Crime Weekly - S3 Ep318: Darlie Routier: Is She Innocent? (Part 7)

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

In the early morning hours of June 6, 1996, a frantic 911 call came in from a quiet neighborhood in Rowlett, Texas. On the line was 26-year-old Darlie Routier, who said she and her sons had been stabbed by an intruder while they slept in the downstairs family room. When first responders arrived, they found a horrific scene—six-year-old Devon and five-year-old Damon lying on the floor with multiple stab wounds, while Darlie was walking around, bleeding from several knife injuries of her own. As officers cleared the house and paramedics worked to save the victims, Darlie repeated the same story: a man in dark clothing had come into the family room, stabbed her and her children, then fled through the garage—leaving the knife behind. But as investigators began to process the scene and piece together what had unfolded in the Routier home, a new set of questions emerged—about Darlie’s version of events, the physical evidence, and what she did—and didn’t do—after the attack. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets! https://www.crimecon.com/CC25 Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. https://www.SimpliSafe.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 50% off a new system with a Professional Monitoring Plan! 2. https://www.FactorMeals.com/CrimeWeekly50Off - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY50OFF for 50% off and FREE shipping!

Book club on Monday. Gym on Tuesday. Date night on Wednesday. Out on the town on Thursday. Quiet night in on Friday. It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers,

you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Specsavers.ca to book your next eye exam. Eye exams provided by independent optometrists. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasser. So today we are diving into the seventh and final part of the Darlie Routier series. We had a long conversation with Darlie's half sister, Danelle, last week.

We thought it went very well. Your comments mirrored that. You also thought it was a good respectful open conversation Some of you most of you said it didn't change your minds Some of you were like, yeah, maybe, you know, I'm willing to kind of be a little bit more open-minded about this But either way today we're gonna talk about all the things that the Denel kind of touched on which is why? Darley may be innocent because obviously she says that she is before we dive in though I know Derek does have a special announcement

Yeah, we we know we've been talking about crime con for five years now, and it really is a great event We always look forward to meeting all of you this year. It's in Denver in September and We were talking about it, and we reached out to crime con and we said hey We want to hook two of our fans up with some tickets. Can you make that happen? And they were nice enough to do so. So if you're able to get out to Denver, we will give you two free tickets. We want to meet you.

We want you there, especially if you haven't been before. It's a great, a great experience. So here's how you can do it. Very simple. We're not selling you anything. You don't have to sign up for anything. All we want you to do is go over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify, subscribe, turn your notifications on,

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and we'll announce it here on one of the future episodes. It will be relatively soon, we'll announce it, let you know who won, we'll reach out to you, we'll get verification that it was in fact you, and then we're gonna send you two free tickets. You're gonna get a digital code the tickets will be absolutely free All you'll be responsible for is your travel and your lodging just getting yourself out there and you and a friend or a family member Can join us and we will obviously meet up with you guys

Take some pictures sign some stuff. Whatever you want to do We'll make sure that we get you guys to to the front of the line so we can meet you in person and say hello. So yeah, CrimeCon giveaway, two free tickets, and we may be doing this again. You never know. So don't miss out. Go over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, subscribe, notifications on, leave a review. Anything else you'd like to add on that? No, I think it's awesome. I think it's awesome because I know a lot of people. You were part of the idea. Yeah, well a lot of people said, you know, in the comments like, oh I really have been wanting to go to CrimeCon, it's awesome because I know a lot of people. You're part of the idea. Yeah, well a lot of people said in the comments, oh I really have been wanting to go to CrimeCon, it's just so expensive.

It is, it's not cheap. It is, it's not cheap, but it's such a great experience, so we want to extend that to those of you who really have been wanting to go and haven't had the opportunity, and so we're definitely excited, and let's see what happens. Yeah, so this one's gonna be geared towards audio.

The next one may be video, but if you're watching on YouTube and you're someone who's just a YouTube watcher, this is definitely for you. Now, if you're also, if you're someone who's already subscribed and already have your notifications on on audio, you're listening to this,

but you haven't left a review, leave a review. And if you've already left a review, just screenshot it. We're gonna be able to see the date and it's obviously going to be prior to this announcement. That's cool, too You're in so we're going to go through the reviews We're going to be looking at crime con ones and we're going to be seeing it But yes, we're going to do a different giveaway on the next one But uh, we want to get some more people out there to see the event and we promise you you will have a great time So that's all we got for an announcement today.

We appreciate all your love and support. We wanna make sure that we show that gratitude as much as we can. Absolutely, are you ready to dive in? Yeah, I'm ready to get into it. We'll see how it goes. We'll put a button on it and then we'll move on to the next one.

Yeah, and we'll give our final thoughts too. Yes, absolutely. With all the information that we have access to. All right, so kind of give a little recap. In January of 1997, Darlie Routier went on trial for the murder of her five-year-old son, Damon. She'd also been charged with the murder of her six-year-old son, Devin.

But prosecutors decided to focus solely on Damon's case because his death made Darlie eligible for the death penalty. Now, the prosecution told the jury that in the early morning hours of June 6, 1996, Darley killed both of her sons and then staged the scene to make it look like an intruder had broken in and attacked them. They said she lied to police, gave ever-changing stories, and tried to make herself look like a victim. The defense argued that Darley was innocent and that an unknown intruder had entered the home, stabbed her, and murdered her boys, but in the end, the jury did side with the

prosecution. They found Darlie guilty and she was sentenced to death. Normally, that would be the end of the story. In many death penalty cases, the killer heads off to death row and fades from public view. But Darlie is different. All these years later, people are still talking about her and that's partly because there's a group who's actively fighting for her release. So to end this series, we're going to talk about their arguments for Darlie's innocence, as well as some of the most notable developments that happened after her trial. Yeah, and Danelle hit on a lot of these points. And I will say, throughout this episode,

I liked a phrase that she used, which is probability over possibility. Uh, and I think she was using it as a defense for Darlie. I also think it could be used as a way of saying that she did do it. Occam's razor, right? Like, yes, there's a lot of possibilities of what could have happened,

but what's most probable based on what we know, based on the evidence we have? And so I think there's two ways of looking at that phrase depending on where you fall on this particular case. Yeah, I agree. I think we can use probability versus possibility in a lot of cases, all of them probably. And this one more specifically, yes,

because a lot of what Danelle is saying, and like we said, she did touch on them, but it was such a long conversation, we couldn't really elaborate on all of the points. She would have went for five hours. She could have. It's her whole life. I mean, she's still texting me.

I mean, she keeps saying I have more to say. And that's why I wanted to give people an opportunity to contact her because frankly, this isn't the Darley defense line. You know, we're trying to cover all bases. But yes, we couldn't do it for six, seven hours is a lot more she could have said. So like we said, today's focusing on like, what kind of happened during the trial, the investigation and afterwards that has led a group of people including Dinell to continue fighting for Darley and Darley herself continue fighting and saying all these years later from prison I am innocent I did not do this and we plan to prove it so after Darley was convicted the court reporter assigned to

the trial a woman named Sandra was supposed to prepare the official transcript but she kept missing her deadlines. When she finally turned it in, Darley and her attorneys read through it and found all kinds of discrepancies. The court agreed that there were issues, and a second court reporter named Susan was hired to go through the materials

and determine whether a certified transcript could be created. Susan reviewed everything and found more than 18,000 errors across the 6,000 page transcript. Now, Darley supporters say the real number was closer to 30,000, but appeal documents put it at 18,000, which I mean, is pretty high at that point. It's still pretty high, 18,000 is high.

Yeah, 18,000, 30,000, either way, way more errors than should be there, but 18,000 is what we're gonna go with, that's the official number. Either way, it was errors than should be there, but 18,000 is what we're going to go with. That's the official number. Either way, it was enough to require a full revision of the record. After months of work, Susan completed the revised transcripts. Darlie's attorney said they still found problems with it, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed their objections and rejected them. And to this day, Darlie and her supporters often claim the transcripts are inaccurate,

yet they still do rely on those same records to highlight points they believe prove her innocence. So that's kind of one of the things here that bothers me about this case and the claim of Darlie's innocence is a lot of these people who are claiming the innocence will say, oh, this is completely invalid. 30,000 errors in this transcript,

and even after it's revised, there's still errors, but then they will go to that transcript and use evidence and information and things said in the transcript to support Darlie's innocence. But you can't have it both ways. You can't say that it's flawed, but then say, oh, the parts that I'm using to support her innocence are not flawed.

It's only the parts that are making her look guilty that are flawed. You can't you can't do that. And I understand the the the the way why people would be compelled to do that. But you can't. If it's a if it's a dirty narrative, then it's a dirty narrative and you wouldn't want to use it in any way, shape or form. But they do. Yeah. I mean, listen, and I'm not faulting for this part of the defense's job is to poke holes in whatever foundation law enforcement has. And the fact that they found this many errors, I'm sure there's validity to it. But if you can bring into doubt the foundation of the case, well, then everything's questioned

after that, right? Because everything that was built upon that foundation could be faulty as well. And so I have no qualms about it. This is their job. This is what they're supposed to do. And they're trying to say, Hey, listen, before we even get started, we're getting off on the wrong foot here. This is all wrong. And so if you do that and it's something that can be brought up at court, especially when there's certain things in the transcript that are incriminating, like you just said, you can bring those points up and say, Hey,

this isn't accurate. However, when there's things that support our innocence, you can also point to that and say, hey, see, we told ya. So you're right, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Like, you have to choose what you wanna do here and you can't say on one hand it's no good and then on the other, use it to support any part of your defense. Yeah, right, and it's Darley's attorneys

that are saying, oh, there's still inaccuracies. So they're the arbiters of this point of what they believe to be inaccurate while they are also the arbiters of what they're saying That he believed to be correct And of course you're gonna see what they believe to be correct is the stuff that makes her look not guilty and the stuff They're gonna say is is a flaw or an error is the stuff that makes her look very guilty. So Understandable. Well, I keep in mind to write like reasonable doubt doesn't have to be one thing Reasonable doubt can also be one of my favorite phrases,

totality, right? And it could be something where it's a lot of little things that rise to the level of reasonable doubt. It may not be just one piece of evidence. So by poking holes in all of this and bringing into question different pieces of this case, you can say overall, we believe this rises to the level of reasonable doubt.

So this is just part of the story right here. Yeah, and with the transcript finalized in the eyes of the court, Darley and her appellate attorney, Stephen Cooper, were finally able to move forward with an appeal, and they had help from Texas millionaire Brian Pardo, who had been enlisted by Darley's family. Pardo reportedly spent $100,000 on an independent investigation into the murders of Devin and Damon, and he also convinced

Darren to take a lie detector test administered by a Waco police officer. According to Pardo, Darren was shown to be lying when he answered no to four questions. One question was, was he involved in any plan to commit a crime at his house on June 6th, 1996? Another question was, did he stab Darley? Another question was, did he know who planted the sock in the alley? And the final question was, could he name the person who stabbed Darley? He said no to all of these. Pardo is saying, according to the polygraph, he was lying. Now, I also want to note that Darley was additionally given a lie detector test. However, her attorneys have refused to comment on the results. Oh, interesting.

Yeah, that is interesting. Yeah, I think that's interesting because once again, we're in a place where you, the attorneys of Darlie and Darlie herself want full transparency, you want the transcripts to be accurate, you want all the information to be out there, except what you deem to not be out there. Now if this was a real transparent attempt to prove her innocence, you would put everything on the table and let the chips fall where they lie or lie where they fall. Either way, you'd put everything out there. You would tell us what happened. If you're gonna tell us what happened

with Darren's lie detector, why not with Dar gonna tell us what happened with Darren's lie detector Why not with Darley's is it because? Darren's lie detector makes it kind of once again brings that reasonable doubt where Darley's might just add To anybody suspicions or beliefs or feelings that she's guilty if that's the case You're not being very fair here. You're painting a narrative, you're not being transparent. There's a narrative, no transparency. And this is the first time I'm hearing about the polygraph test, but I would ask all of you this question.

If she had passed the polygraph test with flying colors, do you think that's something that her legal team would share? Yes. So you can only assume one thing. You can only assume one thing. That's all I'm gonna say here. I mean, I know what I'm assuming. You come to your own conclusions,

but based on what we know, if she had passed that test with flying colors, I think we would have heard about it. Now, as far as Darren, and we kind of cleared this up a little bit with Danelle, but not completely, because she still has a very good relationship with Darren, I think the whole family does.

To me, and this is just my opinion from talking to a couple people in her camp, I took away from it that they believe something Darren might have been involved in, not directly connected to, but something he might have, one of his business dealings, something he had going on, resulted in this. What that was, they don't know.

But they're trying to also figure out the why. Why would they choose this house specifically? And they don't believe that that Darlie had any enemies. So they're only assuming it could be the other adult in the house who was dealing with a lot of money and, you know, had had some shady stuff go on from what I was reading where allegedly he had set up an attempt and maybe we're going to talk about it tonight, but you see it in the comments where he set up a fake theft of a vehicle or something? He was taught, yeah, there was, yeah.

Okay, we're gonna get there. Overall, he's not like this, nobody's a perfect angel, but basically what they're saying is, if this house was targeted specifically, more than likely Darren was the target, not Darlie. Now, I did find a Texas Monthly article from 2002 and in it Darren's asked, you know, did he take the lie detector test? And he did not deny it. He said he had taken it, he had failed it, but he said he was

manipulated by the examiner who spent two hours upsetting him with a million questions about the murders before hooking him up to the polygraph? Darren also did speculate that he was suffering from survivors guilt in which he envisioned himself at the scene Trying to help the kids but was unable to reach them. That was Darren's kind of so we have confirmation Darren did take and fail this polygraph so it's not being made up and by the way just you said this was this was Funded by someone who believes Darlie's innocent, correct? Yes, obviously somebody that Darlie's family

recruited to help. Yes, Brian. So this isn't a prosecution thing. This is, they're trying to clear her name. So that is interesting. And so we have confirmation they took it. Now we've talked about this a million times. I don't have a lot of faith in polygraphs.

This is why they're not admissible in courts Not a science, not a science It could be anything. He could have been greatly upset and stressed out before taking it which would have elevated his you know Heart rate and sweat and stuff like that. He could have been on medication It could have been a lot of things just a little part of the puzzle and and he could I mean this was incredibly part of the puzzle and he could. I mean, this was incredibly tragic thing to happen. So he's just thinking about the brutal murders of his two young sons.

I don't know if I could do that while keeping a completely cool biochemical signal. I'd be all over the place. My anxiety would be up, my heart would be beating, I would be a mess. So- Well, there definitely could be some guilt there. Listen, we're gonna be taking this a lot in this episode.

If he had passed the polygraph test, he would have been praising it about how great polys are. But when you fail it, you're going to come up to the reasons why you failed it. And some of those, like you just laid out, may be accurate. But here's what I hope we can all agree on. And I don't have anything to support this definitively, but it's my belief.

This was a targeted attack. when you look at that neighborhood the offenders if there were outside offenders Specifically chose this house on this day and time so that means either Darley or Darren Know something about this person it could be very minor It could be just a brief interaction, but there's a reason that these offenders or this offender chose this particular house. So if it wasn't Darley, and maybe even Darren believes it wasn't Darley, he has to be thinking internally, who did I cross?

Who did I piss off? Because more than likely, this was an attack on me. They just didn't get me. So I could see that guilt if that's what he truly believes. Well if Darley's team is trying to sort of find in you know a scapegoat and they're focused on Darren, Darley didn't seem to be and doesn't seem to be on board with that because when Darley was asked about Darren's failed polygraph she said quote it doesn't prove anything

there's a reason why polygraph is not used in a court of law." End quote. And she refused to believe Darren had anything to do with her attack or the murder of their children. I also think it's funny based on maybe she probably knew what her polygraph said. You just took the words out of my mouth. She's probably like, that doesn't mean anything. It's nothing. Hey, Polygoss, hate them.

But let me ask you this. If they're so ridiculous and they're so not worth your time, why did you take it? Yes, exactly. If you don't believe them, then why did you take it? Because it wasn't like she was compelled to by a court of law or a law enforcement body. This was somebody trying to help her out

and like, let's give these people lie detector tests. They both took them. And we know Darren failed, but we haven't heard about what happened with Darlie, but based on the fact that, like you said, if she had passed and lied about nothing, I mean, that would have been the first thing they would have led with. Darren's failed lie detector test would have been secondary. And Darlie's, you know, passing and allegedly not lying about anything would have been front and center. Correct. Completely agree.

Completely agree. So despite Darley maintaining that Darren was innocent, her appellate attorney, Stephen Cooper, ended up focusing on Darren. He had his private investigator, Richard Rayna, look into that angle, and according to Darley's mother, Rayna's questioning of Darren went on for months. Obviously, over time, Darren became increasingly upset. That shift in his demeanor made her wonder if he might have been involved after all. And that's when her husband, Darley's newish stepfather Bob, told her something that he

had never shared before. He said that in the spring of 1996, before the murders, Darren had come to him in private and said that business was in trouble, He was $22,000 in debt and struggling to stay afloat. According to Bob, Darren asked whether he knew anyone who might be willing to break into a house as part of an insurance scam. He already had a plan. Once the furniture and the other items were stolen, he would retrieve them from the burglar and pay him out of the insurance money. Now, Bob said he didn't know anyone who could do that kind of job, and after the conversation Bob said he didn't know anyone who could do that kind of job,

and after the conversation ended, he didn't think about it again. Even after the murders, he didn't believe it was all connected, so he didn't tell anyone what had been said until Darlie's mother began voicing her own concerns about Darren. She said she had never wanted to believe

Darren could have been involved. She loved him like a son. But when he started getting increasingly upset about the PI Reyna's questions, she began to reconsider and that's when Bob finally told her about the conversation they'd had before the murders and she called Stephen Cooper right away. Now Cooper passed that information to Reyna who confronted Darren again. According to Reyna, Darren denied the story at first, but eventually admitted that it was true in an affidavit. Notably in that same affidavit, Darren also claimed that Darley had asked for a separation on the night of the murders, something that

had conveniently never been made public before. Now, Skip Hollinsworth with Texas Monthly did question Darren about the insurance scam idea and Darren said he never went through with it. When Skip asked if he had discussed the plan with anyone else, Darren hesitantly replied, quote, there is a possibility I said the same thing in conversation with people that worked around me. I don't remember what I said, but there's a strong possibility that was on my mind, and in conversation I could have said that. End quote.

Darren said that even if he did mention the idea in front of someone who later broke in and killed his children and attacked his wife, they did it without his involvement. He asked, quote, why would I do that if I had my kids and my wife downstairs? That's the craziest story I have ever heard. End quote. When Skip pointed out that the full truth might help get Darlie a new trial, Darren insisted he wanted to do what he could for her. Then he added, quote, but I don't want to end up with some kind of bullshit charges brought against me either.

I don't want to help her at the expense of my life. End quote. What do you think about that? There's so much to impact there. And we could do an entire episode just probably on that, but there's two main points. Darren, even kind of checking the temperature on a potential scam like this,

that is somewhat similar to what went down. Not really, when you think about it. And then a fake robbery for an insurance scam, opposed to killing the two children and potentially killing his wife, is a different extreme. As stupid as this is, and the fact that Darren even suggested this, if he were trying to pull off some type of insurance scam, more than likely

he would have the kids and the wife upstairs, unless he really wanted to take them out. The second thing that I found interesting is that that night, Darlie had asked for a separation, had asked for a divorce. And- Yes, allegedly according to Darren, yes. According to Darren, which why? Even though she has never said that.

She has never said that, and I think we know why, or I have an opinion as to why, because there is this narrative that's going around that things were great, and Darlie was a great mother, there were no issues between her and Darren and the kids, everything was great. And I wanted to be respectful to Danelle when she was talking about Darlie and her children,

but we had already discussed some of the incidents that had happened prior to this where there were some questions about her parenting skills. We talked about the- Yes, with the nanny and the cleaning lady. I didn't, we could have brought it up there, but we were more focused on evidence. And I know if we brought up the Danelle,

she would say it's bulls**t, right? That's what she's gonna say. Yeah, exactly, yes. But there is some things here that suggest life wasn't great for Darlie at this point. Now, how bad it really was, Darlie's not gonna tell us that, because that would go towards her being

in a bad place mentally and maybe doing something that she wasn't even completely aware of because of something that was going on internally or she was aware of it and just still decided to do it. But either way, it's not good for the narrative of I was in a good place, everything was going great, me and Darren were fine, why would I do this? So those were the two things out of that little bit

that you just read that stands out to me. Yes, and I also wanna point out that there is a lot of talk about you know the question that Darren did not fail on his polygraph test which was did you kill your children to which he said no to and he did not fail that. Now I also want to bring up what Darley supporters say which is that Darley had a $200,000 life insurance policy and the boys obviously we've talked about it had 5,000 each and the baby who was upstairs with Darren no life insurance policy.

So some people are saying maybe Darren set this up not for a insurance scam of like, oh, someone broke in and stole my stuff, but an insurance scam of somebody broke in and killed three members of my family, which would give him $210,000 worth of life insurance. Or maybe his plan was to have Darlie killed and the person who did it took it upon themselves

to attack the boys. That's what some people wonder and speculate about. I didn't investigate this case. I have to assume, and I would imagine imagine that law enforcement looked into Darren as well they probably wanted to bring down both of them if they thought they were both involved and We've talked about Darren a lot. I know he's probably listening to this all due respect I don't think he's the type of guy that would have covered his tracks well enough not to have this come back on him And I think that if there was any

Paper trail or digital trail that would suggest he set this up Darren would be in handcuffs right now enough not to have this come back on him. And I think that if there was any paper trail or digital trail that would suggest he set this up, Darren would be in handcuffs right now. I don't think that they were rooting for Darren to be the victim and Darley to be the bad guy. If anything, they probably thought initially they both were somehow involved and that's why they were separating them. So again, it's probability versus possibility. Is it possible, especially with this other information if true? Of course it's possible. But there's nothing to support that notion. I mean, this is such an extreme. And from what we know, Darren loved his family. And

from what he's saying, Darlie was the one asking for the divorce. So yes, possible. I haven't seen any evidence to support it, though. All right, I agree. And I think that there would be some, obviously, a money trail of some kind, unless, as Darren had mentioned to Darley's stepfather, that he planned to pay the intruder from the insurance money he received which I mean with the murder trial and things like that and Darley actually not dying that

wouldn't have been possible but I don't know I don't know it's it's possible but not probable one more thing I'll add that is very difficult to say but we're being pragmatic here if you're going in there for an insurance scam, Darley's worth the most money. This goes to the deviation and the intent of the attack. There was no doubt that those two boys were gonna die from their wounds. You left it open where Darley could survive and she did.

If there was anybody who was gonna be murdered that night for insurance purposes, it would have been Darley. I I mean I think Darren's life insurance policy was higher so if he can't kill himself yes if he was the one who was driving it then yes he would not have done it to himself the kids you're talking ten thousand dollars between the two of them again that sounds so oh god but that's the truth so it wouldn't have even been enough to pay off what they were behind. No, they're funeral expenses. So, yeah, no, I'm not seeing it.

I reserve the right to change my opinion if something else came out. Danelle's been texting me saying there's updates in the case that could change it. I told her if there's a huge break in the case, we'll cover it. But at this point, I'm not seeing it. So let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. What does feeling safe at home really mean to you? So let's take a quick break, we'll be right back. What does feeling safe at home really mean to you? For a long time, I thought it just meant a decent lock on the door and maybe an alarm that would go off if someone actually made it inside. But after getting into true crime, seeing these cases, seeing all the different varieties of ways

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When Skip brought up Darren's admission to the prosecutor who tried the case, they reportedly chuckled, noting the timing. Darley's stepfather, mother, and Darren had all come forward just as Darley's appellate attorney was filing his first brief with the Court of Criminal Appeals, meaning, hey, nobody remembered this in the past four years, and now all of a sudden this recollection has just occurred to everyone. Valid. Valid. Right when she's putting together her appeal.

Because listen, they don't have to prove Darren did it. It's all again about reasonable doubt. So they're just throwing other ideas out there. There may not be anything to substantiate any type of evidence that would support it, but he made these comments, so it's possible. It's just, and you just need one jury member to believe it. So I completely agree with them here. Well, you need the appeal courts to sort of feel that it's enough to give her a new trial. Yeah, exactly. And so if it goes to trial and they get there,

they bring it up and listen, I'm not trying to discredit everything that's been said, but we have to be honest. I was less pushing back during the interview with Danelle, but to me, and I said it in a nicer way, initially nobody remembered anything, including Darley. But as evidence starts to come out, now everyone has this recollection of things that are extremely critical to the case and could

suggest someone else did it. It's pretty convenient. That's just me being honest. And I think that at first I was like, well, they could just be saying, you know, like Darley's stepfather could just be saying, oh, hey, Darren came and said this to me. But then Darren like did basically confirm it, admit and confirmed it. So now, you know, it makes it more valid, but also does it or is Darren who has never faltered from being by Darley's side and saying he believes in her innocence? Is he saying, well, if I throw this out, what harm would it do to me? But it could potentially get her a new trial,

so I'll go along with this. But I won't go as far as to kind of say I did it, because I don't want some crazy charges coming my way. And he also said, listen, I might have put feelers out there, but I never carried through with it. And if somebody did it, it was on their own. It wasn't because I asked for it. So it's a lot of just play on words where maybe he's trying to help her out. I also think if he was directly involved, he would never admit to this.

Yeah, and it's living in the gray area. So, which is, once again, if she gets a new trial, that's all they need. That's all they need. So, Reyna said, despite all this, he still wondered if Darren might be holding something back after interviewing both Darren and Darley He began to suspect that Darren may have hired someone to kill Darley He pointed out that Darley had a life insurance policy worth two hundred and fifty thousand It said two hundred thousand some places two hundred and fifty thousand places either way a decent amount of money Yep And she'd been threatening to divorce him and apparently this was a common occurrence

a decent amount of money. Yep, and she'd been threatening to divorce him, and apparently this was a common occurrence, Darlie making this threat, because Reina said Darren was once so upset by the divorce threat that he had put a pistol to his head. So Reina began to wonder, if Darren believed he was going to lose Darlie, was it possible he decided no one else

should have her either? Or if he was like, well, she's gonna leave me anyways, and I'm in bad money situation a lot because of her and her overspending well let me benefit from from this I'm gonna lose her either way let me benefit from this but when skip asked Darley about this theory she said she had never been serious about divorcing Darren. Darren agreed and added that Darley had only packed a suitcase and spent the night at a friend's house once. As for the pistol incident, Darren called it dramatic bullshit to get her attention,

like she does to me all the time. He said it happened two full years before the murders. He added, quote, Me and Darley, we've had our spats, but it's never been serious. I've never hit her. I've never cheated on her. End quote. When asked about Reyna's theory that he might have wanted Darley dead Darren said in a disgusted tone quote. That's completely false and

Ridiculous end quote, you know what I think is ridiculous This whole toxic relationship putting a gun to your head is not serious. It's manipulative. It's toxic It's a million things a gun to your head both of them both of them this oh, I'm gonna divorce you. I'm gonna leave you I'm gonna pack a bag go to a friend's house. Oh, a million things. A gun to your head? Both of them. Both of them. This, oh, I'm going to divorce you. I'm going to leave you. I'm going to pack a bag, go to a friend's house. Oh, you're not going to leave me. I'm going to threaten to hurt myself if you do. It's just all childish, dramatic bullshit that's toxic,

damaging to them as people, damaging to them as a couple, and damaging to the children, they shared, by the way. Because you've got to think that the kids were privy to some of this nonsense. Listen, everybody fights Nobody's marriage is perfect But I will say I think I speak for the majority of people out there If it's getting to the point where one of the spouses are putting a gun to their head that is more than just a spat

That's a serious thing because if they're putting the gun on themselves, they could also put it on you This is not a normal everyday argument that married couples have. I don't. He's not like, yeah, we're solid. Don't worry. Yeah, yeah, we're solid. What a gun to the head once in a while. What does this mean? One time threatened to kill myself. No big deal.

What? Come on, man. He's admitting to all this, by the way. This isn't speculation. This isn't something that. He's admitting to it or he's going along with the story. Either way. Either way, he's acknowledging it. He's not denying that this happened, yes.

So, you know, there is a lot of people out there, Danelle included, who said, you know, all the information you're hearing, it's not right, it's, you know, misinformation. This is coming from Darren confirming it. Whether it's true or not, he's confirming it. This is what supporters of Darley have put out, so it's supposed to make her look better, I guess. I don't know how, but it's supposed to. So Darley, on the other hand, she told Skip

that she wasn't sure what to think about Darren anymore. The only thing she knew for sure was that she didn't kill her children. She tried to save them. She said, quote, I've been robbed of so much, end quote. Not just with Drake, who visited her once in prison, but with Devin and Damon. Darlie said, quote, for the rest of my life,

I have to wonder what they would have looked like, how big they would have been, how their voices would have been changing. I didn't do anything and this has been taken from me and it's wrong." End quote. Well I mean it was taken from her regardless of whether she did anything or not, regardless of whether she was accused of doing anything, that she would have been in in the same boat. But I think she's trying to say like on top of having to lose that now I've been you know blamed and charged and and everything everything has been taken from me now the routiers did later divorce and Darren said he still believed Darley was innocent and that the divorce was simply a way for both of them to move on from the limbo that they'd been in since her arrest and I

don't find any fault in this I mean mean, she's in prison either for life or, you know, on death row. He's got to move on and live his life. And I don't find that this is a black mark for either of them. Now, the search for new evidence to support Darley's appeal efforts continued. Devin and Damon's bodies were exhumed, which is so sad. And this was done so that their fingerprints could be taken, something the original medical examiner had failed to do. I don't know why the original ME wouldn't have done that.

It feels like it's kind of customary and part of the process to do that, especially in a crime scene where you've got fingerprints and blood all over and you're trying to distinguish whose fingerprints are these whose blood is this I'm not sure why that what that didn't happen but they were exhumed so that it could happen but unfortunately investigators weren't able to get a full set however they did recover a few usable prints Cooper later claimed that

forensic testing conducted by one of the country's most respected forensic anthropologists indicated one partial print belonging to an adult and not to either of Darley's children, supporting his argument that an intruder had been in the home. And we talked about this. And Danel did talk about this, yes. And we're gonna talk more about this later. But Cooper was referring to Richard Jantz, a professor of anthropology, who by the way is not a fingerprint expert. Yep, brought that up with Danel. Yep. The defense hired him to review the evidence in the case and according to his own report,

he concluded that the fingerprint in question had a higher probability of being from an adult, but he did not say that the print didn't match either of the boys or anyone else in the house. So the defense was lying about that. They're they're definitely being misleading. Yeah. And if you remember, I asked Danelle about this and she said the print was too big to be a child. But Prince can smear, they can smudge depending on how they are. So I didn't have enough information to push back on that.

This isn't my case. But yeah, this this aligns with what I would believe. And there was a lot of mention about this print at trial as well. And we're probably going to get into that. So it seemed like a revelation when Danelle was talking about it. But this is this this print has been heavily discussed both in the investigation and at trial. And it wasn't enough to acquit Darley.

So that's something to keep in mind. And by July of 2001, Stephen Cooper was ready to file Darley's appeal. Interestingly, the appeal didn't challenge the legal or factual sufficiency of the evidence used to convict her. Instead, it focused heavily on arguing that Sandra's trial record, remember she was the first person who was doing the court transcript. Sandra's trial record was grossly inaccurate, which ruined Darley's chances of a fair trial. Am I missing something?

Because the transcript is not what the jury's, the jury's sitting there and hearing as the transcript's being typed. So would that really, would the transcript being inaccurate ruin Darley's chances at a fair trial while the jury is sitting there and listening to things in real time as they're happening and the transcript's being typed up.

I mean, if they asked to see the transcript afterwards, but apparently Sandra didn't have this done in time and it took a while for her to get it done, so it wouldn't have been before the jury made their decision that the transcript was typed up and had many errors, right? I mean, it must be a combination of them feeling like the information wasn't documented properly and therefore anybody who was to review this information would be basing their decision of faulty information. I could see that argument.

Wasn't there some also some allegations about the transcript regarding the 911 call as well? That was also something. That's part of the not part of this conversation, but also where the interpretation of what she was said and the transcripts provided for that were allegedly inaccurate as well. Well, one of the key issues, I guess, involved a moment during deliberations when, you know, the jury's deliberating and they sent out a note asking for clarification on Darren's testimony. And their question was this. They said some of us remember hearing Darren say that he did not lock the door from the utility room to the garage before he went to bed. The rest of us remember that Darren said, he locked this door, which is right.

And so Sandra prepared an excerpt of Darren's testimony in response. Copies were shared with all attorneys, and get this, no one objected at the time. The defense did not object at the time. They were able to see the copy of this excerpt. And the defense was not like, oh, this is inaccurate. They allowed it to go through to the jury.

So the transcript was sent back to the jury. And Darley explained in the appeal that at the time no one objected because they didn't realize Sandra hadn't been keeping accurate notes. But like if you had read it, which you should, before approving it to be sent to the jury, wouldn't you have noticed at that time that it wasn't an accurate

representation of what Darren said? And you're not necessarily saying that this wasn't accurate. You're just saying that because Sandra made some mistakes in the final transcript that she may have made mistakes in this portion of Darren's testimony, but you can't say for sure that she did or didn't. It's kind of reaching for me. Listen, you want it to be right. I'm not gonna sit here and say that this is okay. It's not, and I don't think you're saying that on there.

Well, they're not saying that this expert isn't even, this excerpt isn't right. They're just saying, oh, Sandra made mistakes, and so nobody objected to it at the time. But if mistakes had been made, wouldn't you have objected?ed of course and wouldn't you be more liable to see the mistakes because? That just happened. Yeah. No, there's a tactic there It's like you're gonna go forward with trial and see how it plays out And if it doesn't work out, this is something you can revisit for an appeal, but you want it to be right

there's always gonna be things where mistakes occur during these trials and it's on the prosecution and the defense to capitalize on those mistakes to make them benefit their own side. And so we talked about at the top of the show where this is something that's going to get brought up time and time again as a foundational concern with the whole trial where you're putting on this case. As you mentioned, they're not disputing any of the evidence, they're disputing the transcripts which the jury used to make their decision, which I do think is something that needs to be addressed.

The question is how much weight was put on this transcript and how much of it was based on witness testimony and expert testimony. That's the question here and only the jury members can answer that. If they base their entire decision off the transcripts, I think you got a pretty good argument. But I would go out on a limb and say that more than likely what they were hearing with

their own ears and seeing with their own eyes at trial had a bigger impact on their decision making process. Yes, I agree. So the appeal also focused on potential conflicts of interest involving Darley's trial attorney Doug Mulder. Cooper argued that Mulder should have raised questions about Darin's possible involvement but couldn't because for one day before taking Darley on as a client, Mulder had briefly represented both Darin and Darley's mother during a

pre-trial hearing on a gag order. So Cooper claimed Mulder may have learned something from Darin that could have helped Darley but he couldn't use it due to his attorney-client privilege. Cooper said that conflict became especially important because Darren had both motive and opportunity. He stood to gain as much as 250,000 from Darley's life insurance policy, and since he hadn't been injured that night, he could have slashed the screen and carried the sock out to the alley without leaving a blood trail. Now in the end, the appeals court didn't find merit in any of Darley's arguments and her

conviction and sentence were affirmed, but she didn't stop fighting to prove her innocence. She eventually filed a motion for post-conviction DNA testing, identifying nine pieces of evidence she wanted re-examined, including a stain on the sock, which had previously yielded no results, stains on her night shirt, which she believed newer technology might detect more DNA from, stains on the knife, facial and pubic hairs that had not produced usable DNA, and a swab from an unidentified fingerprint found on the coffee table. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted the motion and allowed for the testing, but the process moved slowly and took years to complete. In the end, most of the results were inconclusive.

The only notable findings were that Darren could not be excluded as the source of DNA, the DNA profile found on a cutting from the sock. Darlie could not be excluded as the source of DNA on cuttings from her night shirt, and STR testing on the fingerprint swab was inconclusive. Why STR testing was also inconclusive. After that initial round of testing, it didn't find anything groundbreaking. Additional tests were approved. This next phase included some old and new evidence. The sock, Darlie's shirt, blankets and pillowcases from the scene, the jeans worn by Darren and the children, fingernail clippings from both boys, the bloody knife and the

hairs found on the knife. And as far as I can tell, the results from this round of testing aren't in yet. This might be what Danelle is talking about where she's like there's been more, you know, information coming out, more results. We might hear about this soon and if we do, we will update you. So while Darlie waits, she continues to fight her conviction from death row. In fact, she has a status hearing the same week we're recording this episode, so her case is still active once again, with Denel saying new things are happening. It could be from the testing, it could be from this status hearing, we don't know. And even though additional testing hasn't

proved Darlie's innocence, there are still people who believe she did not kill her sons and are actively working to free her. That includes her mother, Darley, and her sister, Danelle, but also plenty of strangers. Some of them are even listeners of this show. So to better understand why so many people believe Darley is innocent, we did speak to Danelle. She gave us documents outlining reasons that she believes Darlie didn't commit the murders. It was 34 pages long.

We're going to sort of go over some of the most important points. Like I said, the document is lengthy. It's difficult to follow. We do want to focus on some of the main arguments that Danel raised. Before we do, I want to take our last break and then we'll be right back. Okay, let's be honest. Summer is for beach days, long walks, swimming in the pool, maybe catching up on some of the true crime books that you've been meaning to read. But you know what summer is not for? Spending hours in a hot kitchen, cooking dinner or meal prepping. And that is where Factor comes in.

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So let's start with the Stabloons. And we kind of did start with Denelle in her interview in the same place. We started with the stab wounds, which I think has been a main focal point for Derek because he's very, yeah, you've been very vocal about, hey, the wounds that are on the boys are very different from the wounds that Darlie received. So to put it bluntly, the injury suggests two attackers. That's the bottom line. Two attackers. That simple. Or one attacker who maybe...

With self-inflicted wounds. That's my point, right? So she would be enacting the wounds on one person and then herself they would look different because obviously they're gonna look different when you're cutting yourself. But if it wasn't her, there's two attackers. And Darlie herself said that she only saw one person. Now even when I said that to Danelle, she's like, well, she only saw one person.

Well. There could have been another. There could have been another, but there's no indication of that. There's no indication of even a second person there other than Darlie. Possibility versus probability. Correct, correct.

So if you look at those wounds and you look at the intentionality behind them, Devin and Damon were stabbed with the intent on killing them. When you look at the injuries to Darlie, those injuries to me do not look like someone who is trying to kill themselves or someone kill them. Especially if you think, okay, the first person who stabbed the boys is also the same person who stabbed Darlie, it doesn't align. That's not from a cop's perspective. Just look at the wounds yourself. I'm not saying that Darlie's wounds aren't significant in the sense that nobody wants to be slashed on the neck. But when you compare them to Devon and Damon, they're night and day.

Yeah, I agree with you. Unfortunately, I do. I agree with you. So the innocence document that Denell provided us, it says, quote, many people like to claim Darley's wounds were different from the boys. However, Dr. Dilan definitely calls them stab wounds, the same verbiage he uses when referring to Damon's wounds." End quote. So obviously we looked at Dr. Dilan's testimony.

Yeah, we talked about this. We talked about it. We looked at Dr. Dilan's testimony. And while he did refer to Darley's neck wound as a stab wound, he also used the word slash. And in his discharge notes, he described it as a slash, not a stab. Dr. Santos, the surgeon who operated on Darley, the person who was up close and personal with her wounds, he also used the term slash during his testimony. So the Innocence document also states that Darley had lacerations to her shoulder and

right forearm, which were deep, the exact opposite of superficial in medical terminology. Now it's unclear who they're attributing that quote to, but once again, Dr. DeLong was clear in his testimony that all her injuries were superficial, meaning, in his words, the stab did not penetrate any of the deeper structures. So the document goes on to say that the autopsy and wound analysis showed the boys were stabbed by a right-handed attacker, which supposedly doesn't match Darley's left-sided injuries, but you really don't need expert testimony to understand the flaw. In that argument, it's entirely possible for someone to injure themselves using

their non-dominant hand. And if you were trying to cut, but not cut as deep as you could, you might want to use your non-dominant hand because it's the less strong hand. And you would know that you wouldn't have as much strength as you would in your dominant hand. And so there'd be more of a chance of you not getting to those deeper structures. Yeah, we can make this really simple. It doesn't pass the eye test. I don't care what it's called.

Stab slash. I don't care. I even called it a stab multiple times in our interview with Danel. Those injuries are not the same. It's that simple. Just look at them. You tell me if they're the same They're not and so you can call Darley's injuries whatever you want. What I can see is that Devin and Damon were stabbed directly in in the vital organs and Darley was not if you were trying to kill, you would not slash across her neck like that. So can you imagine someone standing over someone? It would be harder to slash their neck

and not cut the carotid artery than it would be to do it. Like you know how precise you would have to be to slit her throat in just a way that it wouldn't cut the carotid artery? You know what the chances of that are? And when you consider, when you have a comparison of two other victims. I feel like you'd have to be actively not trying to cut that artery.

Right, that's how it would look. And when you use the two other victims in that same room who were killed moments before she was allegedly stabbed as your basis, right? That's your foundation for how, nobody's disputing that they were stabbed first, right? That's your pattern of behavior, that's your MO. And yet this attacker

completely deviated from that in their third victim. It doesn't align for me. I'm sorry. It just doesn't. And this to me is as close as you're going to get to the smoking gun and all this. Because if this person went in there to kill all three of them, regardless of the motive behind it, Darlie would not be with us right now. because this person would have stabbed her in the chest just like he stabbed Devon and Damon and that would have been the end of it. I'm not trying to be insensitive here, but to me, when we talk about probability versus possibility,

it's more probable that Darlie stabbed the two boys and then intentionally cut herself to make it look bad but obviously not kill herself. That's more probable to me than the other scenario. So I don't think that the injuries and focusing on those are the best thing for Darlie's camp. I don't either. I don't either. Yeah, it just doesn't look great. Now when it comes to James Cron's investigation, Denell's document claims, quote,

James Cron was a fingerprint expert, not a crime scene investigator. He was a civilian employee of the Dallas Sheriff's Office and essentially managed the evidence locker in the inbound and outbound detainees when arrested and released, end quote. And that's patently false. I brought it up, if you remember.

Yeah, yeah, according to Kron's trial testimony, you know, in the beginning, when you first sit down, they ask your name, and then they're like, hey, what do you do, and how long have you done this, and what's your expertise, and what's your education in this? According to Kron's own trial testimony, his credentials were extensive. He was a consultant in the fields of crime scene analysis,

fingerprint identification, and physical evidence. He was a certified latent print examiner and a certified senior crime scene analyst. Cron began working in law enforcement as a civilian in 1958. He later became a sheriff's deputy and was assigned to the Identification Bureau. From there, he was promoted to lieutenant and spent his career focused on crime scene investigations. Over the course of his career, Cron worked more than 21,000 crime scenes, including over 4,000 deaths. He received more than 150 awards and recognitions and later became a professor in the field. So when we talked about how many crime scenes

he worked, how many deaths he worked, or Denell said something that I really didn't quite understand at that moment. I want to clarify with you. She said he was counting some of them twice or did you understand what that meant? Listen, I didn't completely disagree with her there There's no doubt based on what she was saying. He was padding his numbers. There's no doubt I mean a lot of people do it not saying it's okay Everybody does it in every profession But essentially what she was saying is when someone would come in to be fingerprinted for any case

Even if he wasn't directly involved with it He counted that as a number for him and I agree with her. He shouldn't be that. So let's just say we cut his number. Do we know that he did do that though? I would imagine based on her numbers He would have to have done like two crime scenes a day his entire career to have 21,000 So I don't disagree with her her rationale on that. Do I think it completely discredits him? No, because technically he is Taking part in those cases. Is it an exaggeration? Sure, but let's just say for this conversation,

we cut his numbers in half. I was saying to Shannon, our editor, when she was putting the episode together, I've maybe worked at most 500 to 1,000 crime scenes in my entire career. You cut his number in half, he's still at 10,000. Yeah, it's still a lot. Cut it into a third, right?

And he's got a lot of awards, a lot of recognition. And the awards are subjective, right? Like how are they handing them out? But I'm just saying, if you wanna cut his number into thirds or halves, whatever you wanna do. It's still a lot. A lot of experience. It's a lot. And I'm by no means the measuring stick here.

I've never claimed to be, but I think I'm pretty proficient in what I do. And I can tell you, I haven't worked 20,000 cases. I haven't worked 10,000 cases. So it's a lot of cases. And I think this goes back to poking holes in a lot of different things. None of it is just the end all be all.

But just raising questions about the people who are obtaining the evidence allows you to question the evidence itself. When you can't discredit the actual evidence, you have to go after the way it was obtained. This is a common tactic and there's nothing wrong with it. We should question how it was obtained. We want to make sure that the evidence that is being reported was obtained properly because that's just the basics of an investigation and a trial. But I think to say that Kron wasn't equipped to work a case like this by saying he might

have padded his numbers for certain fingerprints he took, it's a wrong approach. Yeah. Once again, a little bit of a stretch. He was clearly very qualified to do this kind of work. So, Denel's document also claims that Kron didn't find any blood on the couch or pillow, but according to the arrest warrant affidavit written by Detective Patterson after speaking with Kron, it says, quote, Although there are quantities of blood throughout the room and around the boys, there was no appreciable blood on the couch where Darley's head neck and shoulders were located at the time

She says she was stabbed by her assailant end quote I also find this very weird There should be a ton of blood there a ton of blood there on that couch on those pillows where she said her head was laying when she was Stabbed slash whatever there should be a ton that she doesn't remember I have like five or six points that I'm gonna bring up at the conclusion of this episode This will be one of them But it's the it's the reasons why I came to the conclusion I came to but yes

This is one of them for sure should have been more blood the document also claims quote Cron also felt that the glass on top of the bloody footprint was indication of staging the blood did not transfer to the glass Indicating the blood was dry when the glass ended up there. Also, proof of contamination of the crime scene. The glass was likely knocked over after first responders and family left the house. Neither Darley nor Darren nor any police reported seeing broken glass." End quote. Yes. Kron did testify that the glass didn't have blood on it. But the rest of this argument doesn't hold up. Wedel, the first officer on the scene, wrote in his report that he saw broken glass in the kitchen. And even more notably, in her own written statement,

Darley said, quote, "'I walked after the intruder and heard glass breaking,' end quote. Then at Darley's bond hearing, Darren testified and he said, quote, "'The first thing that woke me up was the sound of glass breaking, followed by Darley screaming,' end quote.

So not only was the glass observed and documented, but both Darley and Darren acknowledged hearing it break that night, directly contradicting the claim that no one saw or mentioned it. It seems like everybody kind of saw and mentioned it. Yeah, she was going after the blood being dried and not transferring over to the glass.

I think, again, this is another point, the glass being broken when it was broken. It's contradictory of being broken before Darley comes back to the room. I don't see it aligning to me the way the glass, what Darren hears and what Darley conveys to us through her own statement, the glass was broken after the attacker had already left the apartment or left the house. Why would that happen? If it wasn't when the first responders did it and it wasn't when the intruder did it, it was somewhere in between, so who was the only person that could have broken that

glass? Just, do you do the math? Danelle herself admitted that, oh, I don't think it was broken when first responders got there. Darren saying he heard it break upstairs. Yes, that's what woke him up, yeah. Right, Darlie saying that it broke when the intruder was going out of the room. Well, if there was no intruder, who else could have broken it? And why would they break it? To me, Darlie would have broken it to wake up Darren.

And that's why I said during our episodes, it's more than likely that Darren wasn't involved because that glass breaking, to me, is an indication of Darlie trying to convey a narrative to Darren as well, so that when he comes downstairs He's now part of this nightmare as well And we've also talked about Darley's story where she said the glass broke as the intruder was fleeing and that's what woke Darren up But then she has all these other things happen before Darren even gets down there

Which doesn't make any sense if Darren Darren said he heard the glass break heard her screaming he threw his pants on he ran down there he's down there in one to two minutes but in Darley's version of events she's walking through the kitchen she's finding a knife she's picking it up she's coming back she's looking and this is and then he comes down and that doesn't make any sense in the version of the timeline it doesn't so Danel's, quote, forensic analysis conclusively proved the fingerprint on the coffee table does not match Darlie or either of her sons. Three separate forensic experts, including one from the FBI, all agreed that it was not from anyone from the crime scene. End quote. Like we talked about earlier, Richard Jantz, professor of anthropology,

not a fingerprint expert, was one of the experts hired by the defense. And Jantz concluded the print was more likely to belong to an adult than a child, but that's not the same as excluding Darley or anyone else. Then there's Robert Lohenz, who was hired by ABC for a media segment. He reviewed the coffee table fingerprint and said they did not belong to Darley. However, he made no statement about the boys or anyone else involved in the case. And once again, this is somebody who's probably reviewing a photograph of the fingerprint, not an actual slide, not, you know, actually seeing it with your eyes.

I don't know how accurate that can be when you're looking at a photograph of a fingerprint. It can be enhanced. It might not be exactly what you have there. We do sometimes use photographs as comparisons, you know, to make our analysis, so there's nothing wrong with that. But yeah, there's a lot of... But that's the only thing you have. No, yeah.

There's a lot of variables that go into a fingerprint. How would you, like, kind of figure out what the scale was? I don't know. It would be difficult. They do. They should put a scale next to it. I talk about this on Detective Perspective. I actually have my little fingerprint scale stickers that we...

If we see a print on the table or on the wall, you peel it off and it's like a little measuring stick right there that you take the photo with. So they should have done all that. It can be done, experts use photographs all the time to make comparisons, they'll blow them up, they'll put them next to the actual fingerprint, they'll compare that to the print taken after the fact

and show the points of reference, show the type of fingerprint, show the waves, show the whirls, show the arch, whatever show the waves show the whirls show the arch Whatever you have there, and then they'll make the different markers to say here's a Delta Here's a Delta this print has two deltas this one had one Delta They find those markings to get up to those 10 to 15 points of making that match So it's possible, but this whole this print to me If there was something here

We would we it would have been more impactful at trial and it wasn't. And a lot of people in our comments who have done a lot of research on this case were writing narratives about this fingerprint and how it's not necessarily a smoking gun. It may in fact belong to one of the kids or it could belong to Darren or it could belong to Darlie or it could belong to one of the first responders who were covered in blood while working on the boys and touched the table to get themselves up off the ground or whatever. And that's how, that's how the print got there.

There's a lot of explanations for it. Now, the fact that it's been quote unquote, excluded from everyone. That's where I have questions. Was it actually excluded from everybody was there. It's all about chain of custody documentation of who who was at the crime scene was everybody printed properly. What were those comparisons made? What's more interesting to me is the blood right? We know that it wasn't a female I believe it wasn't a females DNA based on those results But that doesn't rule out that it could have been Darren or it could have been one of the boys.

So if I had to guess as I'm sitting here right now, I would lean towards it being one of the boys. Maybe a smudged print or a print that was pressed on that made it look bigger than it was. I know Danelle said that wasn't possible. I would like to see an expert tell me that. Yeah, I agree. An expert that wasn't hired by the defense.

Not hired by defense and someone who could shed more light on it, but I would still lean towards it being one of the boys, which may have been a tough comparison because as you said, they were exhumed. There was probably a lot of decomposition that took place. Maybe they weren't able to get a great print to compare it to. And that's why they weren't able to definitively say it was one of them but that's where my gut goes. I agree. I think it's just too much of a reach and it's just like they're just trying to find holes anywhere they could be and this just isn't... There's not a lot here. It's not concrete enough. Yeah. It's not here. To make a quick comparison

to Karen Reed, think about the differences in what we have. There's a lot there that suggests Karen didn't do it, right? There's a lot of evidence you can point to to go, hey, I get it. I get it. This is not that case. This is not that case to me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, reviewed photos of the prints, Jantz's reports, and excerpts from Darley's writ of habeas corpus. And he testified that the Jantz report was misrepresented by the defense and that it drew unreliable conclusions. For instance, the defense claimed Jantz concluded the print belonged to an adult, not a child, but Jantz never actually said that. He also concluded that Jantz was not a fingerprint expert expert, he's an anthropologist, and he did not use points

of identification to make his determination, which at that point, I don't even know why we're listening to anything he says. I mean, we had a forensic anthropologist tell us Preble Penny was a woman for 60 years, and they were looking for a lost woman for 60 years and come to find out it was Albert Frost, a man. So there's just one prime example of someone working in a field that they're not outside their

scope. Yeah. And listen, I give great respect to anthropologists. Of course, smarter than I am, sure. I love anthropologists. They're so good at what they do, but not this, not this. That would be like a plumber trying to do an electrical job. So Wertham compared the latent prints to those of Darley, Darren, first responders, and others known to be at the scene. Everyone was excluded except Darley, who could be neither conclusively excluded nor definitely matched. And there's more.

You brought this up. According to STR testing results, DNA from the fingerprint swab was inconclusive. And why STR testing, which isolates malDNA, was was inconclusive, and why STR testing, which isolates male DNA, was also inconclusive. Lastly, the fingerprint images were run through APHIS, but no match was found. So, Denell's document says Darlie couldn't have planted the sock because her Reebok shoes were by the door,

and she was barefoot. Darlie's feet had no debris consistent with running barefoot outside, and unknown DNA was found on a sock related to the case. So the DNA on the sock does appear to remain unmatched. In 2015, STR testing was inconclusive, but a partial YSTR profile was obtained. Darren could not be excluded as the contributor to that YSTR profile. And as for being barefoot, I really don't understand the argument here.

Am I missing something? Because she could have had her shoes on and then took them off when she got home. I didn't go into this too much because I did see that in there I thought there was more critical things the big thing that she corrected me on which I'm glad she did was that Damon and Devon's blood was on that sock which when I give my final thoughts that's gonna be part of my part of what I have to talk about. Yeah but I don't think that Darlie's shoes being by the door would mean that she hadn't run barefoot. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure she didn't run barefoot down the road.

She probably put her shoes on and then when she got home, she took them back off. I think it's I think it's more important to me that there is some DNA on there that's not identified, which could be explained a lot of ways. Not everyone loved my the person who packaged the sock that could have done it There's a lot of people who could have touched that sock cleaners nannies you name it Anybody could have touched it that DNA could belong to a lot of people I know it's male DNA, which does raise some more questions, but I don't know the life of that sock Could have been one of Darren's friends

I mean apparently the sock may have been in like a Pile that was used for dusting and stuff. Once again, the cleaning lady could have used it, could have gotten mixed up with some cleaning products she had in her kit from a previous home, anything could have happened. When we talked about the knife, those cross-contamination things that she talked about as far as the knife and the having the filings on it from the window screen, she had said that maybe it was cross-contamination. Well, why couldn't the same be applied here?

If it works in that scenario, it has to work here as well, even when it doesn't help your case. Well, kind of the same with the errors in the transcript, right? Right. So, Danel also wrote, quote, "'It is believed the sock was forcibly placed in Darlie's mouth, causing the cuts and abrasions

inside her mouth,' end quote. Well, first of all, I don't know how rough a sock would have to be to cause cuts and abrasions inside your mouth, but that's also not what Darlie said at trial. She testified that she thought the injuries inside her mouth came from the man's hand. And it wasn't until 2008 during a request for new DNA testing that she introduced the idea that the sock may have been shoved into her mouth. And that's when she asked for saliva testing to be done, claiming it hadn't been done before. We've also seen some comments about Darlie possibly being chloroform. We couldn't find any mention of chloroform on the main Darlie is Innocent sites.

We asked and now about it. Danielle didn't seem that high on that either as far as like, oh, this is a thing. Yeah, she was like, I've never really heard that. That's not something that we believe or that we put for it. She was too convinced of that either. She said it's possible. But again, probable. Yeah, unlikely. It doesn't even seem like this is something that they're actively working with this. I agree.

She was kind of she didn't really care for it. It's nowhere in court filings, nowhere from Darley's legal team, nothing. And from what we can tell, her team has continued to support the theory that the sock was used to injure or silence her, not to chloroform her. So Donell's document also brings up the memorial service and the silly string incident. If you recall, from part 3 on June 14th, a graveside prayer service was held for Devon and Damon on what would have been Devon's seventh birthday. Unbeknownst to the family, two detectives, Patterson and Froesch, had placed a hidden

microphone nearby to record what was said They didn't have a warrant to do this in addition to the hidden microphone. The media was also there recording everything which I Think it's funny that they would have an issue with the police recording everything without their you know Consent or knowledge when they invited the media to film everything that happened. Like, what's the difference in just having one more microphone there when you've got a ton? Yeah, and we didn't really discuss this with Danelle.

For me, optically, it doesn't look great, but I think it's open to the person viewing it. We know the jury wanted to look at it multiple times. They clearly didn't like it. But for me, with so much to talk about with Danelle, I wanted to focus on the evidence. They wanted to look at it multiple times. They clearly didn't like it. But for me, with so much to talk about with Denell, I wanted to focus on the evidence. They wanted to look at the silly string video, but not necessarily the audio that was recorded by the police,

because Denell's document claims the full graveside audio was excluded from trial because it was illegally obtained. The document also claimed that Patterson and Frosch refused to testify under oath, suggesting possible misconduct or withheld information. Specifically, the document says, Patterson began testifying but abruptly invoked the Fifth Amendment, halting further questioning. However, court transcripts show that before the trial, the defense accused the detectives of acting illegally when they placed the microphone at the cemetery. As a result, the detectives hired attorneys and those attorneys advised them to invoke the fifth when asked about the legality of the

recording. The judge reviewed the issue and ruled that the detectives could not be questioned about the graveside monitoring, but only that part. They could still be questioned about other aspects of the investigation. Then the defense brought up that they had video of the memorial. Then the defense brought up that they had video of the memorial. The prosecutor told the judge that they had no objection to the video footage being entered into evidence, but despite that the defense chose not to introduce it at trial. So the video wasn't excluded. The defense simply didn't use it. And the claim that Detective Patterson abruptly invoked the

fifth isn't accurate either. He gave more than 65 pages of testimony before choosing to do so. So also, after Darley's trial, the secret microphone recording was found to be legal. Darley's mother and Darren had filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Rowlett, Patterson, Frosch, and the assistant district attorney. They claimed the recording was an invasion of privacy and a violation of search and seizure laws But the court ruled against them stating there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public cemetery Yeah, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a lawyer, but that I knew this one was gonna get through As a narcotics detective we would take the trash From targets houses when as soon as they put it on the sidewalk and we would take it and once it's on in that public

Area, it's free rein. And we would take it, and once it's in that public area, it's free rein. You can film anybody or anything in public. Oh yeah, we see it all the time online now. All the time, right? Yeah, you don't need consent. And plus, this was a public ceremony that Darlie invited the media to.

Yep, yep, you got no argument. And you can't even argue, I wanted this to be a private family thing when you invited the media, so yeah. Now the final point of innocence I wanna bring up from Denelle's document is the silly string video. She claims the video was biased and should never have been allowed into evidence. She said it gave the jury a one-sided misleading impression of Darley's behavior and heavily influenced their perception.

Denelle also states that Darley didn't invite the media to the memorial or party, but according to both media reports and court documents, Darley didn't invite the media to the memorial or party, but, according to both media reports and court documents, Darley did invite the press to the June 14th prayer service and birthday celebration. As we know, she and Darren willingly and openly spoke to the media on camera that day, which did not help their case. Nothing they said that day, nothing they did that day, helped their case. So it's not surprising that the judge ruled that the silly string video was admissible.

This kind of character evidence is routinely allowed in criminal trials. I mean, we have people's journals and diaries being used, text messages, you know, things that people never expected to be in the public will be used during a trial, anything and everything. So it's not something that I think would have really pushed the jury one way or the other. Yes, they did wanna see it a lot. Yes, I think we all were disturbed by it.

I was more disturbed by Darlie and Darren's words during their interview and their demeanor during their interview that they willingly gave the media than I was by the silly string video. But that's just personally for me. And it is worth noting that the defense had brought up introducing the earlier portion of the video footage, which showed a more somber memorial.

So it's hard to argue that one part of the video was fair for the jury to see, while the other part was somehow prejudicial. And the thing is, the silly string video wasn't the only no remorse incident that the jury heard about. During the sentencing phase, a neighbor named Nelda, who lived across the street from the Routiers, testified about something she witnessed on the morning of June 18th, just four days after the

cemetery footage. She said the Routiers front yard had become a memorial, filled with wreaths, stuffed animals, and flags arranged around the fountain, remember? The fountain that they had to have in their front yard. And she said that morning she looked outside and saw Darren and Darlie playing catch with the stuffed animals. Nelda said, quote, Darren would take a stuffed animal off one of the wreaths and toss it over to Darlie.

She would jump up and catch it, then she would toss it back to him. He would chuck it towards the vehicle. The back end of the vehicle was open and he threw it in. She would jump up and cheer." End quote. What do you make of that? I don't like it.

I don't focus on this stuff too much because everyone reacts to trauma differently. I've seen shootings in my own city where I worked where a few days after it's more of a celebration than a mourning period where they're doing a cookout or whatever to celebrate someone's life especially with the gang members you see this a lot so listen I don't put too much weight on it for me it's about the evidence which we're gonna be getting into very soon now Darren was asked about this and he would

later testify that it wasn't Darley that was seen doing this with him he said it was Darley's younger sister Dana and they were just cleaning up the items. But I mean, I still have an issue with it, whether it was Darley or Dana, why are you cleaning up the items already? It hasn't been that long. There's people bringing stuffed animals to do as a memorial for your children.

Like, were you just overseeing the stuffed animals around the fountain and you were like, hey, let's go play catch with them and throw them in the truck. And then what did you do with them and throw them in the truck. And then what did you do with them? Throw them out? I don't know. It just seems a little disrespectful.

It seems a little bit like, Hey, we really just want to move on from this and forget it ever happened kind of thing. And also Darren does have a long history of lying to protect Darlie. And so I'm not sure we can trust him entirely when he says it's Dana, because the neighbor, Nelda, did identify this person as Darlie. But let's give our final thoughts, and then we'll officially finish up this seven part series. You go first, ladies first, I usually go first.

I'll let you go for it, and then we'll wrap it up. I don't have a lot to say. I mean, I give my opinion often throughout these videos. I think she did it. I don't think that there's any other scenario. Just her constantly changing stories. The timeline doesn't't make sense the things she said she was doing picking up the knife The knife that cut the screen being placed back in the the butcher block on the counter Who would cut the screen and then come back and put the knife back before escaping?

Oh, how did this person leave through the window without disturbing the dust or leaving any fingerprints or leaving any blood or leaving any sign that somebody had gone through the window? It does look like a stage scene. It does seem like a stage scene to me. And why would it be a stage scene if the crime had not been committed by somebody in that house? Now if you ask me is it Darley or Darren, I would still say Darley. I'm sorry. I think Darren, you know, because I like Danelle, I admire her passion, I admire her hard work, I admire her loyalty. I think she's a good person with good intentions and I don't wanna be sitting up here after having a long conversation with her and getting to know her last week and being like,

yep, I still think your sister is very guilty, but that is how I feel. And I hope that if Darley's not guilty That her team and Denelle and all the people that are working for her do find that evidence and put it forth and so we can all Lay this to rest once and for all yeah for me. It's not one specific thing It's a variety of things that tell us a story and I'm not gonna elaborate on on these individual points too much because we've beaten them to death over the last seven parts, but here here's where here's where my Opinion comes from these are the big headliners for me and there may be more but these are the ones that stand up to me

as far as part seven the Inconsistencies with the injuries Darley compared to Damon and Devon. Talked about it seven or eight times already. It's not consistent. Either it was two different offenders or Darlie stabbed her sons and then she stabbed herself. The second would be the no memory lack of blood. So some people pushed back on me in the comments saying that I didn't understand what Danelle was saying. And what Danelle was saying was she might have been awake for her being attacked, but just not remembered it or blacked it out psychologically

I don't believe that I know it does happen, but I don't believe that was the case here She had such a vivid memory afterwards. It usually would take a look the fact that she remembers everything but that is Convenient in my opinion, but let's just say for the sake of this conversation. I do believe her in my opinion, but let's just say for the sake of this conversation, I do believe her. It still doesn't explain how her throat was slashed and yet there's very to little blood on the couch. So even if she didn't remember it happening, there would still be forensic evidence to support it. So not only do you not have a recollection of it, but you also don't have the evidence.

To me, that says she wasn't attacked on the couch. That's my opinion. The fibers on the knife. I know that Danelle put forward some doubt with that and how it could be explained as far as cross contamination. This in and of itself would not be a smoking gun, but on top of everything else, I think it also tells a story that the same knife

used to cut the window was the knife used that was found in the butcher block. The broken glass, the broken glass, it aligns with what Darren said. It doesn't align with what Darley said as far as it being broken as she was pursuing the attacker. It was, it appears to be broken after the attacker had already left, which means that if it wasn't Darren, it could only be Darley.

The knife on the floor, right? There's this impression of a knife on the floor and yet it's back in the butcher block. She said the knife was found near the utility room, the garage, right? There's this impression of a knife on the floor, and yet it's back in the butcher block. She said the knife was found near the utility room, the garage, and yet there's, I believe, a mark on the carpet that shows the knife had maybe been put down at one point and then put in the butcher block. That's inconsistent with what Darlie has said.

I think Danel pushed back and said that the knife impression on the ground wasn't the same as the knife found in the butcher block, I have seen multiple reports that dispute that, that it is exactly the exact same impression of the knife that was found in the butcher block. Then we also have the blood from one of her boys found on Darlie's shirt.

Cast off, not cast off, how it got there, I'm not gonna lie to you guys, I can't explain it, but the fact that her son's blood is on the back of her shirt, in totality with everything else, not great. And then there's the sock. I Concede that the sock is a question mark for me But I actually think the fact that Devin and Damon's blood is on that sock, but not hers when she was Slashed or stabbed just around the same time of them is extremely telling and what do I mean by that?

Well based on all of those facts, here's what I think happened. I'm not gonna get into the why because we can't rationalize the irrational. I'm just gonna talk about the evidence, what I think happened. I can't tell you why she did it. Only Darlie knows that, okay?

What I think happened is Darlie's downstairs. She stabs Damon and Devin. At that point, she takes the sock, she cuts the screen, she runs down the street. Now that the blood from Damon and Devin is on the sock, she throws it down the road to show a red herring, to put something out there that may suggest this whole fleeing attacker theory is viable.

She comes back to the house, you know, she picks up the knife, she's considering what she's going to do. She realizes she has to have some injuries as well. She's standing over the sink and she cuts herself multiple times, immediately puts the knife back in the butcher block, then breaks the glass. And at that point, Darren comes downstairs and joins this story. And from there you have whatever you have. But, um, that's what I think makes the most sense. I challenge everyone who's, who's coming

from an objective perspective to look at that and compare it to the evidence and say that's not the most probable scenario based on the evidence. That's where I fall on it. I respect the hell out of the now. I said it to her face when we were recording. I believe she believes what she's saying. And I do acknowledge that some of the things she pointed out Do raise questions, but not to the level of reasonable doubt and I'm not even talking about a trial I'm not even talking about getting to that level I'm talking about what I personally believe and what I personally believe is that Darley killed her two sons. It's it's unfortunate Yeah, but it's it's what I believe and I listened to everything you said, I did my own research, I listened to you guys

in the comments as well, and to me this case is pretty clear-cut if we're being honest. This isn't something that I'm on the fence about. I'm not on the fence about it either. I mean, I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I just can't see a motive that anybody would have to do this. I don't think that the defense and Darley's arguments are strong enough to even sort of kind of pull me in that direction. And the prosecution and the state and law enforcement's case

were so strong. Yeah. The only final thing I'll say, and I stand by this with Scott Peterson as well, although I believe this, and I think it's pretty, the evidence is pretty overwhelming, because there's just that little bit of doubt, I can't say with 100% certainty, I don't think the death penalty should be in play here. I know that she's, is's still currently on death row. I Don't know but either way probably not. I hope she is so many appeals I hope she is because any case and I firmly believe this I'm not against the death penalty

But unless we know with 100% certainty ie a video a confession whatever it might be You can't be killing people. You can't do it. You have to know with 100% certainty. So the fact that I'm saying I'm not 100% certain, to me that would be enough to take the death penalty off the table. I believe she is still on death row. And I don't agree with that.

But I mean, they wouldn't do anything because she's got so many appeals. Right, and I hope she serves the rest of her time, her life in prison, but I don't think she should be killed. Now they did say that if, I believe that they said, it would be, her death penalty sentence would be commuted to life in prison if she confessed. Yeah.

That she had killed her two sons, but she refuses to do that every single time. I mean, no matter where you land after hearing the story, I think we can obviously all agree on one thing. The murders of Damon and Devon Routier were a devastating tragedy. Those two little boys did not deserve to be brutally attacked in the one place they should have been safe

as their own home, laying next to their own mother. And no matter who you believe is responsible, the fact remains that two families have spent nearly 30 years without Devon and Damon. They've missed birthdays and graduations, holidays and everyday moments. Their absence has been felt in every corner of the lives they left behind and everyone involved in this case has been changed forever. All because someone brutally stabbed two sleeping children. And we also have a young man now who was a baby at the time. And yeah, he never got to even, you know, he met his two older brothers, but he was a baby.

He would have no memory. He never got to know who they were. And really, he never even got to know his mother either. Positive news, he's apparently doing great. Yeah, I hope so. And I've been talking to Danelle, and by the way, with Danelle, we're still texting, and she said there's been some developments

And I told her right in a text message. She has it to screen save I said listen if there's something that happens in that case where It's critical to this investigation and it changes people's minds will absolutely cover it. Mm-hmm We're not this prosecution. We have no skin in the game So if that if that comes to fruition will be the first ones letting you guys know about it Yeah, absolutely, and we will comes to fruition, we'll be the first ones letting you guys know about it. Yeah, absolutely. And we will keep you updated and we'll keep, you know, any anything that pops up in here, we will talk about.

Listen, this was a great series. Great job with it. I thought the story was told well. I think we all the comments that we've been getting on this video and also on the audio. Thank you so much. We really try to step it up each and every time we cover a case like this. This was something different for us. We hope we can do it again in the future. We love the feedback, both the positive and the negative, and we're always trying to do the best we can for you guys.

And we're trying to be different, and we're trying to be innovative in a way where we're telling these stories from an investigative perspective, but also from a storytelling perspective. So you're getting both sides of it. And I think Danelle was critical to that. And we appreciate her so much for coming on.

But yeah, we're gonna wrap the series up seven parts, more than we expected. And we appreciate you guys coming along for the ride. We'll be back next week with a new series. We're still talking about it. We have some ideas. We're gonna change it up, Maybe something a little bit more, I guess I would use this word carefully, but light.

It's not light at all. To me, it's not light at all. Yeah. Based on what you're considering, it's not light. So it's probably the wrong choice of words, but the children in this one, the way it happened, I think is what's the worst part for me. Cause you think about it, they were awakened aware of what was going on, which is, um, just something I never want to think about again, if I don't have to. But seriously, as always, we appreciate you guys being with us from the beginning to the end for the whole

almost 14 hours of coverage we've done on this case. We can't thank you guys enough. Everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you next week. Bye.