Erath County District Court Judge Jason Cashon sentenced Eddie Ray Routh to life in prison without the possibility of parole then turned the floor over to the families of the two men the defendant had just been found guilty of murdering.
Relatives of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle did not speak. But the brother and father of victim Chad Littlefield wanted their say. Each stood to somberly and sternly address Routh.
“You took the lives of two heroes — men who tried to be a friend to you,” said Jerry Richardson, Littlefield's brother. “You became an American disgrace.”
Routh, an ex-Marine and Iraq war veteran, shot the men several times while at a gun range on Feb. 2, 2013. Kyle, a former Navy SEAL and the deadliest sniper in American military history, often took fellow veterans to the shooting range as a form of therapy. Littlefield, 35, did not serve in the military, but often volunteered his time to help veterans, his family said.
During the two-week trial, the defense team tried to convince the jury that mental illness and post-traumatic stress syndrome triggered Routh to turn on Kyle and Littlefield.
But the jury took a little more than two hours Tuesday evening to reject the insanity defense and find Routh guilty of capital murder.
From the defense table, Routh looked to his right at Richardson standing at the front of the public seating area.
“Your claims of PTSD have been an insult to every veteran who served with honor — disgracing a proud military with your cowardness,” Richardson said. “You wanted to be a Marine, a real man. But you destroyed the opportunity by committing a senseless act. You have put yourself in a world you will never escape.”
During closing arguments, defense attorneys admitted that there’s no doubt that their client did the crime, but asked the jury to focus on evidence that Routh, now 27, was having a psychotic episode when he pulled the trigger.
“He didn’t kill those men because of who he wanted to be, he killed them because he had a delusion,” defense attorney J. Warren St. John said. “He believed in his mind that they were going to kill him. Eddie didn’t know these men.”
(culled: yahoo news)So sad...May the soul of the departed rest in peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment