Darlie: "I did not kill my children. I stand strong in that and I can look you in the eye...because I didn't do it. The evidence shows this. There's overwhelming evidence that proves my innocence. They continue to ignore it."
"Darlie Routier's life is confined within these walls at Mountain View Federal Prison in Gatesville, Texas. Isolated from the general prison population, Darlie spends her time writing letters, exercising in her cell, and working at the prison sewing quilts.
more bathos from Darlie--- what would Damon and Devon look like now?
sniffle sniffle
off camera voice asks Darin: You said to me life would be easier if she had done it. What did you mean by that?
Darin: If she had done it I could go on, I could remarry, look somewhere else, not be put on camera everytime someone asks me to to try to help. There wouldn't be any helping if she had done it. She would deserve to be where she's at. The point is she didn't do it. We can prove it and we will."
Stephen Cooper--- discovering new evidence, serious discrepancies from Routier's trial. Progress made in ID'ing bloody fingerprint on glass coffee table...
Cooper: There are sufficient points of ID to ID its owner if they had a sample of a suspect.
The boys' bodies were exhumed in order to take fingerprints.
Charles Lynch, crime scene analyst, who testified that there were fibers from the window screen on the knife...
Cooper: We have since learned that this expert has been wrong in one or more other cases...He was suffering from severe depression, alcoholism, apparently that was so bad, his own employers showed up and forcibly put him in a detox ward...
"But perhaps the most extraordinary turn in this case involves the court transcripts and they're the reason why the appeal has been delayed so long.
Cooper: "The original transcript had over 33,000 mistakes in it by a court reporter who took the 5th Amendment when we tried to question her about her preparation of this record.
"In court reporter Sandra Halsey's transcript 53 pages were missing, wrong words were used and non verbal responses omitted and some of the errors changed the essential facts of the case.
[Camera zooms in on page where the typed word "kissing" is crossed out and CUSSING is written above it.]
"This was only discovered when a new court reporter began reconstructing the transcripts from audio tapes that were made as a backup."
Cooper: "Diametrically different words, like the difference between yes and no and the difference between can and cannot and would and wouldn't---"
"And to make matters worse, some of the audio tapes were missing. Court TV requested an interview with Halsey but she declined. However in an interview with Jeff Crilley, she said---
Halsey: There are just typos. I looked at some of those things. They're like a missing period or a space between the end of a letter and a space and then a period. I mean there are so many things like that."
"Halsey has since lost her license. The case marks the first time a capital murder transcript has been so riddled with errors that it is deemed inadequate to be used for appeal....The errors in the transcript could be Darlie's entree back into the courtroom. But according to Columbia Univ. professor James Liebman, it is very difficult to get a new trial in Texas.
Liebman: What we have determined is that the Texas court system ...is known as one of the least likely court systems to find and correct error in capital cases.
"Perhaps the Routiers got a preview of just how hard it will be. On Sept. 8, 2000, just 18 hrs before a scheduled hearing on the transcript fiasco, the judge abruptly cancelled it."
Next: Will Darlie ever get a new day in court?