Dateline Purgatory: Examining the Case that Sentenced Darlie Routier to Death

by Kathy Cruz

Overview

The brutal murders of young Devon and Damon Routier in the early morning hours of June 6, 1996, put their mother—Darlie Routier—at the heart of one of the most notorious murder cases in modern Texas history—despite her own throat having been slashed to within two millimeters of her carotid artery.

The actions of a small-town police department and those within Dallas County's ruthless justice system created a perfect storm that swept up the young mother and landed her on death row. There she has remained, in a nine-feet-by-six-feet cell, despite claims of her innocence by those who know her, findings about the alarming fallibility of bloodstain analysis, and her husband's admission that at the time of the murders he was soliciting help to stage a home burglary to commit insurance fraud.

In Dateline Purgatory, award-winning journalist Kathy Cruz enlists current-day legal experts to weigh in on the shocking transgressions that resulted in one of the country's most controversial death penalty convictions.
With the help of the infamous death row inmate and a former FBI Special Agent known as “Crimefighter,” Cruz would find that her journey through Purgatory was as much about herself as it was about the woman dubbed “Dallas’s Susan Smith.”

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780875656106
Publisher:	TCU Press
Publication date:	04/13/2015
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

KATHY CRUZ has received numerous Journalist of the Year honors from Texas press associations, as well as four Stephen Philbin awards for excellence in legal reporting from the Dallas Bar Association—two of which were grand prizes. She is a recipient of a 2011 Texas Gavel Award. Cruz currently resides in Granbury, Texas.

Table of Contents

Foreword Joyce Ann Brown ix

Preface: Perdition xi

Acknowledgments xv

Part I Silver Bullet 1

Chapter 1 6-6-6 2

Chapter 2 Lone Ranger 5

Chapter 3 Young Love in Purgatory, Colorado 12

Chapter 4 Innocence Lost 17

Chapter 5 Aunt Sandy's Notebooks 23

Chapter 6 Crimefighter 29

Chapter 7 Mayday 40

Chapter 8 Rainy Day Woman 44

Chapter 9 Urgent and Confidential for Room 209 55

Chapter 10 Friends of Distinction 59

Chapter 11 A Poisoned Pen 66

Chapter 12 Family Secrets 76

Chapter 13 Burgers and Fries and Cherry Pies 84

Chapter 14 'Tll Death Do Us Part 88

Chapter 15 Darkness Falls in Arkansas 94

Part II The Thin Blonde Line 103

Chapter 16 A Fatal Collision 104

Chapter 17 Code Red 110

Chapter 18 Psycho 116

Chapter 19 Jezebel 131

Chapter 20 Thunder Rolls 143

Chapter 21 A Matter of Integrity 156

Chapter 22 The Hanging Capital 167

Chapter 23 A Hand to Hold 173

Chapter 24 Hindsight 178

Chapter 25 Aunt Sandy's Letters 188

Chapter 26 Bent 196

Epilogue 216