2: A Deranged Murderous Mom or Wrongfully Convicted? | Darlie Routier

On June 6, 1996, a frantic 911 call shattered the quiet of a Texas suburb. Darlie Routier, a young mother, pleaded for help after a brutal attack in her home that left her family forever changed. But as the investigation unfolded, suspicion began to turn– and what followed became one of the most controversial and hotly debated cases in American true crime. Nearly three decades later, questions still linger: was Darlie a calculating killer, or a mother caught in a nightmare she couldn’t escape? If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise Check out the full sources referenced in this episode: Crime Weekly’s Full Interview with Danelle Fugate Dateline Purgatory: Examining the Case That Sentenced Darlie Routier to Death by Kathy Cruz 🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms🚩 Announcements Want to catch Annie LIVE on tour? 🎟 Grab your tickets now for a city near you! &Merch is officially HERE!🛒 Don't miss out before your faves sell out!📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [email protected]••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

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• 1:27Annie Elise?

  Hey everyone and welcome to one of your first ever 10 to Life podcast episodes. And this one in particular is the first of many upcoming reopened episodes, which a little housekeeping here. This episode is one of two episodes that is dropping in your new 10 to Life podcast feed. There is another episode in your feed right now that is a brand new case that we have never discussed that you can go and binge right after this one. And here's how things are gonna go. Every other week, whether you're listening to 10 to Life as a podcast or watching it on YouTube, you will get a never heard before or seen before episode. Now on the opposite weeks, we're gonna do something a little different here. We are going to re-

• 2:10Annie Elise?

  Open some of our top episodes from our massive back catalog, but we're going to bring them to you with a new twist. So I don't want you thinking we're just dropping some old episodes in your feed. Certainly not. No, no, no, no, no. We are hand selecting the best of 10 to life. And with those, we are also going to be integrating new updates, new interviews, new takes, and maybe even some new opinions that I have all this time later. So whether you're listening as a podcast or watching this on YouTube right now, wherever you are, take a quick second and make sure you hit the follow button on your podcast app or the subscribe button on your YouTube app, because that is the only way that you will be the first to know every single week when our new episodes go live.

• 2:53Annie Elise?

  Now for our first reopened case, I am bringing you a doozy. Like at the time, it blew my mind and it was one of the wildest cases that I had ever looked into, but it's only gotten more insane over time. So today we are reopening one of the most controversial cases out there and one of the most divided cases in true crime history. And it's the case of Darlie Routier. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of chaos in your own home. Your children bleeding, a knife on the floor and your own throat cut. You call 911, you beg for help, but before the sun comes up, suspicion has already turned toward you.

• 3:36Annie Elise?

  That is exactly what happened in June of 1996 inside a very quiet Dallas suburb. Two little boys were murdered, their mother stabbed. And within weeks, that same mother Darlie was arrested and charged with killing her own children. When we first covered Darlie back in 2023, that video became one of our most popular episodes ever. And at the time, I'll be honest, I think it was pretty clear where I stood. But since then, new details have come out, new perspectives have been shared. And honestly, some of it is pretty convincing. So in this episode, you'll not only hear the facts that we had laid out originally, but also the other side of it. The perspective of those who believe that Darlie is innocent.

• 4:20Annie Elise?

  And there are a lot of them with reasons that they all say point to a wrongful conviction. So is there an innocent woman on death row right now? And if Darlie didn't do it, then who did? And why? Almost 30 years later, and this case still divides people. Was Darlie a cold-blooded killer who staged the scene to cover her tracks? Or a mother caught in the most unthinkable nightmare, losing her children, and then being blamed for it? I'm Annie Lys, and this is 10 to Life. Let's jump right in.

• 5:07Annie Elise?

  Darlie Routier was born in Pennsylvania. Her parents divorced, and she moved to Lubbock, Texas with her mom and stepdad. During high school, Darlie was a cheerleader and was never shy about being proud of her looks. Darlie was 15 when she met her husband Darren at a restaurant that they were both working at. They were high school sweethearts, who dated for several years and finally married in 1988. They later settled in the Dallas area, where Darren had a business testing circuit boards. The couple had their first son Devon a year after they married in 1989. They welcomed a second son, Damon, in 1991. Devon and Damon were very close, but also had very different personalities.

• 5:49Annie Elise?

  Devon was their little ninja stuntman, never afraid of anything. And Damon was a little bit more reserved and super cuddly and cautious. Darren worked very hard on his business, and just five years after starting the company, it became wildly successful and came with a significant influx of cash. With this money, Darlie and Darren bought a home in a fluent suburb of Dallas back in the 90s, Rolet, Texas. Now Devon and Damon thought that this house looked just like the house in Home Alone, and they used to pretend that it was. This was their dream home, and they spared no expense to make it exactly how they wanted. They added new marble countertops, $12,000 drapes in the living room,

• 6:33Annie Elise?

  a $600 fountain for their yard, and even a $9,000 redwood spa. Remember, these were the prices of the items in the mid 90s. So this was a big deal to them and a lot of money to shell out. I mean, let's talk about inflation for a second. It would be a lot more money for those exact same things today. But they knew that they could afford it and they had that influx of cash. So why not, right? Now Darlie loved Darren and it seemed like Darren loved Darlie right back. She was bleach blonde, super into her looks. People definitely noticed too. I mean, she was beautiful and she knew it as well as everybody else. And Darlie really leaned into that trophy wife role. And honestly, she seemed to enjoy it. She loved the luxurious lifestyle that Darren was able to provide.

• 7:18Annie Elise?

  And she was someone who was portrayed as somebody who spent their money on jewelry, designer clothes, fur coats, cashmere sweaters, even a breast augmentation. And look, I'm not hating. You do you. Spend your money however you want. But I am trying to paint the picture of how Darlie was seen, or at least how it was made to really look from the outside. Now, the couple loved their boys and loved spoiling them as well. They spoiled them with all the latest and greatest new toys, games, you name it. Darlie and Darren had new cars, a new boat, the works. Although Darlie and Darren were known for flaunting their wealth, they were also really generous and well-liked by their neighbors.

• 7:57Annie Elise?

  Darlie had the reputation of being the kind of housewife who would bake cookies for everyone and let the neighborhood kids come over to play and just be the perfect, traditional, lovely mother. And as cliché as that sounds, it was all true. Darren and Darlie even paid a neighbor's mortgage when he was struggling with cancer. They seemed to be a perfect couple, living the perfect life with the perfect children and the perfect cookie cutter neighborhood. But things started to shift. In 1995, Darren's business wasn't quite doing as well as it was in the past. The company was operating at a loss and eventually they ran out of money. By June of that year, Darlie and Darren were facing major financial ruin.

• 8:39Annie Elise?

  They were extremely behind on their mortgage. They racked up thousands of dollars in credit card debt and even their own bank was beginning to deny them any more loans. Darren wasn't proud that this was the situation that he had put his family in, and he wanted to improve it. But this wasn't easy for Darlie. Being broke really took a toll on her. She hated it. Life felt miserable and, at times, not even worth living. Her mental health drastically declined and she battled depression for most of 1995. However, Darlie and Darren welcomed their third son, despite all of this, their son Drake, at the end of 1995. In May of 1996, just a few months after their third son was born, Darlie wrote a tragic note in her diary, reading,

• 9:24Annie Elise?

  "Devon, Damon, and Drake, I hope that one day you will forgive me for what I am about to do. My life has been such a hard fight for a long time and I just cannot find the strength to keep fighting anymore. I love you three more than anything else in this world and I want all three of you to be healthy and happy. I don't want you to see a miserable person every time you look at me. Your dad loves you all very much and I know in my heart he will take care of my babies. Please do not hate me or think in any way that this is your fault. It's just that I..." And then it completely cuts off. Now, this note wasn't known to anyone at the time, obviously, since it was in her diary. But thankfully, Darlie didn't take it any further.

• 10:07Annie Elise?

  One month later, in June of 1996, Darlie appeared to be doing a little bit better. On June 6th, Darlie and her two older boys, Damon and Devon, decided to have a fun movie night-type sleepover in the living room. Darren and their youngest son Drake slept upstairs in the master bedroom so that Darlie could enjoy time with her older boys. The boys set up a little pallet on the living room floor and Darlie settled in on the couch. Eventually, Darlie, Damon, and Devon drifted off to sleep in their living room during the sleepover. At 2:31 a.m., the police received a frantic and horrifying call from Darlie. Now, I'm about to play you some moments from that 911 call while also summarizing other parts along the way.

• 10:50Annie Elise?

  We did have to edit this audio for time and clarity, but none of the context has been changed. So if you'd like to follow along with the captions, the video version of this episode is up on YouTube right now. And if you want the extended 911 call, that is in the original video episode, which I will have linked in the show notes. But take a listen.

• 11:16Speaker 04

  Stabbed me and my children. What? They just stabbed me and my children.

• 11:21Annie Elise?

  Darley says that she and her children have been stabbed and that they need an ambulance. They need police, they need everything.

• 11:27Speaker 04

  Damn, I'm trying to get an ambulance for you. No, ma'am. I saw my baby, her dad. What's going on, ma'am? She's bleeding, oh my god. Oh, I'm bleeding, I'm dying, oh my god. I don't even know what to do.

• 11:41Annie Elise?

  Darley continues to sound distraught, repeating things like, "Oh my god, they're dead, my babies are dying, and who would do this?" You can then hear Darley seemingly pleading with one of her boys to hold on.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  Hold on, honey, hold on, hold on. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

• 12:03Annie Elise?

  The 911 dispatcher keeps trying to get Darley to calm down and explain what happened. And Darley finally responds saying this.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  Somebody keep me alive, please, I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding, I'm dying. I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying. I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm crying, I'm bleeding, I'm dying, I'm dying. My daddy is dying, he's dead, oh my god.

• 12:30Annie Elise?

  And while it's tough to hear in the audio, there are moments where Darren is screaming in the background, yelling things like, "He's just gushing blood," and "Oh my god, when are they going to get here?" referring to the ambulance. Darley then talks about where she thinks the attacker or attackers went, and she mentions the murder weapon.

• 12:49Speaker 04

  Oh my god, I didn't know what to do, I was bleeding. My baby, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. They left a knife, why? There's a knife, don't touch anything. Oh, I'm dying, I'm dying.

• 13:05Annie Elise?

  Then, the officers finally arrive.

• 13:08Speaker 04

  Hey, listen, ma'am, you need to, you need to let the officers in the front door, okay? What? Ma'am? Oh my god. You need to let the police officers in the front door. Oh, my god, I'm dying. Oh, my hair is already bleeding. Okay, it's all right, it's okay. We got the first baby. Ma'am, hang on, hang on. We walked in here and did it, Darren. We're not the first. Hey, ma'am? We're not the first. Oh my god.

• 13:38Annie Elise?

  So let's continue to break down everything we just heard or summarized that was in that 911 call. So Darlie frantically called the police around 2:30 a.m. that morning, saying that she and her boys had been stabbed. Darlie also mentioned an intruder, but she varied on how many intruders she believed she had seen. At the beginning of the call, Darlie said, "They came here, they broke in."

• 14:02Annie Elise?

  However, later in the call, she said, "Some man came in and stabbed my babies." And she also said, "They're over there by the garage." So was it some man? Was it one man? Was it a group? Is there something to be said about her going back and forth on saying "they" versus "a man"? Was she referring to the man as "they"? Also, Darlie never asked what she should do to help stop the bleeding, or if there was anything that she could do to help one of the boys breathe. Instead, she told the dispatcher about the intruder's weapon, a knife. She mentioned that she had moved it and that she was worried by touching it that she had destroyed any DNA evidence that they may have been able to collect from it.

• 14:47Annie Elise?

  She specifically references the prints that could have been collected off of the knife, which is a very highly unusual statement. On the other hand, I don't think anybody knows how they will act in a situation like that. We can all look back and say what we think we would have done, or what she should have done, but for the sake of the story, let's give her the benefit of the doubt here. Which actually brings me to something that Darlie's half-sister, Donnell Fugate, mentioned in an interview with Crime Weekly in June of 2025. And from here on out, I'll be referencing this interview quite a bit throughout this episode, because even though she's Darlie's sister, she's clearly done her homework on the case, and she brings up some really interesting points. Plus, the conversation itself with Stephanie and Derek was great, so I will link

• 15:31Annie Elise?

  that episode in the show notes if you want to check it out as well. Now, one thing that Donnell points out in this interview is that when she and Darlie were younger, their house had been broken into. And when the police had showed up, they dusted the entire place for fingerprints. So it stuck with them as kids, just, you know, how important that process was. And that's exactly why she thinks that Darlie was so fixated on the knife and her fingerprints at that moment. Now, is that the most compelling argument for me personally? Not really, but it is worth mentioning and taking into account. Officer Waddell was the first one to arrive on the scene and get into the house. The officer described the scene as an absolute bloodbath. Blood was everywhere, on the walls, the kitchen floor, and seeping into the carpet.

• 16:16Annie Elise?

  He saw the two boys on the living room floor in pools of their own blood with deep stab wounds to their chests and back. Officer Waddell described Devin as lying face up, eyes open, and had already passed away. Damon was on the other side of the living room, close to a wall, doing what he called "a slow crawl" and making gurgling noises as he was trying to breathe. When he arrived at the house, he told Darlie multiple times to get a towel and to put pressure on Damon's wounds, but she didn't do it. Of course, my initial reaction to this was this. Tell me what kind of mother would do that. But in her interview for that same documentary, Darlie just flat-out denies Officer Waddell's claim. That's a lie.

• 17:02Annie Elise?

  There's no other words to use. That's a lie. Here's what Darlie's sister, Danelle, had to say about those moments during her interview with Crime Weekly.

• 17:11Speaker 05

  Never once in the 911 call do you hear him instruct her to help her babies. That is not heard anywhere on the 911 call. He says to Darren to get a towel. Darlie had already given him a towel. And if you read it, the way he talks about it and the way the 911 call goes, he says everything he talks about with Darlie is during the 911 call. He does not speak to her again at all. After the 911 call, there is no further communication between Waddell and Darlie. He says that himself. Yet, the 911 call, you can't hear him say any of that. He doesn't ever tell her anything other than "lay down, sit down right here." That's it.

• 17:53Speaker 05

  And if you're telling me to lay down and sit down right here, then how can I help my children?

• 17:58Annie Elise?

  Supporters of Darlie point out that the call and the scene were absolute chaos. Darren was screaming, paramedics and officers were rushing in. So it is possible that Officer Waddell- Waddell believed that he told her to help, but it's maybe just not audible on the record. Now, as for me, even though you don't clearly hear him instruct Darlie to help on that call, it doesn't necessarily mean that he didn't say it. It certainly could have happened off the phone, or maybe been drowned out by the noise. But still, it's an interesting point, and it actually has become a key defense argument. If one of the most damning parts of Officer Waddell's testimony can't be verified on tape, how reliable is the rest of his account?

• 18:44Speaker 06

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• 19:26Annie Elise?

  Damon was rushed to the hospital. Unfortunately, he passed away in the ambulance. Now, if you remember, Darlie said that she was also stabbed. Police saw wounds on her neck and arms, the neck wound that she was holding, and she was rushed to the hospital and needed emergency surgery for the injury on her neck. While Darlie was in the hospital, police were back at the home trying to figure out who did this. They were examining the crime scene and trying to put together what the heck happened here. They were there all night and into the next morning. Once Darlie woke up from surgery, police asked her if she could give her statement as to what happened. She said, "I wake up and I feel a pressure on me. I felt Damon press on my right shoulder and I heard him cry. This made me really come awake and realize that there was a man standing down at my

• 20:11Annie Elise?

  feet, walking away from me. I walked after him and heard glass breaking. I got halfway through the kitchen and turned back around to run and turn on the light. I ran back towards the utility room and realized there was a big, white, handled knife lying on the floor." It was then that I realized I had blood all over me and I grabbed the knife thinking that he was in the garage, so I thought he might still be there and I yelled for Darren. I ran back through the kitchen and realized the entire living area had blood all over everything. I put the knife on the counter and ran into the entrance, turned on the light and started screaming for Darren. I think I screamed twice and he ran out of the bedroom with his jeans on and with no glasses and was yelling, "What is it? What is it?" I remember saying, "He cut them. He tried to kill me, my neck." He ran down

• 20:55Annie Elise?

  the stairs and into the room where the boys were. I grabbed the phone and called 911. She briefly described what the intruder looked like and said he was wearing a baseball cap and a t-shirt, but that was about it. No other physical description was given at all. Darlie's recollection was a major red flag. I will say it was like major red flag number one for the police. They were not buying it. Not only was it odd that she said she only woke up because Damon was pressing her shoulder instead of the fact that she was just stabbed, but her story didn't match the crime scene at all. So the second red flag in this was that both of the boys had sustained deep puncturing wounds, yet Darlie's wounds were not nearly as bad. The surgeon who operated on Darlie told the police that

• 21:40Annie Elise?

  her injuries appeared to be half an inch deep, almost superficial compared to the injuries of her sons. Her other injuries were on her arms, forearms, and hands, along with some bruising. They were long slash-type wounds more than anything else. The medical examiner for Damon and Devon said that their injuries, depth of stab wounds, number of wounds, and placement were far, far worse. Some of the stab wounds were so deep that they nearly passed through the other side of their bodies. It seemed likely to investigators that whoever did this intended on killing the boys, but didn't intend on killing Darlie. Now I want to pause here for a second because this becomes a big point of contention in

• 22:24Annie Elise?

  this case, and for good reason. The difference between Darlie's wounds being called superficial versus life-threatening, I mean, it's massive. And it's exactly where the two sides of this case really clash. See, at Darlie's trial, her own surgeon testified that her injuries appeared superficial. But then you have Dr. Vincent DiMeo, the San Antonio Chief Medical Examiner, who was brought in by the defense, who said that Darlie's neck wound came within 2 millimeters of her carotid artery. And it just wasn't consistent with self-inflicted injuries. And layered onto all of this is the whole necklace saved her life theory. If you've seen death row stories or followed Darlie supporters, you've probably heard this.

• 23:08Annie Elise?

  But it's the claim that the necklace that she was wearing that night was the only thing that kept her alive, just deflecting the knife from cutting that artery. And that the necklace was actually embedded in her throat when she got to the hospital. But according to ER nurse Jody Fitz, who treated Darlie the night of the incident, the necklace was not embedded in her wound. It had slipped free when paramedics removed the bandage. Here's what Darlie's sister, Danelle, had to say about that.

• 23:34Speaker 05

  I'm a registered nurse. And I have really dug into all of the medical side of it. I've dug into the entire case because I'm not going to put my name behind something that I can't verify. So with Darlie's wounds, they very specifically say that the incision on her neck, or the stab wound is what it's called in all of the medical records. That was actually through the platysmus muscle, which is a very thin muscle that goes across your neck, kind of helps with the control of your neck. It covers a lot of very important vital organs that, or vital structures that without, we would die. It did dissect through that platysmus muscle. That is the definition of a deep wound.

• 24:18Speaker 05

  If the platysmus muscle is breached, it makes it a deep wound to the neck. They sewed it back together. Also significant is the fact that there was a defect noted to the carotid sheath. So that carotid sheath is about 2 millimeters thick. And that's what covers your jugular vein, your carotid artery, some bundles of nerves. And that was, that was actually, it had a defect in it per those surgeons. And really, those are the only people that saw her wounds prior to them being patched back up. Had Darlie had not been wearing that necklace, it's very likely that it would have gone that additional 2 millimeters and she would have bled to death before the 911 call was over.

• 25:04Annie Elise?

  There is a lot of back and forth. Some people believe that Darlie's injuries were self-inflicted, all to make it look like she was attacked. Others think that she was trying to maybe take her own life along with the boys. And then there are those who say that this clearly was an attack, that the reason that her wounds weren't as severe as the boys is because they were smaller. They couldn't fight back, while Darlie did try to defend herself. Which brings us to the bruising on her arms. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll see the photos here. And if not, I'm linking the episode in the show notes for our podcast listeners, so that you can go check it out. But look at this photo. And look, I'm looking at this photo again right now, and I still feel the same way. I mean, that is a lot of bruising.

• 25:49Annie Elise?

  It certainly could look like defensive bruising. Perhaps maybe self-inflicted, but she is black and blue all over her forearm. There's marks. I mean, it looks as though someone quite literally took both of their hands around her forearm and twisted opposite directions to like create this bruise. It's very intense. Now, as we were working on this first reopened case, we interviewed a woman named Kathy Cruz to get her thoughts on everything. And Kathy is an award-winning investigative journalist, and she's also the author of the book Dateline Purgatory: Examining the Case That Sentenced Darlie to Death. And she has covered this case for years. And her expertise even landed her a spot in the documentary The Last Defense.

• 26:34Annie Elise?

  Kathy has also been very open about her belief in Darlie's innocence.

• 26:38Speaker 07

  Dr. Vincent DiMaio, a well-known pathologist who testified for the defense at Darlie's trial, said that if she had died, he would have ruled that her injuries were defensive wounds. And when I was researching the case, retired FBI Special Agent Lloyd Harrell, who was on Darlie's trial defense team... Told me that the bruises on Darlie's arms were girdle-like bruises. He said they go around the arms as if someone is holding very tight against someone who is struggling. I think what is important is that, like other forensic science, what can be deduced

• 27:21Speaker 07

  from bruising has changed since Darlie was taken to trial.

• 27:24Annie Elise?

  Going back to the crime scene, this is obviously speculation here and just my thoughts. But if someone was coming in to kill everyone, isn't it a little weird that they didn't subdue Darlie first since she was the only adult that they saw? Why wouldn't they get her out of the way first and then go after the boys? An adult would be way more likely to put up a fight and possibly stop the attacker to begin with. The red flag number three in this case, Darlie told detectives that the sound of glass breaking is what woke her up, not the story about Damon pressing on her shoulder like she first said. The glass of wine she believed was knocked over that caused the sound of glass breaking was from a wine rack that the intruder must have grazed past.

• 28:06Annie Elise?

  Detectives on the scene bumped, rattled, and shook that wine rack trying to mimic the pace of the intruder. They said that it was not budging at all and was actually pretty sturdy. So, okay, maybe they didn't do it right. Maybe the intruder hit it some other direction because sometimes it can be hard to recreate exact situations. But in red flag number four, on another occasion, Darlie told police that she woke up randomly and saw a dark silhouette of a man and chased him out of the kitchen. In this account, Darlie said, "I ran back towards the utility room and realized there was a big, white-handled knife lying on the floor, like the killer must have dropped the knife as he was fleeing the scene once he saw Darlie." Bloodstain experts said that the blood on the floor and spatters do not fit that.

• 28:51Annie Elise?

  If you drop a knife as you are moving, apparently the blood will spatter because of the knife's velocity while it's dropping, and the impact will show that once it hits the ground. The bloodstains at the scene weren't like that at all. The bloodstains were more consistent with someone moving very slowly and holding the knife in their hands with blood dripping off in big, round drops. There was no evidence of anyone running while holding a bloody knife anywhere in the house. Darlie was questioned again by detectives about this scenario, except this time, she said that she really couldn't remember what happened when she saw the man, which was now all blurry to her. But hold on a second, because Darlie's evolving story is one of the most controversial parts of this case.

• 29:35Annie Elise?

  Remember The Last Defense? Well, in it, Darlie is asked point-blank, quote, "What woke you up?" And this is what she says.

• 29:44Speaker 08

  My little boy, Damon, he was pressing on my shoulder, and he was saying, "Mommy." And, um... It's like, I sat straight up when he said that. And I saw the guy starting to walk away from me.

• 30:10Speaker 09

  I could see, like, the outline of a man that was going through the end of the living area into the kitchen. There was a sound of glass breaking. I stood up, and I started to walk to the kitchen. And there was a knife laying down on the ground, right outside the utility room. I picked it up. It was just like an instinct. And at that time, I could see Devin. Laying face up. And I flipped on the lights and I remember screaming and screaming for Darren.

• 30:50Annie Elise?

  Investigators have long claimed that Darlie's account just shifted again and again. Yet what she says in that clip mirrors the statements that she gave police the very night of the murders, the one we already walked through earlier. And to this day, her half-sister, Donnell, insists that Darlie's story has always stayed the same.

• 31:11Speaker 05

  I would be remiss if I did not mention that you cannot have a scripted answer to every question when you're in a traumatic situation. And your brain definitely tries to make things make sense based on what you do know. Darlie's story does not ever change. She is consistent with what she says. Every time it comes directly from her mouth, she's consistent with it.

• 31:38Annie Elise?

  Let's pause on one of the more glaring issues. Darlie's claim that she didn't wake up to an intruder attacking her sons, or even when she herself was attacked, but instead woke up only when her son softly touched her chest. Because that's a detail that many people find nearly impossible to believe. But Darlie's half-sister, Donnell, along with other supporters, they see it differently. They don't think that she slept through the horror at all, but rather they believe she lived it but has no memory of it.

• 32:09Speaker 05

  She comes to, and we think that it's more of a gaining consciousness versus waking up from a sleep. I definitely don't think that she slept through a full-force struggle with an intruder. And based on her injuries, there's definitely a struggle going on. Your brain protects you from certain things. And I have, unfortunately, because of this case, I have been a true crime researcher since it really all kind of unfolded. And... I can tell you that it is not uncommon for somebody that is attacked to, one, not feel those attacks, not know that they were just cut, and, two, be able to lose certain bits of that memory.

• 32:54Speaker 05

  Like, you can be attacked and have no idea that you were ever stabbed, and follow through with the rest of what you were, you know, trying to do, or what you think is most important at that exact moment, and you don't even know that you've been stabbed or hurt.

• 33:07Annie Elise?

  And in fact, Darlie herself doesn't believe that she slept through it. There was also speculation that Darlie could have been drugged at some point, and then the effects of it were wearing off as this intruder was leaving, which is how she woke up to her son, you know, tapping on her chest. Here's Danelle mentioning that in her Crime Weekly interview.

• 33:27Speaker 05

  Apparently, you can make chloroform with, like, stuff you find under your kitchen sink. I wasn't aware of that. But chloroform is also not found in your bloodstream. You have to have a very specific test for that, and I don't think that that was even thought of. And I don't know how long it stays in your system either.

• 33:46Annie Elise?

  Now, is that possible? Absolutely. I mean, I think we have seen similar things happen in the past. If you're drugged and then you wake up because it's either not potent enough, or they didn't use, you know, enough, or whatever the reason is, is it possible? Certainly. But I will say this. In my research, I found conflicting information, but most sources say that chloroform stays in your system for only one to three hours. So that would mean that it conveniently wore off at the exact moment that Darlie says she saw the intruder leaving. Which, I don't know, you can make your own call on that. It is one of the theories that's out there, which is why I wanted to mention it. Is it possible? Yes. Is it plausible? I don't know, you tell me.

• 34:29Annie Elise?

  Now, let's circle back to the sound of glass breaking that I mentioned, because this was another big detail that the prosecution used to convince the jury that Darlie had staged the crime scene. Regardless of Darlie's shifting story at times, the version she ultimately stuck with kinda went like this. She wakes up to Damon tapping on her. She sees a man fleeing. She hears the glass shatter, and then she gets up to follow him out. She believed that the intruder had brushed against the wine rack, knocking a glass over and causing it to break. And Darren had even said that the sound of glass breaking is what first woke him up. But here's where the prosecution saw an opening and they pounced. Yes, a broken wine glass was found on the ground at the scene.

• 35:15Annie Elise?

  But it was also sitting on top of Darlie's blood with no blood on the glass. So if Darlie had been following the intruder out after being attacked as she was bleeding, they argued that her blood should have then been on top of the broken glass that they found on the ground. Instead, they said it proved that she bled first, then deliberately broke that glass afterward, and that's why the glass landed on top of the blood. But again, this is where Darlie's supporters say, whoa, whoa, whoa, not so fast, because that doesn't prove staging at all. They actually argue that the so-called stability test on the wine rack wasn't reliable. They also point out that the glass could have broken on the wine rack table itself,

• 35:57Annie Elise?

  and then later had been knocked onto the floor during all of the chaos of the first responders moving through the scene. And Darlie's half-sister, Donnell, makes another point in all of that. If Darlie had staged the scene by smashing the glass after she was already bleeding, then there should have been blood on top of it. But instead, the glass was found sitting over dried blood. So to her, that supports the idea that the glass was knocked over naturally, not planted after the fact. So, okay, now that we've gone a little deeper on that, let's shift back to the rest of the scene. When police canvassed the crime scene and the entire house, they saw a window screen that was cut, and figured that maybe that could have been the entrance from an intruder, because it wasn't like that before. But here comes red flag number five.

• 36:42Annie Elise?

  Whenever police tried to take prints or anything from the window, the window looked completely undisturbed. Almost like nobody had touched that window in a very long time. It had collected dust and there was no indication that anyone passed through there because of how perfectly the screen was sliced. There was also no evidence of an outside intruder. There was no debris, no dirt, no grass, no footprints on the ground outside of the window. No fibers from clothes, nothing. Except they did find one thing. And this brings me to red flag number six. A bleach blonde hair that belonged to Darley. Besides that, there weren't any footprints in the house except for Darley's.

• 37:25Annie Elise?

  Sure, maybe the intruder took extra care not to leave footprints in the house. Perhaps he was trying to cover his tracks more carefully. Except not really, since the intruder apparently had no problem slicing a window screen. So was he being careful not to leave any evidence behind and any sign of being there or not? And red flag number seven, and probably the most damning thing against Darley at this point, was that a knife in the kitchen had fibers from the window screen. And that knife was in Darley's knife block in the kitchen. Yes, the bread knife that had always been in the kitchen was the one that had microscopically identical fibers from the window screen on it. Now, to be fair, this also took place in the mid 90s.

• 38:06Annie Elise?

  And maybe whoever cut the window didn't realize they would be able to tell exactly which knife that was. But according to Darley, even though there were no signs of forced entry other than that window screen being cut, the intruder, who didn't even bring a knife with him that night, got in the house somehow. Used a bread knife from the kitchen to make it look like he had entered through the window screen. Then came back inside, put that knife down, and then grabbed another knife to horrifically kill the boys and injure Darley. But somehow magically just appeared in the house to do all of this. So yeah, at this point, it's not looking great for Darley. But there are a couple of updates to these points. First, that bleached blonde hair on that window screen?

• 38:48Annie Elise?

  It was later proven to actually belong to law enforcement, not Darley. And as for those window screen fibers on the knife? Darley's sister, Danelle, says that she has a pretty solid explanation for all of that. And her explanation is pretty much just chalking it up to crime scene contamination. Danelle points out that investigators dusted for prints from the screen inward, which could have then transferred fibers into the knife block. She also notes that even a crime scene expert themselves admitted that if Darley had used that knife to cut the screen, there should have been far more fibers than the single tiny one that they found. So what do you make of that? I mean, we have definitely seen contaminated crime scenes before.

• 39:32Annie Elise?

  Brings me right back to Karen Reed, right? I mean, putting things in red solo cups and stop and shop bags. If it's not secure and if it's not isolated, there certainly is room for error and contamination. And if that bleached blonde hair actually now, as proven, belongs to law enforcement and not Darley, could they have gotten another detail wrong?

• 39:51Speaker 10

  Having lots of choices sounds like it would be great. Who doesn't want more flavors of ice cream? It turns out, the answer is us. Too many choices can make us anxious, overwhelmed. I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of the Hidden Brain Podcast and YouTube channel. Each week, Hidden Brain brings you fascinating, science-backed insights about human behavior. So the next time you have to choose, choose Hidden Brain on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or hiddenbrain.org.

• 40:21Annie Elise?

  It certainly is possible. In another blow to Darley's narrative and red flag number eight, and we're counting. But guys, if you see red flags along the way where I'm not calling them out, drop it in the comments and put the timestamp and be like, oh, no, Annie, you missed this one. Red flag number eight's really here. Red flag number nine here. Let me know as you guys are catching them too. So in red flag number eight. The nightgown that Darlie was wearing that night had blood cast off on the backside, right side, and left side of her nightgown. This led investigators to believe that she was the one holding the knife. Her nightgown also had both of her son's blood on it. Lieutenant David Neighbors, head of the Rowlett Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division, said that she was laying on the couch and gets her throat cut.

• 41:04Annie Elise?

  There is no cast off on the couch where she said she was cut. None, not even blood drops. So she was stabbed and cut while sleeping on the couch? And there wasn't any blood on the couch at all? How is that possible? So where was she when the injuries took place if she wasn't on the couch? Well, that's where we get to red flag number nine. Detectives could visibly see blood by the sink. Detectives also used luminol and found a ton of blood evidence in the kitchen sink and on the kitchen floor, right by the sink. Like someone stood there while blood was dripping and tried to wash it away. That blood matched Darlie's. Now, interestingly, Darlie never mentioned anything about the killer doing that. She says that he ran out.

• 41:49Annie Elise?

  There's no evidence to suggest an intruder was washing the knives or anything like that either. Darlie also never mentions that she was by the sink at all in any of her different accounts from what happened that evening. If there was an intruder, what was their motive? Just to kill everyone and then rob the house? And when Darlie woke up, they just decided to take off instead? And honestly, to me, and I'm sure for many of you who believe that Darlie is guilty, that is one of the main sticking points in this. The motive. Neither side can fully explain the why in all of this in a way that satisfies everyone. So here are some of the theories. For the prosecution, they leaned heavily on three things. First, money.

• 42:32Annie Elise?

  Like I touched on earlier, it was reported that Darren's business was failing, that the family was drowning in debt, and prosecutors argued that the boys had become a financial burden. They even brought up life insurance, though the policies weren't even enough to cover the boys' funerals. So, take that how you want. But according to Danelle, they actually weren't broke at all, or at least not like the prosecution was making them out to be.

• 42:56Speaker 05

  In reality, they were not in dire straits. They were 26 and 27 years old, so they were doing damn good for that age. Darren did have over $2,500 in his business account that day, that day. And then, two days later, he had a deposit that put him at seven grand in his account, two days later. So, there was money coming in, and in Darlie's note, or in her first written statement, which does not happen until two days later, she does mention that they were talking about, they were excited because business was picking back up, and they had these trips coming up, and they had all of these things they had planned. And you don't make plans for a child you plan to kill.

• 43:41Speaker 05

  And she had already made these plans.

• 43:44Annie Elise?

  Now, I know that this was back in 1996, so $2,500 and $7,000 went further then than it does today. But based on their lifestyle, the house, the extras, the spending, that still doesn't sound like a huge amount of money to me. So, it's very possible they were still feeling financial strain, even if the numbers on paper looked decent. However, there are other claims out there that paint a very different picture. Some online forums suggest that Darren was actually bringing in far more money than what's often reported. Now, this comes from a Reddit thread, and I couldn't officially verify it, so take it with a grain of salt. But according to this user, Darren earned about $111,000

• 44:27Annie Elise?

  in the six months leading up to this attack. Now, adjusted for inflation, that's over $213,000 today.

• 44:36Annie Elise?

  And the year before, he reportedly brought in $264,000, which would equate to more than half a million dollars in today's money. So there you have like the money of it all, right? Now, the second thing that prosecutors pointed to was Darley's mental state. Just weeks before, she had written a diary entry that read almost like a suicide note. So they suggested that she was depressed, that this was a part of a failed murder-suicide plan, that she killed the boys, but then couldn't go through with killing herself, which is very devastating to hear, but unfortunately, something that we have heard in true crime far too often. So the third piece that prosecutors really leaned on heavily was Darley's lifestyle.

• 45:21Annie Elise?

  Prosecutors painted her as obsessed with her looks and obsessed with material things, and they implied that motherhood just did not fit the life that she truly wanted. But this is where Darley supporters really push back. Kathy Cruz, the journalist that we interviewed, who has covered this case extensively, also had some interesting thoughts on that part.

• 45:43Speaker 07

  This characterization did not come from any of Darley's family members or those closest to her. It came directly from Dallas County prosecutors who had never met or spoken to her. The fact that it is still widely believed today is a testament to the power that prosecutors hold. Those closest to Darley have always said that the portrayal of her was inaccurate. Now, they were shut down from publicly speaking in her defense when a gag order was issued 10 days after her arrest. The gag order didn't really affect the state because by that time, they had put out what they wanted the public to believe, and that was what the media ran with in the months before her trial.

• 46:25Speaker 07

  And you know, there are more points that can be made on this topic, but I would like to just throw out one more thing here. If she was so obsessed over possessions, why would she destroy her beautiful home?

• 46:41Speaker 07

  You know, that was a, that was a bloody crime scene that spanned several rooms. And then the Raleigh Police Department ended up destroying it, causing further damage. They ripped up carpet, they tore out plumbing. Darren told me that insurance didn't pay to repair the damage because it was done by law enforcement investigating a crime and the investigation resulted in a conviction.

• 47:10Annie Elise?

  When it comes to Darlie's supporters, they see motive in a completely different light. They argue that an intruder really did break in, maybe a burglar who panicked and fled. And that's usually the angle that they lean on because the straight burglary theory doesn't really hold up well because nothing was actually taken from the house. Darlie even had a pile of jewelry sitting right there out on the kitchen counter and it was still there, which if you're watching this on YouTube, you can even see her wedding ring sitting right in the middle of it. But other supporters believe that it could have been someone with a personal grudge against Darren, maybe even his business or even the family as a whole. And then there's also this other theory of a random predator, a career criminal who struck at random and then just disappeared into the night.

• 47:55Annie Elise?

  Supporters also highlight Darlie's own wounds, which came dangerously close to being fatal, if you remember, right by that main artery. So their question is, if she staged them, why would she go that far? Unless, of course, the prosecution is right and it was a failed murder-suicide attempt. Either way, what's clear is that neither side has ever been able to pin down a solid, indisputable motive. And with that, let's circle back to the nightgown. As I mentioned earlier, investigators said that there were cast-off bloodstains on the back, left and right sides of Darlie's nightgown. Their bloodstain expert, Tom Bevel, testified that this was consistent with someone raising

• 48:37Annie Elise?

  a knife repeatedly to stab, just the motion flicking blood onto the gown. But supporters argue that this analysis was junk science. In fact, Bevel's testimony has been challenged in multiple other cases, and I found at least three: David Kam, Tim Masters, and Greg Taylor, where convictions were overturned after his conclusions didn't hold up. Supporters also say that there are far more plausible explanations for the stains, that the blood could have transferred when Darlie was holding or moving the boys after they were stabbed, or possibly even during CPR. They argue that as Darren performed compressions,

• 49:18Annie Elise?

  air was forced rapidly out of the boys' wounds, causing blood to splatter, and that this could explain the pattern just as well, if not better, than Bevel's theory. Now, as far as the blood on the couch goes, or the lack of it, I should say, as the prosecution suggested, supporters see it very differently. They argue there actually was blood on the couch, and a significant amount near it. Their point is that if Darlie was slumped, or partially upright, when she was attacked, the blood could have soaked into her clothing or dripped elsewhere, especially in the chaos that followed. One Reddit user even pointed to photo evidence that they say supports this idea, that her throat was cut while she was lying on her back, not standing at the sink.

• 50:03Annie Elise?

  They noted bruising and blood patterns that they believe line up with that scenario too. Which, I don't know, to me, the lack of blood on the couch still feels like a big red flag. I could be wrong, but the fact that Darlie never even really mentioned going over to the sink in her accounts also doesn't look great for me either. I mean, yes, it's totally plausible that the second that she realized her throat was cut, she ran to the sink in a panic to stop the bleeding. I mean, who wouldn't? But something about her leaving that detail out of every single account? I don't know. It just doesn't sit right with me. Police weren't really buying that theory either. Bringing us to red flag number 10. Now, do you remember when the photos of Casey Anthony partying and getting her new tattoos in the 31 days that her daughter Kaylee was missing?

• 50:48Annie Elise?

  Well, this was Darlie's Bella Vita moment in this case, and the final nail in the coffin as far as the police were concerned. This was the infamous silly string video. Now, for those of you listening and not watching, the clip starts with Darlie, looking, honestly, almost joyful, spraying silly string at Devon and Damon's gravesites. Darren is standing next to her, along with a few family members, and this video became one of the most damaging pieces of evidence against her, not just in the courtroom with the jury, but in shaping public opinion overall.

• 51:22Speaker 11

  Darlie, let me ask you, why the confetti? Why the balloons? Why the happy birthday song?

• 51:27Speaker 12

  Well, because even though we're sad because Devon and Damon aren't here, we try to hang on to what we can to keep, to get us through these times. And if you knew Devon and Damon, you would know that they're up in heaven, and they're up there having the biggest birthday party that we could ever imagine. And they wouldn't want us to be down here being sad, even though our hearts are breaking. I know that Devon and Damon would want us to be happy. They wouldn't, they wouldn't want us to be crying, and they wouldn't want us to, you know, not to, not to be happy. They would want us to celebrate as if we were with them.

• 52:09Speaker 12

  And in a way, they are with us, because they will always be with us, no matter what we're doing, no matter what we're thinking. They'll always be a part of all of us, and not just Darren and I, but they've, you know, they touched a lot of people.

• 52:23Annie Elise?

  This video was eight days after Damon and Devon had been brutally murdered in their own home, in front of their mother, and on Devon's seventh birthday. And here was the grieving mother, dancing, smiling, laughing, and shooting silly string where her boys' graves were freshly dug and where they had been laid to rest. Police believed that this showed that she was guilty and had no remorse. Just like Casey Anthony and her party photos, this video made the case an instant media sensation and known nationwide. Well, as strongly as people felt... That the silly string video made Darley look guilty. Supporters feel just as strongly about the footage from that same day that wasn't shown.

• 53:07Annie Elise?

  Because before the celebration, Channel 5 had also recorded a very tearful and solemn memorial service for the boys. But that part of the footage was never aired publicly. And in court, the jury only saw the silly string clip. Barbara Davis, who wrote a book called Precious Angels, a book that closely examined the Darley trial and case, originally believed that Darley was guilty when she began her research. But by the time she had finished the book, she had completely changed her mind and she came to believe in Darley's innocence.

• 53:40Speaker 10

  Having lots of choices sounds like it would be great. Who doesn't want more flavors of ice cream? It turns out, the answer is us. Too many choices can make us anxious, overwhelmed. I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of the Hidden Brain Podcast and YouTube channel. Each week, Hidden Brain brings you fascinating, science-backed insights about human behavior. So the next time you have to choose, choose Hidden Brain on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or hiddenbrain.org.

• 54:10Annie Elise?

  Barbara said that leaving out the solemn memorial was critical because it reframed how both the jury and the public interpreted Darley's behavior. And in our interview, Kathy shared her thoughts on that moment.

• 54:22Speaker 07

  That jury watched that video eight or nine times while they were deliberating. It had a major impact. And, you know, I remember watching the news that night myself and seeing that. And, you know, I was shocked by it. It didn't prove anything. It didn't prove her guilt, but there was a lot of shock value to it.

• 54:44Annie Elise?

  Darley was arrested four days later and charged with capital murder. She was quickly labeled as the Dallas Susan Smith. The trial was moved to another county in Texas because of how much the local media and public knew about what had happened near Dallas. But that didn't really help Darley much. Between the inconsistencies with Darley's many stories, the physical evidence present, the complete lack of evidence of an intruder being there, plus the video that we just watched, which the prosecution played several times during the trial, Darley was convicted of capital murder and was sentenced to the death penalty by lethal injection at just 27 years old. While the prosecution didn't specify why Darlie would do this, they didn't need to. They just had to prove to the jury that she did do it.

• 55:29Speaker 13

  Darlie went to trial in January in conservative Kerrville, Texas, and her character came under attack. One prosecutor called her family "trailer trash." She was described as miserable in the depths of postpartum depression after her third son's birth. Distract because her husband's $250,000 a year computer business had fallen on hard times.

• 55:51Speaker 14

  This is a woman who was used to a certain lifestyle, and she couldn't live that lifestyle the way she wanted.

• 55:57Speaker 13

  What mattered, he said, were her possessions: the front yard fountain, the chandelier, the $9,000 spa, the jewelry. And she treated her children like trinkets, too.

• 56:08Annie Elise?

  In a recent documentary, one juror says that her behavior after the murders convinced her that she was guilty. She's not so much doting on her kids as she's doting on herself.

• 56:17Speaker 15

  Juror Carrie Paris recalls the evidence that sealed Routier's fate. There's many ways to mourn the loss of a child or a parent, but having a birthday party and throwing silly string around in a graveyard, mm-mm.

• 56:30Annie Elise?

  Darlie did an interview while in prison after her conviction, where she adamantly claimed her innocence. People that knew Darlie also said that the prosecution had painted a very different picture of the Darlie than what was the truth, and that she never could have done this. Kathy Cruz also had strong feelings about the prosecution, not just in how they treated Darlie in court, but in how their tactics were allowed to play out in the 90s in a way that she believes would never fly today.

• 56:57Speaker 07

  Well, the first trial was not a level playing field. If the court was to grant Darlie a new trial, would the Dallas County District Attorney's Office actually take her to trial? Stephen Cooper, Darlie's Dallas appellate attorney, told me that he didn't think they would. They would have to dust off that decades-old evidence, and there have been a lot of exonerations since then due to junk science. More is known today about forensics than was known then. If bloodstain pattern expert Tom Bevel is put back on the stand, the Defense will undoubtedly put their own expert on the stand. And I doubt seriously that current day prosecutors would dare use those same sexist

• 57:40Speaker 07

  character judgments that they used before. The original defense team was hindered by, well, by many things. A rush to trial, a change of venue to a very conservative, small county. You know, even though a change of venue wasn't necessary since the case had made national news. But a second defense team wouldn't have those hindrances and they would be very well prepared.

• 58:05Annie Elise?

  Another thing we found in our research was the trial transcript itself and how flawed it was. The original court reporter, Sandra Halsey, produced a record so full of mistakes that Dallas County actually sued to get back her $63,000 fee. A second reporter, Susan Simmons, was then later brought in and found more than 18,000 errors across 6,000 pages. Everything from wrong speakers to entire words left out. In the end, Halsey lost her license after it came out that she had even lied about the existence of audio tapes. And here's what Kathy had to say about that.

• 58:42Speaker 07

  The trial transcript was such a mess that it literally changed the court reporting industry. And it's still talked about in legal circles today. There are people in the court system who still can't believe that it didn't result in a new trial. The court reporter, Sandra Halsey, had 25 years' experience and she was well-respected. But she had things going on in her personal life and she had begged the judge not to make her go to Kerrville for all those weeks of jury selection and all those weeks of the trial. But he made her go anyway. And this botched trial transcript was the result.

• 59:22Speaker 07

  For people who, who might feel inclined to be dismissive about the issues with the court reporter, here is something for them to think about. When the jury sent out a note asking for clarification on Darren's testimony about whether the girl Garage door had been locked that night. She sent back the wrong answer. Darren had testified that the roll down garage door was locked, but that the door leading from the garage into the utility room was unlocked. Halsey told the jury that Darren testified that the interior door had been locked.

• 1:00:04Speaker 07

  This meant that when the jury decided that Darlie was guilty, they did so believing that there should have been signs of forced entry, had there actually been an intruder.

• 1:00:15Annie Elise?

  The most significant piece of evidence that a lot of people didn't hear about during the trial, and in my opinion, the most puzzling piece, is that apparently a sock with blood on it was found in the alleyway a few houses away. During one of Darlie's appeals on her conviction, the sock was tested for DNA evidence to see if it could possibly identify the intruder. Now, DNA has come a long way since 1996, so this could help Darlie's case. However, the sock had blood that matched Devon and Damon's DNA and Darlie's skin cells. The prosecution's theory was that Darlie planted this sock to support her intruder story. They argued that she could have quickly run down the alley,

• 1:00:56Annie Elise?

  dropped it, and then returned in the five or six minutes that she was on the phone with 911. And the sock only had the boy's blood on it, none of Darlie's, which the state said fit their theory that she carried it out after the boys were stabbed. To prosecutors, the sock was just one more part of this elaborate staging, along with, you know, the cut window screen, the broken wine glass, you name it. But Darlie's supporters point out that she was on the phone with 911 almost the entire time that Damon was still alive. If she had run outside to plant that sock, that would have meant leaving her dying child behind. And Damon survived several minutes after the attack, crawling and gasping for breath. Then there's also the distance, about 225 feet,

• 1:01:41Annie Elise?

  or 75 yards, nearly the length of a football field. So to run that distance in the dark, barefoot, bleeding, and then return without leaving a trail of blood behind? Supporters say that that's almost impossible. And in fact, no blood trail was ever found between the house and where that sock turned up. So to them, the sock makes way more sense if it was dropped by an intruder fleeing the scene, rather than Darley trying to set it all up.

• 1:02:11Speaker 07

  The state was putting forth a theory that defied logic. You know, if Darley was going to use a bloodstained sock in the staging of a crime scene, why would she plant it 75 yards down the alley where it might not be found? If she had used it in the staging, she would have mentioned it to law enforcement when she was being interviewed. Because when people stage a crime scene, they use the props in their telling to law enforcement of what happened. And she never used those props.

• 1:02:42Annie Elise?

  Interestingly enough, Darley's supporters point to an unknown fingerprint on the glass coffee table handle being their smoking gun in Darley's innocence. According to Darley's camp, forensic analysis showed that this fingerprint didn't match Darley or either of her sons. In fact, three separate forensic experts, including one from the FBI, all agreed it didn't belong to anyone in the family or anyone at the crime scene, which would mean it came from someone outside of the house. But at trial, the prosecution pushed back. They hired Pat Wertheim, a latent fingerprint examiner, who looked at photos of this print. And he testified that Darley could neither be excluded nor confirmed as the source.

• 1:03:27Annie Elise?

  Supporters argue that that just doesn't make sense, either it matches or it doesn't. And Darley's sister believes that this kind of vague testimony, it really only misled the jury further.

• 1:03:37Speaker 05

  The Dallas County District Attorney, the Conviction Integrity Unit, and the Innocence Project of New York has exclusively 100% determined that this is not Darley's fingerprint. Just the verbiage alone, it cannot be matched or excluded. Should be enough for people to question that. If I can exclude you from this fingerprint, then it clearly, there's not enough points there to make it match. If I can match you to this print, then it's a match. There's not an in-between. There is no gray. There is either it could be a match, or it is not a match.

• 1:04:13Annie Elise?

  But that still really wouldn't explain the sock, would it? If there was a bloody fingerprint, did the intruder have gloves on or not? Or did he have one glove on when he grabbed the sock and then used his other hand that didn't have a glove on it when he touched its blood on the coffee table? I don't know. Also, why was the killer even grabbing a sock to begin with? Maybe a trophy of some kind? I guess that's possible. But you'd think that this career criminal who took extra care not to leave any footprints, no DNA of his own at the house, wouldn't be so sloppy to drop a bloody sock as he's running away, especially if it was something as important to him as a trophy. So what does that mean? Could there be another explanation for the print that doesn't involve an intruder? I mean, sure, crime scenes get contaminated, as we talked about all the time.

• 1:04:57Annie Elise?

  There were a lot of people in and out of that house. But the truth is, we still don't know who left that fingerprint. And I'll admit, that is kind of wild. I do want to go back to the documentary, The Last Defense, for a second here.

• 1:05:11Speaker 08

  If I had done this to my children, I would be the first person to stand up and say, "Oh, my God, I need help. What have I done?" You know? I'm not gonna live with herself.

• 1:05:22Speaker 16

  But now, Darlie, they're saying that you could live with it because you're a psychopath and that you could kill and not have a conscience about it.

• 1:05:28Speaker 08

  Sure, that fits their theory.

• 1:05:29Speaker 16

  What really worked for the prosecution at the trial was this videotape of the party at the grave.

• 1:05:38Speaker 16

  Do you not say, as I do, "Oh, for heaven's sake, Darlie, chewing gum, smiling, spraying silly string"?

• 1:05:46Speaker 08

  Well...

• 1:05:47Speaker 16

  And the jury wanted to see it over and over again. You still don't think it was wrong?

• 1:05:51Speaker 08

  No. Maybe it's not the way that everybody would choose to do. But I can guarantee you, the last thing a guilty person would do was to do that. I know the truth. I know what really happened. I'll leave this world with a free conscience.

• 1:06:11Annie Elise?

  There have been many body language experts and psychologists that have reviewed this footage over the years, and they've all offered very different opinions on what this interview shows. While it certainly doesn't prove that somebody killed their kids, it has provided some interesting insight, to say the least. She's been characterized numerous times as a psychopath or a sociopath. The channel, The Behavior Panel on YouTube, had an episode going over her body language here from this interview, and I highly recommend watching it. In that episode, they say that this interview is the hallmark of a classic psychopath. They make a point that all psychopaths aren't murderers, but that all murderers are psychopaths. They say that her constant checking at the camera reflection could be a sign that she is faking emotion

• 1:06:56Annie Elise?

  and wants to see if she looked believable while doing it. Normally, when you're in grief, you don't care about what you look like. They also talk about why she says, "normal mom, I'm a normal mom, what would normal moms do, etc." Almost as if someone maybe told her, "Hey, when you do this interview, just act normal." And the word "normal" stuck in her head, and then she just had it on repeat. They also pointed out that sometimes people that are telling the truth typically don't say, "I did not" first. Usually, people will say, "No, I didn't. I did not do that." Then, when she says that if she did it, she would say, "Oh, my God, I need help." The behavior panel experts said if you told someone randomly, "Hey, this person killed their child", their response would not be, "Oh, wow, they need help."

• 1:07:41Annie Elise?

  Instead, it would be something like, "Oh, my God, I hope they go to jail," or "I hope they rot." Not that they need help. When people are guilty, though, they won't say that. They won't say that the punishment should be jail, because they don't want to go to jail, and they know that they are the guilty person that they are talking about. Another interesting point they mentioned was when she said, "I can guarantee you a guilty person would not do that." Normally, when someone says they can guarantee something, it typically means it's something that they've thought about a lot. So in that statement, she could have been saying that she's thought a lot about how bad this looks, and for some reason, thought it would be a good statement to make her prove her innocence, I don't know. But instead, it just came off really weird and a very unnatural thing to say. Towards the end of the interview, you can see her showing a little bit more anger.

• 1:08:25Annie Elise?

  And the behavior panel discussed how Darlie's stress levels could have been going up when she was being challenged and asked about being a psychopath, and that whenever psychopaths are confronted, the mask comes off. They said in an interrogation, when someone starts acting like that, that's when you start pushing them on why they are getting so upset, to get them to reveal themselves. Of course, these are just some opinions, and there are a lot of opinions out there. Some people think Darlie was acting perfectly normal and they don't see anything weird about it, except for a grieving mother. There have been books written, documentaries made even recently, where a lot of people fully believe that Darlie was wrongfully convicted. Darlie is still on death row in Texas and has done many interviews where she still claims that she's innocent and

• 1:09:10Annie Elise?

  not responsible. Darlie and Darren remained close after Darlie went to prison too, and Darren says that she is innocent. They eventually got a divorce in 2011, but not because he thought she was guilty or anything like that. He still loves Darlie, but he also still had their youngest son, Drake, to raise and ultimately, he needed to move on with his life. Even now, he's remarried and still 100% on Darlie's side and says that there is no way that she killed their sons. So what if Darlie is innocent in all of this? What really happened that night? Honestly, we may never know for sure, but here's what her sister, Danelle, thinks.

• 1:09:48Speaker 05

  I lean on that there was two people involved in this whole process. There's a lot of stuff that could support that. None of Devon's blood is on the murder weapon. The impression of a murder weapon on the carpet doesn't fit the murder weapon that was found. I think that that supports it. Devon's wounds are a little bit different in depth and in width than what that murder weapon should have left. It is very possible that one of two things happened. This was either Darren had a guy that worked close to him that had some insurance fraud in his past. Darren had a car stolen as part of his past. Maybe there was some communications. Darren admits that there was

• 1:10:30Speaker 05

  conversations about insurance fraud. Is it possible that someone just overheard this conversation? Knew that Darlie and Darren were planning on taking a trip to Pennsylvania and would be gone for two weeks and maybe decided to go rogue and hit the house themselves. Darren's car's not there, so they must be at the airport, right? So then they break in and they see Darlie's laying on the couch and from there it goes into, okay, well Darlie's the only one here. I'll just take advantage of the situation. She was very known for her-

• 1:11:05Speaker 05

  Appearance, she was beautiful and very, very much a sex appeal in every form. And she was followed from the grocery store a few times by different people. She would be approached by men, like it, it definitely, when you see a pretty woman, most of the time you look at them and Darlie definitely got that. I think she was somewhat oblivious to a lot of that. She didn't take any of that as serious as she should have. She also trusted everybody, so there was people in her life that were not good people because she wasn't judgmental and she was inclusive and she loved everybody because everybody deserves love. But if this individual breaks in and, you know, say they've got a pocket knife, they cut the screen, they come in because that window stayed open and they would have known that window was open.

• 1:11:50Speaker 05

  There's so much more I could go into on this, but to keep it short and sweet, my opinion is that they came in with an intent to either rob the house for whatever was available, saw Darlie laying on the couch and then their motive switched and it becomes, maybe we can essay her, and then it becomes Devon and Damon as collateral damage. One of them, one of these intruders steps on Devon or kicks Devon, whatever. You, you can't see Damon because he's between the couch and the love seat, just in a wad of blankets. They wouldn't have even known he was there. Devon was on a blanket and a pillow, but you could have probably overlooked him if you weren't like expecting a child to be down there.

• 1:12:30Speaker 05

  They step on Devon, he wakes up as they're killing him and there is some vertical drip of blood on him, so he very well could have been upright at one point or another. Damon, all of his wounds are on his back, so he most likely was still asleep. A knife attack, the average time it takes is like 23 seconds, so it was very fast. Darlie then was attacked and that's my opinion that that was the order it went in. But you can't, I can't really say for sure why it would have gone that way. But I do think that the motive changed from potentially robbing the house to assaulting Darlie.

• 1:13:08Annie Elise?

  If you're asking me, I'll say this. In my gut, I still feel like Darlie did this, but I also hope that I'm wrong. I think that digging into new evidence, new perspectives, new research, new interviews.

• 1:13:24Annie Elise?

  It has started to make me question things a little bit differently and look at things a little bit differently. I mean reopening this case years later has been really eye opening. It's not just about revisiting the evidence, but about seeing how perspectives can shift over time, how new voices, new experts, how it all adds more context, and how much of this case is still just so debated to this very day. But here's the thing, whether you believe Darlie is guilty or innocent, it's hard to ignore just how many mistakes and inconsistencies plagued this trial, from the flawed transcripts, to the questionable forensic testimony, to evidence that still leaves more questions

• 1:14:06Annie Elise?

  than answers. So I do understand why so many people out there truly believe she's innocent. At the end of the day, her two young boys' lives were stolen at just the mere age of five and seven years old. Who knows where they would be today if their lives hadn't been cut short. And regardless of where you stand, when it comes to this case, like so many others out there, just because someone is behind bars, Darlie in this case, it may not necessarily mean that true justice has been served. So the question remains, is Darlie guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? And this is where I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks so much for tuning in to our first ever reopened case. And don't forget, there

• 1:14:49Annie Elise?

  is a brand new case in the feed right now that you can go listen to and binge right after this, literally right now. It's a case we have never discussed. It is a wild one. It is a super creepy one. And you can go listen to it in the feed right underneath this case.

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