The widow of Chris Kyle, the protagonist in the top-selling book and hit movie “American Sniper,” testified Wednesday that she “could tell something was up” the day her husband and a friend were shot to death at a rifle range.
Taking the stand in the Texas murder trial of Eddie Ray Routh, Taya Kyle recounted the last conversation with her husband, on the phone February 2, 2013.
“I said are you OK?” she said. “He said ‘yep.’ And that’s not common for him. I could tell something was up and he was just quiet …”
On that day, Kyle took friend Chad Littlefield and Routh, a troubled veteran he was trying to help, to a firing range at Rough Creek Lodge, about 90 miles southwest of Dallas. Taya Kyle said her husband sounded irritated.
“Normally, going out there, especially a place like Rough Creek — usually it’s beautiful. He feels really good about helping somebody, he’s making their day and he knows it,” she testified. “Earlier, he thought that guy sounded really excited to go, so he thought he was doing a good thing.”
She said their last conversation “was very short, and it wasn’t short like, ‘Hey, you are interrupting a good time.’ It was short like, ‘I wish I could say more but I’m not going to because there were people around.’ ”
Later she texted and he didn’t reply, and she became worried, she testified.
Prosecutors warned they would be showing graphic photos of Kyle’s and Littlefield’s bodies. Taya Kyle remained in the courtroom.
Routh is charged with murder in the killings of Kyle and Littlefield.
In opening statements, defense lawyer Ed Moore said Routh killed the two men because he suffered “a psychosis so severe that at that point in time he did not know what he was doing was wrong. … He thought in his mind at that moment in time it was either him or them.”
But Erath County District Attorney Alan Nash told the jury that Routh told investigators he used drugs and drank whiskey that morning. He admitted that he killed the two men and said he “knew what he was doing was wrong,” the prosecutor said.
The trial comes just weeks after the release of the film about Kyle, a former Navy SEAL who claimed to be the deadliest sniper in U.S. history with 160 confirmed kills in Iraq. The film has grossed more than $280 million, the most ever for a war movie, and the autobiography by the same name spent weeks on best-seller lists.
A day at the range
Kyle had already risen to fame through his book when he died. He’d been doing charitable work to help former troops suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and on that day he took Routh and Littlefield — both veterans — to the firing range about 90 miles southwest of Dallas.
The range is a small, remote part of the sprawling 11,000-acre Rough Creek Lodge, and the men were isolated, authorities said.
Frank Alvarez, resident manager of Rough Creek Lodge, testified Kyle had “exclusive access to the range when he came out.”
Kyle had said he was going to use the range for about 45 minutes, Alvarez testified, but “about 5 p.m. I got a radio call that said I had to go to the shooting range. Something had happened.”
A hunting guide found Kyle, 38, and Littlefield, 35, motionless and called 911. The men were dead when officers arrived.
Routh, an unemployed former Marine reportedly diagnosed with PTSD, was gone, and so was Kyle’s black Ford pickup, police said.
Routh’s sister: ‘He’s all crazy’
Routh drove up in Kyle’s truck at his sister’s house 65 miles away, police said. She called 911, telling the operator he claimed to have killed two men.
“They went out to a shooting range. Like, he’s all crazy,” Routh’s sister told authorities.
Routh got back into the truck and hit the road again, police said. Officers caught up with him that evening at his home in a Dallas suburb.
While talking with police, he jumped back into the truck and sped off again, police say. They gave chase and stopped him after spiking his tires. He did not struggle when they arrested him, police said.
Relatives of Routh, 27, and those close to him declined interview requests from CNN. Routh’s attorney is expected to try to make the case that his client is not guilty by reason of insanity.
Since July 24, 2013, when a judge filed a gag order in the case, nobody associated with Routh’s trial has been permitted to speak to the media.
Before that order was issued, a reporter asked Capt. Jason Upshaw of the Erath County Sheriff’s Office what could have driven Routh to the alleged murders.
“I don’t know that we’ll ever know,” Upshaw said.
Routh served in the Marines from June 2006 to June 2010. His time in the military included a 2007 tour of duty in Iraq and a humanitarian mission to help the victims of the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
American Sniper
Kyle learned to shoot on hunting trips with his father, then went on to serve four combat tours in Iraq with the SEALs, though his official biography notes he also worked with Army and Marine units.
He received two Silver Stars and other commendations before leaving the Navy in 2009 after 160 confirmed kills, which he called a record for an American.
He said that while killing did not come easy at first, he knew it meant saving lives.
“The first time, you’re not even sure you can do it,” he said in the interview. “But I’m not over there looking at these people as people. I’m not wondering if he has a family. I’m just trying to keep my guys safe.”
Kyle’s story and the movie made from it have triggered broad enthusiasm but also drawn critics and doubts about his accounts.