“This dude is straight up nuts” — text from Kyle to Littlefield at the gun range.
Via Buzzfeed:
The trial against Eddie Ray Routh began in Texas on Wednesday, with the prosecutor claiming in his opening statement that Routh drank whiskey and smoked pot before opening fire on “American Sniper” Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield at a gun range two years ago.
Routh, 27-years-old and a former marine with a history of suffering from PTSD, then allegedly stole Kyle’s car and drove to his sister’s house, where he confessed to the murders saying that he had to shoot them because “he couldn’t trust them, so he killed them before they could kill him,” Erath County District Attorney Alan Nash said.
Kyle was the author of the 2012 memoir American Sniper, which was turned into a massively successful 2014 film of the same name.
“The evidence will show that mental illnesses, even the ones that this defendant may or may not have, don’t deprive people from being good citizens, to know right from wrong,” Nash told jurors.
Routh allegedly shot Kyle five times, and shot Littlefield four times in the back, Nash said.
If Routh is found guilty he faces life in prison.
“When he took their lives, he was in the grip of a psychosis, a psychosis so severe that he did not know what he was doing was wrong,” said Moore, adding that Routh was convinced “that he had to take their lives because, in his psychosis, he thought they were going to take his,” Moor said.