Damon and Devon Routier

Case background and investigation

Devon Routier, 6, and his brother Damon, 5, were fatally stabbed in the early hours of June 6, 1996, in the downstairs living room of their family's home on Eagle Drive in Rowlett, Texas, a suburb east of Dallas. According to Wikipedia's account, a 911 call from the house was received at 2:31 a.m. Their mother, Darlie Routier, then 26, had wounds to her neck and upper body and was treated at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, the Dallas Morning News reported. Her husband, Darin, and the couple's infant son, Drake, were upstairs and were not hurt.

Darlie Routier told police that she had been asleep on a couch near the boys and woke to find a man in dark clothing, who fled toward the garage. In the 911 call she said someone had broken in and stabbed her and her children, according to the Associated Press.

Rowlett police arrested her on June 18, 1996, twelve days after the killings, saying her account did not match the evidence at the scene. A Dallas County grand jury indicted her on two counts of capital murder on June 28. A detective testified at a pretrial hearing that blood was found near the kitchen sink but none near the garage window or outside the house, the Dallas Morning News reported. Because of pretrial publicity, the trial was moved to Kerrville.

The trial began in January 1997. Prosecutors chose to try her only for Damon's death, a capital charge based on the killing of a child under six, which prosecutor Greg Davis described as the simpler case to prove. They argued she was angry about family money problems and had cut herself to mislead police. Jurors were also shown video of a graveside gathering for Devon's birthday, held eight days after the killings. On February 1, 1997, the jury convicted her of capital murder, and on February 4 she was sentenced to death. She has not been tried for Devon's death.

Routier has always maintained that she is innocent, and her former husband has publicly supported her. According to Wikipedia, her direct appeal and a habeas corpus petition were rejected, and courts allowed further DNA testing in 2008 and again in later years. In November 2018, NBC 5 reported that a third round of testing was under way by agreement of both sides. Her attorney said then that the results so far had not established the presence of an intruder, and that a bloody fingerprint had yielded no DNA because of degradation. The Dallas County District Attorney's office said it remained confident in the conviction.

As of 2026, Wikipedia reports that the test results are still pending. Routier remains on death row in Texas and no execution date has been reported.