[This post has been updated.]
STEPHENVILLE — The mother of a Lancaster man accused of killing former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle and his friend in 2013 said her son was often paranoid after he served in Iraq for the U.S. Marines.
Jodi Routh testified Tuesday during the capital murder trial of 27-year-old Eddie Ray Routh. Jodi Routh said she asked Kyle to help her son, who she said was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Kyle and his friend, Chad Littlefield, took Routh to an Erath County gun range in February 2013.
“Chris assured me that he knew what Eddie was going through,” Jodi Routh said.
Routh, a former Marine, worked as a prison guard when he was deployed in Iraq. He later spent three months in Haiti cleaning up after the 2010 earthquake. His mother said Routh was different when he came home.
“He wasn’t his happy-go-lucky self like he’d always been, a lot more serious,” Jodi Routh said. “He would really watch what was going on around him, what was going on behind him, just very cautious about people.”
Jodi Routh said she was out of town on Feb. 2, 2013, when Kyle took Routh to the gun range. Her daughter called her that afternoon saying Routh was driving a black truck and claimed to have killed two men. Jodi Routh said that she had a feeling it was Kyle.
“I had Chris’ number in my phone. And I dialed that number praying to God that he would answer,” she said.
Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday afternoon before defense called Jodi Routh to the stand.
Before resting, prosecutors played a recorded phone call between Routh and a reporter from The New Yorker magazine.
During the interview, Routh describes the events surrounding the slayings of Kyle and Littlefield.
“I had to take care of business. I took care of business, and then I got in the truck and left,” Routh said in the recorded phone call.
Routh complained about the smell of cologne in the truck with Kyle and Littlefield while the men drove to Rough Creek Lodge on Feb. 2, 2013. Routh also said that he was annoyed at the gun range because Littlefield wasn’t shooting.
“Are you gonna shoot? Are you gonna shoot? It’s a shooting sport. You shoot,” Routh said in the phone call. “That’s what got me all riled up.”