, her family enlisted the help of millionaire Brian Pardo; Pardo in turn hired Texas attorney Stephen Losch, who developed two theories. The first centered on a convicted felon with a history of rape and assault in the Dallas area. "His crimes were shockingly similar," he says. "There are three cases where he broke into a woman's house and attacked her with a kitchen knife or some other sharp instrument from the house and in several of those cases he used a sock either putting it over his hand or putting it in the woman's mouth." Losch also says that Darin Routier could not be eliminated as a suspect. The alleged motive: a $300,000 insurance policy on Darlie.

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Dallas attorney Stephen Cooper represented Darlie and filed an appeal raising Darin's possible role in the murders. Cooper says Darlie deserves a new trial because her original trial attorney had previously represented Darin in court and that constitutes a conflict of interest.

If the appeal wins Darlie a new trial, her attorney hopes that some recent developments in her case might win her an acquittal, including a bloody fingerprint found at the crime scene that is, as yet, unidentified. ­­­­­­­­­­­­Cooper says he also has a witness who claims that on the night of the murders she saw two men walking by the side of the road around the time the boys were killed.

Darlie insists that she is not a killer. In the spring of 2001, a Texas court effectively rejected Darlie's request for a new trial. The case now moves into the appeals court, where no new evidence can be introduced, and where verdicts are generally overturned only on the basis of trial error.

Darlie and Darin's third child, Drake, is being raised in the custody of Darin's parents. Drake is now nearly seven years old. He visits his mother frequently in prison. But because she is on death row, they remain separated by bulletproof glass, and the boy has not touched his mother in more than four years.

July 2002 Update:

Darlie's new attorney, Stephen Cooper, filed an appeal with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and filed a second appeal - writ of habeas corpus on July 13th. Both are still pending.

The Routiers had Devon and Damon's bodies exhumed in May, 2000 to take their fingerprints. Since 48 Hours' last aired this story in February, Darlie's attorney claims that forensic testing indicates the partial fingerprint is an adult's and not one of Darlie's children.

But perhaps a signed document is the most surprising turn in the case – it's an affidavit signed just this summer by Darin Routier admitting that three months before the murders, he was looking to hire someone to burglarize his home for an insurance scam.

In the same affidavit, Darin also says that the night of the murders, Darlie asked for a separation. Darin Routier declined 48 Hours' multiple requests for an interview on this matter.

"Precious Angels" author Barbara Davis was sentenced to two years probation on drug related charges. A federal lawsuit is pending against North Richland Hill and the police for the death of her son, Troy Davis.

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