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Welcome to True Crime Garage, wherever you are and whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick
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bottle caps out of five. And let's give some praise to our friends right here. First up, a big cheers to April from
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Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. If you need more True Crime Garage for
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your ear balls, check out our bonus show called Off the Record. That's on Stitcher Premium. To find it, just go to
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truecrimegarage.com and click on the link. And that is enough of the business. All right, everybody, gather around,
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grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. Special In September of 2014,
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USA Today ran an article about parents who killed their children, or filicide. The article cites three decades of FBI
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homicide data that shows on average 450 children are killed every year by their parents.
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Northeastern University criminologists applied statistical models to the records. USA Today analyzed the database
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for a detailed look at who kills, who is killed, and how. Several patterns are apparent.
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The vast majority of child victims, three out of four, are under 5 years of age.
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Nearly half of all victims died from physical beatings or other injuries at the parents' hands.
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Fathers are more likely to kill. Quote, "Violence is a masculine pursuit." says Jack Levin, a
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Northeastern University criminologist. When mothers kill, they are far more likely to kill victims under the age of
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one than children of any other age. Psychiatrists and criminologists say parents who kill their children tend to
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fit one of five categories. A parent suffering a psychotic break. A parent who thinks he is killing out of
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altruism because he doesn't want a child to grow up without him. A parent acting out of
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revenge against a spouse or partner. A parent who kills an unwanted child. A parent who kills from neglect or
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recklessness. Quote, "They are all twisted perspectives of love, loyalty, and altruism." Levin says.
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There are mixed motives in many of these cases. When a parent is accused of killing a child, it dominates headlines
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and social media. "People are fascinated by this." says Sarah West, a forensic psychiatrist at
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University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland. It's an unfathomable concept.
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This week, we examine one of the most highly debated cases to come out of the great state of Texas.
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A case that had everyone asking, "Did the mommy do it?" Darlie Routier was a young wife and
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mother of three, but did she murder two of her sons? That will be for you to decide. This is
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True Crime Garage, and this is a case of Darlie Routier. One of my favorite true crime writers is
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the great, almost legendary status, Skip Hollandsworth, who writes for Texas Monthly magazine. And I'm using some
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paragraphs from a piece he did for Texas Monthly's special crime issue back in July of 2002.
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Here Skip briefly takes us through some events leading up to the attack as well as events after the murder of two small
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boys. The people in this true crime story are parents, Daren and Darlie Routier, and their three sons, Damon,
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Devon, and Drake. On June 5th, the boys played in the hot tub, and that evening Damon and Devon
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huddled under blankets in front of a television Daren had just installed in the living room. Darlie and Daren would
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later say that they stayed up talking past midnight. They kissed each other good night.
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Daren went upstairs to the master bedroom, where Drake, then just 7 months old, was asleep, while Darlie curled up
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on the couch downstairs next to the two older boys. She had been sleeping on the couch that
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week, she said, because she wanted to watch over Damon and Devon, who had been spending the night downstairs since
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school let out. And because she was a light sleeper and would sometimes be awakened by Drake
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turning over in his crib. A few hours later, a 911 dispatcher in Rowlett received a frantic call.
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"Someone came in here." Darlie screamed. "They just stabbed me and my children."
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In the early morning hours of June 6th, 1996, Devon Routier, who was 6, and Damon, 5,
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were murdered as they slept on the ground floor of the family's well-kept brick home in Rowlett, a suburb east of
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Dallas. Devon was stabbed twice in the chest with such force that the knife almost
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went all the way through his body. Damon was stabbed half a dozen or more times in the back.
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Darlie, who was also sleeping downstairs, had two slice wounds to her right forearm and one in her left
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shoulder, and her throat had been cut. Doctors said she survived only because the knife stopped 2 mm short of her
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carotid artery. In a written statement given to the police a few days later, Darlie, then
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26, told the following story. She was awakened by Damon's cries of "Mommy, Mommy."
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In the dark, she didn't even notice she was hurt. She saw a man moving through the kitchen
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and followed him as he went toward the garage. When she got to the utility room, she
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saw a knife and picked it up. Only then, she said, did she return to find Devon and Damon
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and realize that she had been stabbed, too. Darlie's husband, Darren, who was sleeping upstairs with their infant son,
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Drake, came downstairs after hearing his wife's screams and began administering CPR to Devon.
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By then, the assailant had disappeared. 12 days after Damon's and Devon's deaths, the police arrested Darlie for
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their murders. They had no eyewitnesses, no confession, and no motive. What they did have was an intriguing
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trail of circumstantial evidence that suggested there was no intruder that night.
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Physical evidence suggested that Darlie had staged the crime. Doctor's statements suggested her wounds
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were self-inflicted. And there was a peculiar scene caught on videotape a few days after the murders.
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On what would have been Devon's 7th birthday, Darlie drove to the cemetery with friends and family,
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wished her son a happy birthday, and then sprayed silly string all over his grave.
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Quote, "Here's a mother who has supposedly been the victim of a violent crime." said Dallas County Assistant
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District Attorney Greg Davis, the lead prosecutor in the case. "She has just lost two children, and yet
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she's out there literally dancing on their graves." After the murders, Darlie gave conflicting accounts of what
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exactly the intruder had done to her. One officer said she told him that she had struggled with her assailant on the
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couch. Another officer said she told him the struggle was at the kitchen counter.
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A friend who talked to Darlie while she was in the hospital said Darlie told her
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that she remembered lying on the couch as the man was running the knife over her face. But in her formal written
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statement to police, Darlie said her only view of the man came as he was walking away from the
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couch. She said she just couldn't remember any distinct details about the attack or the
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killer except that he was wearing dark clothes and a baseball cap. Was it really
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possible that Darlie, who could be awakened by her baby moving in his crib, had slept through the stabbings of her
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sons a few feet away? Now, Captain Rowlett PD were suspicious regarding Darlie early in their investigation,
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saying that they were tipped off by a few different things. One being the 911 call,
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Darli's behavior, and the crime scene evidence versus Darli's account of the events of that night. We're going to
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play a little clip of her 911 call. It's really hard to make out what's happening, but just so you can hear her
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energy on the call, and then how intense the call is. And that was just the brief start of a
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call that came in to the Rowlett Police Department June 6th, 1996 at 2:31 a.m. And because the police are saying that
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this is one of the things that pointed them toward Darlie as being their prime suspect in the murder of her two sons,
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I think that we should go through the transcript of that call to see if we agree with their assessment. And reading
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for the responders will have the captain and reading for Darlie Routier, you have
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yours truly. Rowlett 911, what is your emergency? Somebody came here, they broke in. Ma'am. They just stabbed me
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and my children. What? They stabbed me and my kids, my little boys. Who Who did? My little boy is dying. Hang on.
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Hang on. Hang on. Hurry. Stand by for medical emergency. Ma'am? Hang on, ma'am. Ma'am? Unknown
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medical emergency, 5801 Eagle Drive. Ma'am? Ma'am, I'm trying to get an ambulance to you. Hang on a minute. Oh
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my god, my babies are dying. What's going on, ma'am? Oh my god. Thought he was dead. Oh my
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god. I don't even know. Attention 901, unknown medical emergency 5801. I don't even know. Eagle Drive box 238,
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cross street Linda Vista and Willow Brook. Attention 901 medical emergency. Who was breathing? Are they
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still lying there? May be possibly stabbing. 5801 Eagle Drive box 238, cross street Linda Vista and Willow
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Brook. Oh my god, what do we do? Time out 2:32. Oh my god. Oh my god. Needs units going
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towards 5801 Eagle Drive, 5801 Eagle Drive. my baby's dead. Damon, hold on, honey. Hysterical female
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on the phone says her child has been stabbed. I saw them, Daron. Oh my god, came in here. Ma'am, I need you to calm
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down and talk to me. Okay. Didn't you get my address? 5801 Eagle. Yes, we need help. Daron, I don't
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know who it was. We got to find who it was. Ma'am. Ma'am, listen. Listen to me. Yes, yes.
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Oh my god. Oh my god. Ma'am. Yes. I need you to I need you to talk to me. What? What? What? My baby's are dead.
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Do you want honey, hold on. Ma'am, I can't understand you. Yes. You're going to have to slow down, calm down, and
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talk to me. I'm talking to my babies, they're dying. What is going on? Somebody came in while I was sleeping.
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Me and my little boys were sleeping downstairs. Some man came in, stabbed my baby, stabbed me. I woke up. I was
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fighting. He ran out through the garage, threw the knife down. My babies are dying, they're dead. Oh my god. Okay,
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stay on the phone with me. god. What happened? Hold on, honey. Hold on. Who was on? It was the white phone? Hold
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on. They're wondering when we need to dispatch, so I sent a double team. Oh my god. Oh my god.
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Okay, thanks. Oh my god. Oh my god. Ma'am. Who's there with you? Karen. Ma'am. What? Is there anyone in the house
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besides you and your children? No, my husband. He just ran downstairs. He's helping me, but they're dying. Oh my
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god, they're dead. Okay. Okay, how many little boys? Is it two boys? There's two
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of them. There's two. What's the cross street on the address on Eagle? Oh my god. Who would do this?
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Listen to me. Calm down. I feel really bad. I think I'm dying. When are they going to be here? 5801 Eagle Drive. 5801
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Eagle Drive. When are they going to be here? Going to be a stabbing. When are they
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going to be here? Ma'am, they're on their way. I got to just sit here forever. Oh my god.
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Who would do this? Who would do this? Ma'am, how old are your boys? What? How old are your boys?
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Seven and five. Okay. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh, he's dead. Calm down. Can you Oh god, Devin, no. Oh my god. Is your
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name Darli? Yes. This is her. Is your husband's name Darren? Yes, please hurry. God, they're taking forever.
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There's nobody in your house. There was was You don't know who did this? Then a police officer is on the scene and you
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can hear him say, "Look for a rag." Darli replies, "They killed our babies." The police officer says, "Lie down.
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Okay, just sit down." Darli Routier says, "No, he ran out uh They ran out in the garage. I was sleeping. My baby's
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over here already cut. Can't I phone is right here. You all look out in the garage. Look out in the garage. They
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left a knife lying on There's a knife. Don't touch anything. I already touched it and picked it up. Who's out there? Is
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anybody out there? I don't know. I was sleeping. Okay, ma'am, listen. There's a police officer at your front door. Is
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your front door unlocked? Yes, ma'am, but where's the ambulance? Okay. They're barely breathing.
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If they don't get it here, they're going to be dead. My god. They're Hurry. Please hurry. Okay, they're there.
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Police officer says, "What about you?" Is 82 out on Eagle? Huh? They took They ran.
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We're at Eagle, 5801 Eagle. My god, hurry. 82, are you out? Police officer, nothing's gone, Mrs. Roitier.
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Oh my god. Oh my god. Why would they do this? Police officer, the problem, Mrs. Roitier. What he say?
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Why would they do this? I'm Okay, listen, ma'am. Need to Need to let the officers in the
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front door, okay? What? Ma'am. What? What? Need to let the police officers in the
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front door. His knife was lying over there. I already picked it up. Okay, it's all right. It's okay. God, I bet if
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we could have gotten the prints, maybe maybe. Ma'am, hang on. Hang on a second. Somebody who did it intentionally walked
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in here and did it, Daron. There's nothing touched. Okay, ma'am. There's nothing touched. Oh
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my god. Ma'am, is the police officer there? Yes. Okay, go talk to him, okay? The
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total length of the call is 5 minutes and 44 seconds long. All right, we're back
00:20:38
with our great acting skills. Cheers, mates. Cheers, Captain. Speaking of acting skills, ours are not
00:20:46
good enough to win a daytime Emmy, obviously, but what's your thoughts, Captain, on Darlie Routier? You have had
00:20:53
a chance to actually listen to the 911 call. She's hysterical through most of it.
00:20:59
It's very chaotic, but it's 5 minutes long, so it's long enough to really get a feel for what's going on and probably
00:21:08
have an opinion on what it is you're hearing and deduce maybe some of the emotions, the thoughts, or even
00:21:16
suspicions going on with her on the call. Yeah, it's hard to tell if she's acting or reacting because Mhm. it is a
00:21:24
mom supposedly coming out of her sleep and seeing her kids dying in front of her
00:21:31
and the amount of blood that's probably at the scene. But it seems like there's no coherent
00:21:38
thought that she's giving to the dispatcher except for a couple lines. And those seem to be the lines that are
00:21:48
suspicious. Where she's, you know, "His knife was laying there and I already picked it
00:21:55
up." "I bet if we could have gotten the fingerprints, maybe" that line almost seems to to me that
00:22:03
she's about to say, "Well, I bet if" "if I hadn't touched the knife, we could have got fingerprints." Mhm.
00:22:11
But also she is basically establishing a reason why she touched the knife and why her fingerprints would be on the
00:22:20
murder weapon. And that's what law enforcement will point out as well as the prosecutors later that this is the
00:22:26
problem with her 911 call. That she's referencing the knife, does not need to mention the knife, does not need to
00:22:32
mention that she picked it up. It's almost like she's planting that information for everybody to be aware
00:22:39
of. Hey, "You'll probably find my fingerprints on this knife because I'm telling you now I
00:22:44
picked it up." Mhm. And you might not find an intruder's fingerprints on the knife because I picked it up after
00:22:51
he threw it down. The thing is though, it's a little difficult when you review the transcript
00:22:58
of the 911 call and after you've heard the actual audio for the call itself because the first time that she mentions
00:23:07
really finding the knife or that somebody threw down a knife, she's responding to she's answering the
00:23:15
operator's question. The operator's question was, "What is going on?" To which she says, "Someone came in
00:23:21
while I was sleeping. Me and my little boys were sleeping downstairs." The other issue with the transcript, too, is
00:23:26
you have multiple dispatchers or operators communicating there at times in the 911 call
00:23:33
communicating with each other and not Darlie. You know, they're responding to, "Oh, we
00:23:38
need emergency services to this address." And then you have the other dispatcher or operator saying
00:23:45
something to the effect of, "Emergency services have been dispatched." Or have been dispatched at this time.
00:23:50
And one of the things we weren't able to do because it was just us two reading the transcript, and I don't think the
00:23:57
transcript is that clear, but if you listen to the 911 tape at some point when her husband comes
00:24:05
downstairs and she's going, "Oh my god. Oh my god." He starts going, "Oh my god.
00:24:13
Oh my god." reacting the same level of intensity she is. So for somebody to say that she's
00:24:22
acting, I would say, "Well, then I guess the husband's acting as well." Which is
00:24:27
difficult again because as you know, you hear him come into the scene the way that he's behaving
00:24:36
suggests to me that he might be seeing this all for the very first time. Right. He's walking into some [ __ ] and he's
00:24:43
like, "Oh my god. What what the hell is going on?" Yeah. I have no clue and I've just walked into
00:24:49
pure chaos. Blood all over my family. Yeah. So, the first time she mentions that knife,
00:24:57
it's her reacting to the operator's question of what is going on. And at that point, when she says
00:25:06
that the man, he ran out through the garage, threw the knife down, my babies are dying, they're dead, oh my god. Mhm.
00:25:15
She makes no mention of her picking up the knife on that first go-round of that question.
00:25:22
Which is interesting to me because if it was information that she really thought
00:25:25
that she plant and get out there and provide to everyone in the heat of the moment, well, she certainly passed on it
00:25:32
on the first opportunity. Well, and then the other one, she says, "You all look out in the garage, look
00:25:38
out in the garage. They left a knife laying on. There's a knife. Don't touch it." And
00:25:45
that's when she says, "Well, I already touched it. I picked it up." But But I think it's weird, though, and
00:25:51
I don't know what she's actually intending to mean when she says, "Somebody who did it
00:25:57
intentionally walked in here and did it." That's odd, then intentionally. There's
00:26:04
nothing touched. And I don't know if she she meant that the intruder came in and didn't touch
00:26:11
anything. But that's a odd line to me. But again, she I mean, she's stabbed over four
00:26:18
times. How much of her body is in shock? How much is she in shock from seeing her, not just her kids dead, but they're
00:26:27
dying? They're dying in front of her. Yeah, if she's not guilty, she's 100% in shock,
00:26:34
regardless of injuries or or what have you. She would be absolutely in shock just at the sight of her children being
00:26:41
bloodied like that. And you can hear, let's pretend for a moment that she is in fact innocent.
00:26:47
You can hear that she is fully aware, the visuals that she is waking up to and seeing
00:26:53
that she is aware that they are dying. And that is that's the got to be the complete shock. But to address the first
00:27:01
thing that you had mentioned uh back to the knife, when it's brought up the second time,
00:27:07
as you pointed out, that the information is prompted by the operator. Don't touch
00:27:13
anything. Well, I already touched it. You know, she doesn't mention touching it until it's brought up by someone
00:27:19
else. And then as you pointed out, I think the difficult thing here is at some point there's a lot going on and and
00:27:28
very quickly in the call there's a lot going on because what you can hear what I hear anyway, and I'm sure everybody
00:27:34
will have a slightly different opinion on what they are hearing and what they believe after reviewing the transcript,
00:27:40
what I am hearing or believe that I am hearing is that Darley is trying to give the proper information to the operator.
00:27:50
But she's also kind of running and scrambling around the house. I mean, envision this. If if she is innocent,
00:27:56
she's waking up to the children dying and she's got injuries herself. Probably doesn't fully understand what
00:28:03
had happened. If she did in fact see or chase someone as they were leaving out of the home, there's probably a lot of
00:28:11
running around to make sure they're not coming back. But also she doesn't know what happened to her husband
00:28:17
or what happened to her her newborn. And she's also trying to tend to the children from time to time. I mean, you
00:28:24
can hear her kind of checking in on the children even though we will have officers and people first responders
00:28:31
later saying that she didn't seem to want to tend to the children, but they weren't there for the early parts of
00:28:36
this call. This is very similar of a 911 call to me as as the Michael Peterson where he's talking to the dispatcher and
00:28:47
then going back and checking on his wife and then going back and talking to the dispatcher.
00:28:53
It seems very similar. But it's it's tough because I think your gut tells you if if they're over
00:29:01
dramatic that they're putting on a show, but if they're under dramatic about it,
00:29:07
then they're cold-hearted. So it's it's almost like you can't win either way as far as what your gut reaction is
00:29:15
going to be to a 911 call like this. Still on some of the things that you had brought up here, Captain, the portion of
00:29:21
saying someone intentionally came in here, nothing was touched, nothing was touched. I don't know we can if we can
00:29:26
understand what she means by that, first of all. And second of all, I don't think we know who she's even
00:29:34
speaking to when she's saying those words. Right, cuz we also don't know if the police officer that's there, that's
00:29:42
where it's confusing, too, is the transcript states that the police officers are there way before the
00:29:47
dispatcher is able to get Darli to confirm that the police officers are there. So, did the police officers say
00:29:55
something? Did her husband say something to her to prompt that? Like maybe the police officer says to her, "Don't touch
00:30:02
anything." And she says, "Nothing's been touched." Like other than the knife, nothing's
00:30:08
been touched. I haven't touched anything. Right. And again, she we don't know who
00:30:12
she's speaking to because we have Daron that arrives downstairs at some point. She is interacting with him at portions
00:30:19
of the call. She's interacting with the operator. And then you can hear operator
00:30:23
and additional dispatchers on. So there's some confusion there as well. And again, I hear parts where she's
00:30:30
clearly at least looking over or tending to the children in some form or fashion.
00:30:36
So we don't know who those words were intended for. So it gets difficult to say that she's planting information for
00:30:44
people later to use that as part of their investigation. And then there's one part that became a
00:30:52
point of contention in this case and that was where she says some man came in, stabbed my baby,
00:30:58
stabbed me, I woke up, I was fighting. He ran out through the garage, threw the knife down, my babies are dying, they're
00:31:05
dead, oh my god. Okay, so the reason why this is a a point of contention is because
00:31:10
the law enforcement and the prosecution will point out that oh, you told the dispatcher you were
00:31:17
fighting with the intruder. So how do you not have a description of this guy? If you if you remember, if you were
00:31:26
actively fighting with him, you should have some kind of description to provide to us.
00:31:32
And we know that she had such a very vague description. She said later that would you agree that the quality of the
00:31:42
call the audio for the call is not the best? It's awful. It's it's it's not good. So if she says that she said I
00:31:50
woke up and I was frightened or it was frightening. I don't know exactly what she says. I've listened to it a bunch
00:31:58
and I could be swayed either way. I could be swayed either way. The audio quality is so poor.
00:32:05
I can't tell if she's saying it was frightening, I was frightened or I was fighting. Tell me if I'm wrong in this
00:32:11
statement, but investigating this, a couple things jump out as far as her story, whether
00:32:19
her story changed or not. We have police officers saying that she told them different stories, we have friends
00:32:24
saying that she twisted her stories here and there, like little tiny details altered.
00:32:31
Her husband is saying whatever statement that she gave to the police, the final statement, that's the statement she
00:32:38
stuck with all these years. And they even have you know, defense attorneys and and
00:32:45
lawyers saying, "Hey, whatever story she initially told, that's the story she stuck with. Mhm.
00:32:51
She never changed it. So, one, could she have just messed up uh some of the details because she was in
00:32:59
shock and because of all this stuff that was going on? We know that eyewitnesses can be wrong.
00:33:05
So, are these people just reporting the information wrong that she told them? Well, and we have to
00:33:12
keep in mind what's going on at the scene when she calls, when she first places the call. Again, the call is 5
00:33:19
minutes 44 seconds long. Before she hangs up the phone, before the end of the call, police are on the
00:33:26
scene. And she's unaware that they are there. The officer's probably calling into
00:33:32
dispatch saying, "Hey, I'm here, but the front door is locked." Yeah. They're saying, "Ma'am, are the
00:33:38
police there?" And she says, "Yes." And she says, "Well, is the front door unlocked?" And she says, "Yes." And she
00:33:43
Then the dispatcher comes back and says, "You're going to have to unlock the front door." So, one thing in I think in
00:33:49
her favor here for her to be innocent is the fact that the the call is this length of time
00:33:58
and she's on the phone with the dispatcher still when police arrive on the scene. So, we we have we we can't
00:34:04
see what she's doing, right? We don't know exactly what she's doing physically during the course of this call. However,
00:34:11
we do know that she is at least busy with the call itself for this amount of time. So, during this
00:34:17
time, it would be it makes it a little extra difficult for her to be further staging the scene while on the phone and
00:34:25
police are arriving before the end of the call. Plus, as you pointed out at some point, Darren comes downstairs
00:34:31
after he hears the commotion. She does not It doesn't sound like she woke him you know, intentionally
00:34:38
went upstairs and woke him that that he heard the commotion and came down on his
00:34:43
own to walk into this horrific scene. Well, I just want to let everybody know to understand
00:34:50
the way in which this intruder entered the house. They They cut a screen in a window
00:34:58
in the garage. Got through that window in that garage, got inside the garage, and then went
00:35:06
through the house that way. So, I think the fact that the police show up and the front door is locked
00:35:13
at least leads more towards her story making sense. And when they show up on scene
00:35:22
we have Devon who is already dead. We have Damon who is still alive when first responders get to the scene.
00:35:31
We have Darley who's bloody, she's running around, and we have Darren who is downstairs performing CPR on Damon,
00:35:38
and baby Drake is still upstairs at this point. Yeah, so hold on for 1 second cuz
00:35:46
Okay, postpartum depression what's the motive here? Can anybody give me a motive of why she'd want to do this?
00:35:57
You want to get rid of two of your kids, but not all of the kids. You You didn't try to kill your kids and
00:36:06
then blame it on your husband to get rid of him. You don't You didn't try to attack him.
00:36:12
Nobody else was attacked other than who was in that front room. And if if she's guilty
00:36:24
and she wanted to kill her kids why would she wake her husband up before the kids were dead?
00:36:36
Well, You see what I'm saying? Because But again, she doesn't actively It doesn't show any intention of her
00:36:43
purposely waking Darren. What I Where Where my questions go to is if she were to kill her sons
00:36:54
and staged the scene, Right. why would she call 911 when one of them is still alive? Right.
00:37:01
Because now you're running a huge risk of you know, these kids are old They're still little kids, but they're old
00:37:06
enough that they could tell Yeah, my mom stabbed me. Yeah, if they're still alive, they could
00:37:11
tell the first responders what what what actually went down. So, you can hear her on the phone. She is
00:37:17
aware that one of them is still alive. So, why would she call Why wouldn't she just wait a few more minutes? Right. And
00:37:26
then call and act all hysterical. And And I guarantee you she was being hysterical
00:37:33
way before the 911 call. And again, that points towards why would you want to wake
00:37:44
I mean, look. You don't know if they She's not a medical expert. So, if she Again, if the purpose is just to kill
00:37:54
these kids and to get rid of them, then her husband comes down, but at the time he comes down, aren't
00:38:02
both of the boys alive? So, that would give I two chances for the victims to say,
00:38:08
"Mom did this." That I don't know. I All I can say is that when Well, in fact, actually, we do have some
00:38:18
evidence toward that that thought there, Captain. And we will get into that. A quick little timeline here before we get
00:38:26
to what I believe are two very key parts of this whole story, which would be the statements of Darley and the
00:38:34
statements of Daron. Okay, that's going to add us a little more insight into what is actually going on. And you
00:38:41
already referenced some items at the crime scene itself, and we'll get into those as well, but real quick here,
00:38:46
Captain, on June 6th, 1996, that is when Devon and Damon, ages six and five, were
00:38:54
murdered. Again, Damon is still alive at the point when the first responders get to the scene.
00:39:01
Darley is taken immediately to the hospital because she has suffered some injuries during the course of this
00:39:08
attack. Then we have a situation where on June 8th, Darley gives a written statement to police. Okay, so this
00:39:17
statement that she provides to police, the information I have says that it took her approximately 30 minutes to write
00:39:25
this statement for the police, and this she gave to them, a written statement, once she was released from the hospital.
00:39:33
So, she's released from the hospital and she is immediately, directly taken to the police station at the police request
00:39:40
to provide this statement. And in her statement, she says, "Daron and Dana, her husband and my sister, came home
00:39:50
from working at the shop. The boys were playing with the neighborhood kids outside. I was
00:39:55
finishing up dinner. Damon came home and Devon called, and I told him to be home
00:40:00
soon because we were going to eat. Daron played with the baby, this is the infant, Drake,
00:40:07
with Dana, her sister, while I pulled everything together to eat. Devon came home and we all ate dinner together."
00:40:14
There's too many people with D names. "After we ate, we cleaned all the plates. I change I was changing Drake
00:40:21
while Darren put everything in some containers for leftovers. We all talked a little bit about how
00:40:27
happy we were that the shop had been so busy for the past 3 weeks as if we had hoped it would continue since work had
00:40:36
been slow for a couple of months. Devon and Damon asked if they could play with one of their friends a little longer, so
00:40:43
we said, "Okay." Darren, Dana, and I sat around and watched a little TV. Later, I'm not sure of exact time, I
00:40:53
asked Darren to drive Dana home because I wasn't feeling too well. While Darren was gone, the boys brought
00:41:01
down their blankets and pillows and asked if they could watch TV. I said, "Yes."
00:41:06
They came downstairs and played on the floor in front of the TV with Drake while I made some popcorn.
00:41:12
About 20 to 25 minutes later, Darren came Darren came in and sat down with us while we watched TV.
00:41:20
Drake started to get fussy, so I made him a bottle. Soon after, the boys fell asleep. Darren
00:41:26
took the baby upstairs and put him in his crib and came back downstairs. We talked about a few problems we were
00:41:33
having with the car and the boat and had a few words between us. Since I had the baby, I have been having
00:41:40
some depression. I told Darren I was depressed because I hadn't been able to take the boys
00:41:46
anywhere because we only had one car. He told me he loved me and asked me if I wanted him to sleep downstairs with me
00:41:54
because I wanted to stay up and watch a little TV. I told him no because I didn't think he
00:42:00
would be able to sleep on the couch and get any sleep. I had been sleeping on the couch the past week or so off and on
00:42:08
because the baby slept in our room in the crib, and when he moved, he woke me up.
00:42:14
Darren and I laid together for a little bit, while then decided to go to sleep because he had to work the
00:42:21
next day. This was around 12:30 or 1:00. I'm not sure. He kissed me and said he loved me, and I
00:42:29
told him I loved him and would see him in the morning. After a while, I started to get sleepy.
00:42:35
The next thing, I wake up and I feel pressure on me. I felt Damon press on my right shoulder and heard him
00:42:43
cry. This made me really come awake, and I realized there was a man standing down
00:42:49
at my feet walking away from me. I walked after him and heard glass breaking. I got halfway through the kitchen and
00:42:57
turned back around to run and turn on the light. I ran back towards the utility room and
00:43:03
realized there was a big white-handled knife lying on the floor. It was then that I realized I had blood all over me.
00:43:11
And I grabbed the knife thinking he was in the garage, so I thought he might still be there, and I yelled for Darren.
00:43:19
I ran back through the kitchen and realized the entire living area had blood all over everything.
00:43:25
I put the knife on the counter and ran into the entrance, turned on the light and started screaming for Darren.
00:43:32
I think I screamed twice, and he ran out of the bedroom with his jeans on and no
00:43:37
glasses and was yelling, "What is it? What is it?" I remember saying, "He cut them. He
00:43:43
tried to kill me. My neck." He ran down the stairs and into the room where the boys were.
00:43:49
I grabbed the phone and called 911. Darren started giving Devon CPR, while I put a towel on my neck and a towel over
00:43:57
Damon's back. I remember telling Damon to hang on, Mommy was there. I looked over at Darren and saw the
00:44:05
glass table had been knocked halfway off in the flower arrangement had been knocked over.
00:44:10
I then stood up, turned around, and saw glass all over the kitchen floor. I tried to glance over to see if
00:44:17
anything was out of place or if anything was missing. I took a few steps and opened the door and screamed for Karen.
00:44:25
Okay, so this is Karen Neil. It's their neighbor and friend. She's also a nurse.
00:44:30
I was still on the phone with 911 and I don't recall what all was said because everything was happening so fast.
00:44:38
I went back to Damon and by then he had stopped moving and the police walked through the door. The paramedics came
00:44:45
and tried to work on the children. Darin was screaming, "Who did this? Who did this?" And I started asking if my
00:44:53
babies were dead. Darin was crying and said, "Yes." After I just remembered screaming and
00:44:59
showing Darin my neck. Darin took me out to the front of the house and by then Darin ran upstairs to
00:45:06
make sure the baby was okay and then handed him to Karen, our neighbor. I remember them holding a towel on my
00:45:13
neck and wrapping my arm and then they put me in an ambulance. Darin got in, but they told him he
00:45:20
needed to leave so they could take care of me. I remember we got to the hospital and
00:45:27
them telling me they were taking me to surgery. They took off my necklace and put me to
00:45:33
sleep. I woke up and minutes later the detectives were there making me all kinds of questions.
00:45:39
At this same time here, Captain, keep in mind Darli's been rushed from the hospital directly to the police station
00:45:46
to give that statement. We have her husband, Darin. He's now providing a written statement as well at the same
00:45:54
time. And his statement reads as follows. We were watching TV in the Roman room watching movie on HBO.
00:46:02
Baby Drake had fallen asleep about 10:00 10:30. I took him up to bed in parents'
00:46:07
room. Put blanket on him and turned out lights. I went downstairs to talk to Darley. We
00:46:13
talked about the boys not being able to start baseball yet because we were so busy with the baby right now.
00:46:19
We talked about the business, bills, and how Darley was having a hard time with taking care of the babies today. Darley
00:46:26
said she wanted to sleep on the couch because she would sleep better because the baby would keep her awake. The boys
00:46:32
were asleep with pillows and blankets on the floor. Devon was asleep face up in front of the
00:46:38
TV and Damon was asleep between the couch and coffee table by the couch mom was on.
00:46:45
So, I went upstairs to get her a blanket and pillow and came back downstairs to cover her up. We talked a little more
00:46:52
about her going to Cancun with some friends across the street and gave her a kiss good night. Told her to dream about
00:46:59
me and went upstairs around 1:00 a.m. I went and turned on TV in our room and watched for 10 to 15 minutes. I took my
00:47:07
glasses off and turned TV off. I could not go to sleep for a while, but finally I fell asleep. Unconsciously, I
00:47:15
heard a noise and then Darley screaming loud. She was yelling, "Devon! Devon! Oh
00:47:21
my god, Devon!" I woke up quickly and grabbed my glasses on the nightstand and ran downstairs as fast as I could. Going
00:47:30
into the living room. I ran over to Devon lying on the floor where he was when I
00:47:36
saw him last and kneeled down over him to see if he was hurt and then looked at the coffee table to see it tipped
00:47:45
over on him. When I looked again at his chest, there were two holes in his chest with blood
00:47:51
and muscles piercing out. I slapped his face to get him to say or look at me. No response.
00:47:59
I started CPR and when I blew into his mouth, air came out of his chest. I blew five or six times and held my
00:48:07
hand over the holes on his chest. Then, when that didn't work, I blew into one of the holes in his chest.
00:48:15
I looked over at Darley and she was on the phone calling 911. I ran over to Damon lying on the floor
00:48:22
in the hallway between wall and side of couch. He had no pulse, but I could not see any injuries.
00:48:30
Police came in and I told them that my babies were stabbed and she told them that he went out of the garage.
00:48:38
I ran upstairs to put my pants on. I looked over at Drake, was crying and I felt he was okay.
00:48:45
I noticed my wallet left on the floor and all I could think to do was to go to Karen's house for help. I needed someone
00:48:53
to help and the paramedics when they arrived. I went downstairs, ran out the house,
00:48:59
ran across the street to Karen and Terry's door. I banged five, six times as hard as I
00:49:05
could until Terry comes to the door first and when I told them that Devon and Damon were stabbed, they were in shock
00:49:14
and ran over with me to the house and that was when they were putting Damon on a stretcher. I knew that Devon
00:49:21
was dead before I ran across the street and Damon had no pulse, but the paramedic carried him out in a blanket
00:49:29
out the front door. I ran out yelling that we have to find who did this and Karen told me that
00:49:35
Darley was cut, too. I never knew that she was hurt, yet she had blood all over her from the neck
00:49:43
down to the bottom of her nightshirt. She was standing in the doorway with the paramedics, said she needed to go to the
00:49:50
hospital. So, we helped her into the stretcher and she said, "Daren, you have to promise me
00:49:56
we will find this man. He killed our babies." I walked back into the house, pushed my
00:50:02
way through the police, and saw the knife on the bar in the kitchen with blood all over it.
00:50:08
Went to garage to look at the window that the police had said he had entered and I went out of the house and walked
00:50:15
across the street and the neighbors were there to confront me and asked about what happened.
00:50:22
I sat for a minute on the curb and walked over to the ambulance where Damon was and asked paramedic was he alive?
00:50:30
And they said no. I was in shock. Karen told me to go with Darley in the ambulance.
00:50:36
So, I got in and they threw me out, said they needed to work. So, then they asked me questions.
00:50:44
From the fire department, he says, they wanted to know his social security number, address, and name and such. And
00:50:49
I asked what hospital and no one knew. So, found out where Darley went. This would have been Baylor Dallas Hospital.
00:50:57
And drove over to the hospital. At hospital, I was questioned by Detective Frosh for hours. Is there any eyewitness
00:51:04
statements, neighborhood statements that heard her scream or saw anything suspicious that night?
00:51:12
So, in reviewing the trial and the testimony of witnesses and such, no. There doesn't seem to be anybody that
00:51:21
was aware that something was going on that night until they were alerted by either Daren or police or, you know, saw
00:51:29
the the flashing lights and heard the sirens, right? There were plenty of people to have an
00:51:35
opinion about Darley's behavior, what kind of mother she was, and plenty of opinions about the Roatiers in general.
00:51:45
So, to me, Captain, the thing that jumps off both pages here from their statements is they don't seem to line up
00:51:52
100% with each other's statements. And second of all, they don't seem to line up 100% with what it sounded to me
00:52:00
like what was going on during the course of the 911 call. Right. Because it sounds like Darley has the recollection
00:52:07
that she may have woke Darren up as she's getting ready to call 911. But to back that up a little,
00:52:14
but his statement does say that he comes in, sees what's going on, reacts to it,
00:52:20
and then the first he really sees Darley after that, she's in the process of calling 911 or already on the phone with
00:52:27
them. Now, my general thoughts are this though in regards to Darley's statement and
00:52:33
Darren's statement, I don't know that I would fully expect them to 100% line up. I mean, this is a
00:52:40
If they're innocent, It's too much trauma for their stories to line up. This is a
00:52:46
whole lot of chaos within a 5 to 6 minute window of time. Yeah, chaos is probably a better word than trauma. And
00:52:54
for them to have a full understanding and a point-by-point, blow-by-blow recollection of what went down and how
00:53:01
it went down and and every second and every minute of what was happening, you know what, to be honest with you, I
00:53:08
would be more suspicious of them together if their statements did 100% line up. Yeah, bingo. Because there were 2 days
00:53:16
between the time that the murders took place and these statements were given or a day and a half. I don't know exactly
00:53:22
what time of day these statements were were given at the police department, but the murders were on the 6th, the
00:53:28
statements written by these two individuals individually on the 8th. But the other thing I do want to point out,
00:53:35
too, you know, because one thing that law enforcement will use against Darley is that her statement does not line up
00:53:42
with what they were seeing at the crime scene. And the problem I have with that is look, I agree first off. I agree that
00:53:49
her statements do not line up perfectly with with some of the physical evidence at the crime scene itself.
00:53:56
But her words, they took me to the hospital, they get me there, they take off, you know, my jewelry, my clothing,
00:54:03
they knock me out, put me to sleep. So they could put me into surgery. Right. Next thing I know, I wake up She
00:54:10
says minutes later. Anybody that's ever been knocked out for a surgery will tell
00:54:14
you and I've had this happen twice in my lifetime. I've been put under two maybe
00:54:19
three times. Put under and then had a surgery. And you swear to God that you're waking
00:54:25
up and you're like, I was I can't believe you guys work so fast. I was only out like 30 seconds. And then
00:54:31
somebody tells you like, no, you were out for a couple hours. Or you were out for a day. That's one
00:54:38
thing that I feel like rings true in her statement there where she says, They took off my clothes, they took off
00:54:43
my jewelry, they put me out and then I went into surgery and then I woke up a couple minutes later
00:54:49
or I woke up minutes later and the police are asking me questions and then they took me off to the police station.
00:54:54
And then we have later where we have uh people testifying that she was drugged up afterwards as one would expect
00:55:03
because she's been pretty severely injured in my opinion, but again, that goes to
00:55:10
the opinions vary depending on who you talk to regarding her injuries. Well, and and painkillers affect
00:55:17
everybody completely different. And so, if I was in the hospital all for a couple days
00:55:24
and the day I got out, I was still on pain medication, I wouldn't be I wouldn't be able to put together my
00:55:31
correct thoughts. I mean, I already sound like a stoner and I'm not stoned. I mean, can you
00:55:36
imagine if I'm all hopped up on pain pills? And double down on the fact that you were just I mean, just minutes or
00:55:43
maybe hours before writing out the statement, you were in a hospital bed. Right. So, here's what the the doctor
00:55:50
testified to at the trial. Dr. Santos testified that Darlie was given Xanax to treat anxiety, and she was also given
00:55:57
Demerol for the pain. This is after the surgery. So, she's on Xanax and Demerol,
00:56:04
and just been whisked away from a hospital bed to the police station to give a written statement to police that
00:56:11
Oh, by the way, whatever you write here today, we're going to hold this over your head for the rest of your life.
00:56:17
So, it's an important document. We're going to use this to either clear you or build a case
00:56:23
against you. I want to think that Darlie or her husband was thinking that they're
00:56:28
going to take these statements and and go over them with a fine-tooth comb to press charges against her.
00:56:35
I I I bet that was even a thought at this moment. Right. She doesn't know that they're
00:56:41
building a case against her, that they already suspect her at this point. So, you say this is 2 days after
00:56:48
the murder. To me, that's not enough time to collect all the evidence at the scene, get it tested, for us to know
00:56:56
whether or not there was an intruder or not. So, it seems like to me like similar
00:57:02
same year case, too. JonBenét Ramsey. You're you're coming up with theories, and then you're going to try to prove
00:57:11
your theory before the evidence can tell you what happened. Well, and you can't really
00:57:20
make Darlie give you a written statement any earlier than this because she's at the hospital, she's under doctor's care,
00:57:26
she's knocked out, she's in surgery. But, what's a little weird to me is wouldn't you want to get a written
00:57:33
statement from Darren as quick as possible? Why does he get away this same amount of time? He's not in
00:57:41
surgery. He's not been injured at all in the course of this attack or whatever went down. Well, unless they're afraid
00:57:47
if they say, "Hey, we need a statement from you." and he gives a statement and then he tells his wife, "Well, yeah.
00:57:54
I I gave the police a statement." and she goes, "Well, what did you tell them?" So, maybe that's why they waited. I can
00:58:01
agree with that. That would be That would be an idea there. But But also, if you don't believe her statements, are
00:58:08
you asking for a polygraph test? Well, and again back to the drugs and and her state of mind or what it could have been
00:58:15
at the time of writing the statement, who knows? But again, they they are going to hold the statement against her
00:58:21
in court. And the testimony by Dr. Santos is testified that Darley was given Xanax to treat anxiety and Demerol
00:58:31
for pain. When asked under questioning, says, "What all can Demerol make you groggy?"
00:58:38
Yes. "Could general anesthetic in your experience lead to confusion?" Yes. "Can it lead to disorientation?" Yes. "Can it
00:58:47
lead to short-term memory loss?" Yes. "Would you agree, doctor, that to be questioned sometime before 8:00 in the
00:58:54
morning, let's say 6:05 hypothetically, to be questioned about very serious events at
00:59:01
6:05, 1 hour and 5 minutes after anesthesia being cut off, would you be somewhat suspect as to the response you
00:59:10
may receive from a patient?" Answer, "You may get an unreliable response. Yes." Yeah.
00:59:19
Again, but coming up with the theory before you get all the evidence back is irresponsible.
00:59:26
Then, on top of that, let's get statements from somebody that we know See, again,
00:59:34
here's my problem with it. It's irresponsible to come up with a theory. You know it's irresponsible to question
00:59:41
her when she just got out of the hospital. But, I think I think that was part of
00:59:47
their play. Hey, she she might not say things correctly, and that's going to work in our favor
00:59:54
because now we already created a theory. Now, we're just trying to put the puzzles
00:59:59
puzzle pieces however we want to to fit that narrative. Well, I I don't necessarily agree with
01:00:05
the idea that they are waiting to get her statement and then building the case around her afterwards. I know that it
01:00:13
took some time to get that statement. Again, she's in surgery. You can't do anything about that. But, they're
01:00:17
working the crime scene during this whole time before they're able to get her statement. So,
01:00:22
they are aware of certain pieces of the physical evidence before getting the statement from her.
01:00:28
So, Right, but what I'm saying is not all the evidence is collected. Not all the
01:00:32
evidence is tested. Evidence is supposed to lead you to a theory. Not to have a theory first. So, yes, I I
01:00:40
agree with you. There's been some work at the crime scene that would give you some information,
01:00:47
but you you didn't wait to get all the information, to get all the evidence, to get everything tested back before you
01:00:54
created your narrative, before you created your story of what happened. Which, of course, is certainly possible,
01:01:01
but I don't know that we want to say that that's exactly what, in fact, went down. Because we don't know when police
01:01:07
came up with the narrative that that Darlie killed her her children or had a a 100% case built around her.
01:01:18
What you would know immediately going into the crime scene, and what some of the evidence you would know before even
01:01:23
having to test it is you're going to see that the murder weapon you have evidence to believe
01:01:32
before any testing goes down the murder weapon came from inside the home. So now that makes you a little more
01:01:40
suspicious of people inside the home rather than people outside of the home. There was also some indication that with
01:01:47
the way that the screen was cut and the way that the screen appeared once police
01:01:52
were on the scene that it only looked like somebody went in the screen but never came back out
01:01:59
through the screen. So they were a little testy about the whole idea of well this intruder came in
01:02:06
this way and then fled back out the same way he came in based off of what they were seeing at
01:02:13
the crime scene. They also didn't find anything missing. They didn't find again you brought up a
01:02:20
good point. One really freaking troubling part of this whole case is motive, right?
01:02:27
What what would be the motive for Darley to kill her sons, not kill her other son, not kill her husband, and turn the
01:02:34
knife on herself? What would be the motive for Darley to do it but also what would be the motive for an intruder to
01:02:40
come in and kill these kids and attack her? Well she had a infant so you know I don't have a lot of understanding of you
01:02:48
know part post partum depression. But some kind of mental illness could be the reason.
01:02:58
That's the only thing that I can see here. I can't see any other motive. But then also like you said I mean
01:03:05
we can't say that we can't say that this intruder came in there just to murder. Right? Mhm.
01:03:14
The intruder could have came in for a multitude of reasons. Agreed. You know, two Oh, well, here's this young mother
01:03:23
that lives there and and I find her attractive. So, you know, it's a sexual motivation there
01:03:29
or that they're going to break into the house and and now that I'm in here, I don't want Maybe they these people
01:03:37
would recognize me. So, I have to kill anybody that that possibly could identify me. Cuz for all
01:03:44
we know, the kids woke up and saw this individual. Yeah. So, it's very tough. I mean, it it the motive on either end
01:03:54
just doesn't make a lot of sense. What do you think, Captain, about the whole thought of she's saying, "The purpose of
01:04:00
me sleeping downstairs is so the baby doesn't wake me up." But then, you know, the prosecution and detectives
01:04:08
want to know, "Well, then why didn't you wake up earlier during the attack if you're such
01:04:13
a light sleeper?" Yeah, I would I'd question when she was stabbed. And is any of the wounds that she has,
01:04:24
would that cause her to black out at any point? Because this neck wound, which a lot of people have tried to
01:04:33
state that her neck wound is a flesh wound. I think it was like 2 mm away from the
01:04:39
carotid artery. 2 mm away from killing her. Correct. And that doesn't mean that she did not self-inflict the
01:04:48
wound. Is it possible that she fought with this intruder and because of whether it's being hit on the head,
01:04:59
whether it's being stabbed, that she actually blacked out and then came back to? There are experts
01:05:07
that have said and did say during the course of her trial based off of her injuries
01:05:12
that there there's likelihood that she may not recall everything that actually went down. One based off of the trauma
01:05:21
of her injuries, but also the idea that she's waking up into the middle of a situation.
01:05:27
So you kind of it's a double whammy effect there, too. And now I am a light sleeper. I'm not going to consider
01:05:34
myself to be any kind of sleep expert, but I will say this. My light sleeping is can be an issue for
01:05:42
me. There are nights that I I miss out on a lot of sleep because of that. I'm not a light sleeper every night
01:05:49
of my life. Right. Every day of my life. If I if I'm sleeping anywhere other than
01:05:54
my home, I'm an extremely light sleeper. I'm I just I'm heightened awareness, whatever. I don't know what it is. I
01:06:01
it's hard for me to sleep in hotel rooms or be a guest at somebody's home without, you know, I basically just
01:06:06
sleep for a couple hours at best. If I'm at home and everything is perfect, everything is right,
01:06:13
sometimes I sleep like a rock. And there's not a whole lot of rhyme or reason to while I sleep better some
01:06:19
nights and why I sleep not great other nights. A lot of it base is based off of how tired I am. One
01:06:26
thing we know is she's busy taking care of three kids. One of them's an infant. She could have just been flat out
01:06:33
exhausted at this point. Right. And one thing that's interesting to me, too, and
01:06:37
and you would reference narrative a couple times, there is certainly something going on
01:06:42
because we talked about motive. Well, the law enforcement and the the prosecution,
01:06:48
they are easy and quick to point out motive for Darley to have committed these murders. And then their argument
01:06:54
is, well, there's no motive for an intruder. And I don't think that's correct. I
01:06:59
don't think that's right. I can see just as many ex- until you until you catch the guy,
01:07:05
again pretending that she's innocent, until you catch the guy or identify who it could be,
01:07:11
you may not know the motive of that individual for their actions. And I think there's
01:07:17
equal amounts, like you were saying, equal amounts for both possibilities, if Darley did it or if in fact there was an
01:07:24
intruder, an equal amount of motives. Well, again, I think it always drives me nuts when we're
01:07:30
having conversations about a possible intruder and they go, "Well, nothing was taken."
01:07:35
It's like, well, maybe they didn't get a chance to. And that's why there was a murder.
01:07:41
And maybe the person is technically not a murderer. They're a They're a thief. But because somebody could identify
01:07:50
them, they became a murderer. One troubling thing to me though, Captain, is it would have taken a bladed weapon,
01:07:57
let's say. It would have taken a blade to cut through that screen. And police will quickly tell you that in this
01:08:04
scenario, it makes zero sense to them because most of the time burglars, which I actually don't think that there was a
01:08:10
burglar. All right, if If we're going to pretend there was an intruder, I don't think
01:08:15
I don't think looking for valuables was the the motive here for going into the home. Uh-huh. So, police will be quick
01:08:23
to point out that most of the time a burglar will not bother to cut a screen. They will just simply remove the screen
01:08:30
as it's normally fairly easy to do. In this case, it would have been easy to do. And then they just hop in the window
01:08:36
and hop back out or leave through a door on their way out. But if it would have been a burglar, that
01:08:44
See, that's a whole different kind of criminal. A burglar comes into a home, sees people
01:08:50
in there that they They want to burglarize the home when no one is there. They pick a home that they think they
01:08:56
they could either get in and get out real quick, smash and grab, or smash and grab and nobody's there. They don't have
01:09:03
to bother with anybody. Mhm. A burglar would have came into the home, seen her and or the children, and then just
01:09:10
turned around and left. That's what a burglar would have done. If in fact it was an intruder that
01:09:16
attacked this family, there was a different motive for going into that house altogether.
01:09:22
But one thing I keep coming back to that's troublesome for me and goes against Darley's case that she's
01:09:27
innocent is it would have taken a blade to cut through that screen. That's everything that they've told us
01:09:36
from the test that they conducted on that screen. Mhm. So why if I already have a blade on me
01:09:43
to cut the screen to get into the house, am I picking up a blade from inside the
01:09:48
house to murder these people? No, I I agree. And I would like to know how they know for sure that this knife
01:09:57
came from inside the house. Was it a part of a set? Yeah, it's part of a set. It's one of It would have been taken
01:10:03
from a butcher block that was inside the home. And to take it a step further, cuz
01:10:08
I have like random knives. And so that's why I wondered is it Is it possible that
01:10:13
it it's not from a set and they were they thought it was from like just a a random knife from a a drawer or
01:10:19
something? Yes, exactly. A lot of people just have a drawer full of knives that they've,
01:10:24
you know, collected somehow throughout the years, you know, gift or something they purchased themselves. And it's a
01:10:30
it's a hodgepodge of what you have. Maybe the colors don't match up. Maybe you have a lot of the same kind of blade
01:10:36
and you're missing other specifics, but um this was taken from a butcher block and it was to take it a step further
01:10:44
though, too, I could find nowhere that Darlie or Darley were disputing that the knife
01:10:50
came from inside the home. They're not saying no, it wasn't our knife. In fact, it seems to be agreed upon by all
01:10:56
parties that the knife did in fact come from inside the home. But if I'm breaking into a house, hypothetically,
01:11:03
and I use a pocket knife, or I use a box cutter, and then I go into the house, and I put
01:11:11
that back into my pocket, and then I'm startled by maybe a kid waking up or seeing
01:11:18
people laying there, you reach for the closest item. Right. So, and and based off that, it
01:11:26
makes sense because from the garage, you have to go through the kitchen, and then that kitchen area, you would
01:11:32
see then you'd see the people that were in the family room. Also, I'd like to paint a picture of a
01:11:39
sophisticated criminal for you. A sophisticated criminal would enter that home, and again, this would be for
01:11:46
motives that are are well beyond the the scope of burglarizing the home. I do not know the exact, you know, the
01:11:56
windows and stuff for this house. Uh I've seen the outside of the house and portions of the inside, but one
01:12:03
question I keep coming back to is if there were someone outside of the home looking to
01:12:12
break into a home, and then rape a female victim inside, Right. think about the way that they described
01:12:21
everybody going to bed. If if you're a rapist and you're outside looking in through the windows, peeking in to see
01:12:27
if you could, you know, if there's a potential victim inside, maybe you don't know the house. Maybe
01:12:33
you do not know the people inside, or who the home belongs to. But if you're looking inside, the way
01:12:40
that everybody describes the sleeping arrangements to me, it's very likely that a rapist looking
01:12:46
in the window would see Darley, 26 years old, lying on the couch. And from that vantage point, I have to
01:12:54
wonder, would he be able to see two small children lying on the floor? Right. They're not laying all together next to
01:13:02
each other. The boys are on the floor, she's in the couch. Husband upstairs. You don't see him at
01:13:09
all if you're peeking in the window. And if you're a sophisticated criminal, you're entering the home already with
01:13:15
gloves on thy hands. And you know what you don't want to leave at the scene is a weapon that you
01:13:21
brought with yourself. So, use your box cutter or your pocket knife to cut the T into the screen outside, go in through
01:13:31
the garage, through the utility room, into the kitchen. Well, and also Knife block right there. I'm going to use one
01:13:38
of their knives to threaten my female victim. Whether my intention is to kill her or
01:13:44
not, I'm using one of their knives because if I leave it here, it doesn't lead back to me. They can't
01:13:51
trace this knife back to me. I have gloves on my hand. Yeah. And have you ever tried to cut
01:13:58
a screen? The screen part of a window? Dozens of times, yes. But there's also there's also a possibility that there's
01:14:07
not it wasn't there wasn't a cut at all. You the way those things are made, once
01:14:14
you start like a rip in that screen, it's going to stay in a straight line. And then if I rip it to the other side
01:14:23
or pull it back to the other side, you could you could um depend you know, as long as there's some kind of hole or
01:14:30
some kind of damage to that screen, you could easily rip a T into that that screen without using a knife. Exactly.
01:14:38
Exactly. And then you have to wonder would the crime scene analysis would they be able to determine by looking at
01:14:45
it if it were in fact cut or torn. Yeah, torn or or you used your your keys to to make those um the initial
01:14:57
incision so you could rip the screen. Their stance has always been in regards to the screen that it was cut in a in
01:15:06
the shape of a T. So, somebody would have made a uh horizontal cut and then in the center
01:15:12
of that, roughly in the center of that, made a vertical cut down. There's reasons that this case is so
01:15:18
frustrating. But one, if if she is guilty, what the heck is the motive? Cuz at least I can come up with a couple
01:15:27
plausible motives that make sense if there's an intruder. So much more to get to.
01:15:46
If you have thoughts and opinions on this case, go to truecrimegarage.com and click on the blog and let us know
01:15:53
what your thoughts are. And today is National Missing Child Day, so we want to thank everyone who
01:16:00
contributed to this week's beer fund for a portion of this week's beer fund will
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go to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. To thank you once again, join us back here in the
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garage tomorrow. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't you litter. Mhm.