Mother Who Said Intruder Killed Sons Is Now Charged

A woman who said an intruder with a knife wounded her and killed her two young sons in their home has been charged with committing the stabbings herself.

Darlie Routier had told police that an intruder came through a window two weeks ago and stabbed 6-year-old Devon and 5-year-old Damon while they slept in the living room, then stabbed her before fleeing.

She said the attacker was a white man who wore dark clothes and a baseball cap.

Police say he never existed.

News reports quoting unidentified sources have said blood evidence showed Routier was stabbed in the kitchen, not in the living room as she told police, and that the only bloody footprints in the house were hers.

Reports also said investigators found a knife in the kitchen with metal fragments on it that matched a cut window screen where she said the attacker came in.

The 26-year-old homemaker spent two days in the hospital recovering from the wounds police now say were self-inflicted.

At the time of the killings, her husband, Darin Routier, was sleeping upstairs with the couple’s 8-month-old son. He is not a suspect, but the investigation is continuing, police said.

Darlie Routier was arrested late Tuesday and is being held on $500,000 bail, charged with murder in the June 6 slayings. She could face the death penalty if convicted.

Only last Friday, she sprayed Silly String and clutched her sons’ photograph while family members sang “Happy Birthday” at a graveside party for one of the boys.

The allegations bear some resemblance to the case of Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman convicted last year of murdering her 3-year-old and 14-month-old sons. Before confessing to rolling her car into a lake with the boys inside in October 1994, she claimed that a carjacker had abducted the boys.

Authorities would not comment on a possible motive in the Routier case or on reports that the family had been in financial trouble and took out life insurance policies on the sons.

But Routier’s mother, Darlie Kee, said the couple had $5,000 policies on the boys, “barely enough to bury the babies.”