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[Music] on june 6 1996 in a suburb of dallas texas there was a crime of unprecedented
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horror an intruder entered this home and attacked two young children along with their mother
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police hoped that science would lead them to the assailant [Music] [Music] [Music]
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darren and darley routier were a young couple in their mid-twenties with three children
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six-year-old devin five-year-old damon and eight-month-old drake darren routier was a successful
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entrepreneur darley stayed at home to care for the children this was a young couple who had
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made good darren owned his own business in 1995 he had made close to 300 thousand dollars
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in his business he repaired mainframe computers had some extensive contracts with government agencies
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on the night of the attack darren routier was asleep upstairs with eight-month-old drake
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downstairs in the family room the two older boys fell asleep watching television
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their mother dolly was asleep on the sofa around 2 30 in the morning an intruder
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stabbed the children then woke darling who felt a knife at her throat after a brief struggle the
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intruder fled and darley called police when paramedics arrived six-year-old devon was dead
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[Music] five-year-old damon was barely alive but he died on route to the hospital
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darlie was taken into surgery to repair her neck wound which missed her carotid artery by only two centimeters she also
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suffered a stab wound to her arm paramedics noticed that darley's panties were missing when i asked her if she
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thought she'd been raped her answer to me was well when i woke up i felt some
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pressure down there that was her answer but a rape test was negative darley described the assailant as a
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white male about six feet tall wearing a black shirt jeans and a baseball cap a screen in the routier's garage had
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been cut darley said the intruder dropped the murder weapon onto the floor as he fled
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in the alley two houses away police discovered a bloody sock the motive did not appear to be robbery
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between the kitchen and the room where the murders occurred there was 13 rings and a gold lady's watch laying out there
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so that indicated to us if it was in fact a burglary or a robbery that had gone bad
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there was nothing there was valuables out there to be taken and nothing was disturbed
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now we don't know why now we know that this is a sick individual that took absolutely nothing from our house but
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took the most of two most important things that were important to us away from us
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the most prominent evidence of the crime scene was blood forensic scientists hoped the blood
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spatter pattern would tell them more about these horrific murders when police examined the murder scene it
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appeared the assailant entered the routier home through a screened window in the garage
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darley rootier said she was asleep when the intruder murdered her two boys darlee woke when she felt a knife to her
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throat there was a struggle and the assailant fled through the garage darley said he dropped the murder weapon
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onto the floor on his way out darren root tier said he was asleep upstairs with eight-month-old drake and
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woke when he heard glass breaking [Music] when he walked into the family room where the detectives were waiting for
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him the first thing out of his mouth was not how is damon how is darley it is have
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you seen darley isn't she beautiful and doesn't she have gorgeous breasts darren
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said you know i can see why somebody came in good looking good looking blonde you know 38 double
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d's frost that was a little strange too considering he had just lost both of his
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sons and i don't believe at that time he knew for for a fact if darley was going
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to live or not in the kitchen police noticed a set of white-handled knives one space was empty it appeared
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the murder weapon a 10-inch white-handled knife came from the routier's own kitchen
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the blood drops on the floor were photographed and collected for dna testing the size and shape of the blood
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droplets would be analyzed to see if they were consistent with darley's version of events darley's night shirt
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was another important piece of blood evidence forensic scientists hoped that it too
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would provide information about the murders dna testing of the bloody sock found in
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the alley revealed the blood was that of the two boys devin and damon however police bloodhounds were not able
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to track the intruder's scent beyond the location of the sock why would an intruder leave a murder
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weapon behind in a house and yet take a sock down the alley why would an intruder leave this sock in
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open view for the police to find instead of disposing it in a garbage can or down
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a storm sewer drain police found some other inconsistencies darley said she chased the intruder
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through the kitchen and he knocked a wine glass on the floor but pieces of glass were on top of the
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blood drops on the floor and there were no cuts on darli's feet underneath the overturned vacuum cleaner
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was more blood spatter and a wheel impression in the blood it appeared that darley ran through the
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kitchen before the glass broke and the vacuum cleaner overturned on the handle of the vacuum cleaner was
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a blood stain dna test revealed it was darleys the blood dripped onto the handle at an 80
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degree angle as if darley were leaning over the vacuum cleaner the pattern was not consistent with darli's running past
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the vacuum as she told police either darlie routier was mistaken about what happened in the kitchen or she knew
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more about the murders than she was telling police blood spatter expert tom bevel was asked
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to analyze the blood drops found in the routier home as co-author of a well-known textbook on
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blood pattern analysis it was bevel's job to interpret the story told by the
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blood trail bevel noticed the blood drops on the kitchen floor were circular in shape
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meaning they were deposited by someone standing still or walking very slowly darley said she was stabbed on the sofa
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and while bleeding ran through the kitchen after her assailant but running would have produced blood
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drops more elliptical in shape usually with a tail indicating the path and direction of the person running
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darley also told police that the intruder dropped the knife under the kitchen floor
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but tom bevel could find no evidence of that numerous people to include myself examined that floor to try and find
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evidence of a knife drop either even pointed straight down or falling on its handle or falling on its
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side or whatever and we were unable to to find anything that would be consistent with that if it had as much
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blood on it as it was found which it would have to then it should have produced an outline of a knife or
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evidence of the knife dropping onto the floor and we simply didn't find that
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barry dickey is a forensic audio expert assigned to analyze dolly's telephone
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call to police [Music] in order to conduct his analysis dickey isolated darley's voice by eliminating
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all of the background noises [Music] [Applause] in my opinion darley had moved from at
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least three different rooms in the house these rooms were moved in a very rapid fashion
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and she did not stay in any one of the ambiences very long but if darley walked briskly in between
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rooms this contradicted her story to police when police interviewed darley after the
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murder she was holding a wet towel to her neck wound police wondered if the towel had been
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used to clean up blood before they arrived to find out investigators used luminol a
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chemical that glows when sprayed on an area where blood has been removed once we darken the kitchen down and
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applied the luminol we were able to see footprints there in front of the sink which kind of made the hair on the back
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of our neck stand up the footprints in front of the kitchen sink were darlies on the cabinet beneath the sink
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there was visible blood and luminol revealed that more had been cleaned up before police arrived the
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blood evidence in front of the sink indicated to us that someone had bled had stand there in front of the sink for
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a significant amount of time bleeding and not moving around there was blood drops on top of blood drops
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in the floor in front of the sink dna testing revealed the blood belonged to darley
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prosecutors suspected that it was here where darley cut her neck and arm if there was an intruder and he came in
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he came in without leaving any evidence of walking through there also on the carpet was an unusual blood
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impression the distinct outline of the murder weapon the heavy line of blood near the tip of the blade told forensic
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experts something important about the killer the only way that i am aware that you could get
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something coming off of the knife in in that manner as we found it would be to have the knife in the hand
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of a person that is bleeding in other words they are contributing blood continuously
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so if you had a wound on this arm with the knife in this hand with the blood flowing down the arm ultimately across
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the hand and then down the blade of the knife that will produce that very heavy bleeding that we've got in the front of
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the knife in the impression coincidentally darley had a knife wound on her right arm
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dna test revealed that the blood was that of both damon and darley and not that of an unknown assailant
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darley said she picked up the knife from the kitchen floor and put it on the counter
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she said nothing about taking it into the family room no bloody trail no fingerprints no uh
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trace of the suspect i mean peter pan came down the chimney maybe and committed the murder but or you know
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tinker bell or somebody but we have no evidence of anyone coming through the window committing the murders
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police were now convinced that there was no intruder in the routier home on the night of the murders
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[Music] just eight days after the murders the routiers celebrated what would have been
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devin's seventh birthday at the cemetery family members invited a local television news crew to attend
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[Music] if you knew devon and damon you would know that they're up in heaven
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and they're up there having the biggest birthday party that we could ever imagine
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and they wouldn't want us to be down here being sad even though our hearts are breaking
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i know that devin and damon would want us to be happy district attorney greg davis watched the
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celebration on television i was just sickened by what i saw because it had only been a week since
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these boys deaths and yet we've got a full-blown birthday party out there at
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the graveside and it really struck me as more than curious at the dallas county institute of
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forensic sciences charles lynch discovered the most damaging piece of evidence contradicting darley's intruder
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story on one of the bread knives from the rootier's kitchen lynch found a single fiberglass rod and
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some rubber dust the cut window screen in the routier garage was made of polyvinyl chloride
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bundles the interior core of that bundle was composed of fiberglass rods the fiberglass rod found on the kitchen
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knife was identical to the fiberglass rods from the rooters screen lynch could not find any other source of
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fiberglass inside the routier home that was similar so i was able to eliminate all of the
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sources of fiberglass that i could find as being a source so the conclusion is that a fiberglass rod
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found on the bread knife may have come from the window screen but not to the exclusion of all other sources
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fbi profiler alan brantley was convinced there was no intruder we have never seen a case where an
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offender comes from outside the residence breaks into the home takes a knife and then goes back outside
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the home and cuts the screen to come back in those steps that kind of behavior is just
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unnecessary to the commission of any kind of an offense unless you're attempting to make the scene
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look like something you think it should look like or that you want other people to believe
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occur and again that's an element of stage and on darley's night shirt scientists found
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cast off blood spatter on the back right shoulder area dna testing revealed that the blood
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belonged to the two boys some of those blood stains are coming in a direction consistent with
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the movement of the item that was bloodstained in my opinion in this case the the knife
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as you're drawing the knife backward the blood is coming off of the end of the knife as it's being drawn backward
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and of course if it's close enough and it's still in an upward flight it will
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point in an upward direction with the blood stains the blood spatter was pointed upwards
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consistent with the movement of a bloody knife in darley's right hand the forensic evidence all told a story
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a story quite different from the one darley told police [Music] prosecutors believe that the murders
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were premeditated and the darley encouraged the boys to sleep with her that night in the family room
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sometime after 2 a.m darlie took a bread knife from the kitchen and cut the screen in the garage
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she returned the knife to the holder without rinsing the fiberglass residue found later by forensic scientists
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darlie used the largest knife she had to murder her two children blood spatter on the back right shoulder
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of her night shirt placed the murder weapon in darley's hand [Music] speculation is the darley may have
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removed her panties to suggest the possibility of a sexual assault standing at the kitchen sink
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darlie turned the knife on herself slicing both her neck and right arm then something unexpected happened
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five-year-old damon was still alive crawling through the family room he was stabbed two more times
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the knife impression on the carpet was caused by blood from her arm wound as it dripped over the tip of the knife
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[Music] the audio analysis of the moving in 911 rooms quickly as she staged the crime scene and removed some
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of the blood evidence [Music] but darley's attempt to mislead investigators failed
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it's hard to explain it but these kids were in her way they were in the way of her lifestyle
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and her ambitions and what she wanted to do and she simply made a decision that those
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children would no longer be in her way darli routier was arrested and charged with the murder of her two sons
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darren routier denied he was involved and no charges were filed against him patricia springer described the possible
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motive in her book flesh and blood there is no one reason why darlee routier did this it is a combination of
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things it had nothing to do with money it had to do with the multiple births with the total responsibility we've
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learned since then that darren really didn't help a lot with the children they painted this picture of the perfect
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family and how great they were and everything they did was as a family but the family knife was an illusion
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that they um perpetrated on anyone that would listen to it darley routier was found guilty of first degree murder and
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was sentenced to death she currently sits on death row awaiting execution texas is a pretty conservative state and
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i want everybody to know that you can't go out and kill our children and expect to live
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i think that darley got exactly what she deserved in this case we probably gave her
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more justice than she deserved in this case if you look at the barbaric acts that brought her to that courtroom
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we did all the that the system allowed us to do to her but she richly deserves to be on death row and she richly
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deserves to be executed one day [Music] [Applause] so [Music] you