The individual responsible for Chris Kyle’s murder explained to police why he did it.
Chris Kyle was a highly regarded Navy SEAL who served four missions in the Iraq War.
He was well-known for his sniper abilities, and it is said that his longest confirmed kill shot was 2,100 yards.
Kyle rose to prominence after being honorably discharged in 2009, with the publication of his memoirs, American Sniper, in 2012. The book was so popular that it was adapted into a film, with Hollywood actor Bradley Cooper playing the sniper.
The 2015 film, titled American Sniper after the novel, went on to win a few prizes.
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Kyle, however, was not able to witness the film’s success because he was assassinated prior to its premiere.
Eddie Ray Routh fatally shot him in February 2013, along with his companion Chad Littlefield.
Routh, a then-25-year-old Marine Corps veteran whom Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield had taken to the shooting range in response to Routh’s mother’s plea, was reportedly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and had been honorably discharged from the Marines in 2011.
Kyle had hoped that Routh’s excursion to the shooting range would be therapeutic, but it ended in disaster.
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He later defended his actions in shooting Kyle and Littlefield during an interrogation with a Texas ranger, claiming that he shot Kyle first because he could ‘clearly identify him’.
“I imagine they’re head hunters, trying to hunt everybody down,” he says in the video, as reported by CBS.
According to The Trace, Routh was believed to be suffering from other mental health disorders in the years leading up to Kyle and Littlefield’s killings, in addition to PTSD.
In 2015, a jury heard Routh declare, “If I did not take down his soul, he was going to take down mine.”
Four months after the shooting, Routh told former Erath County Sheriff’s Deputy Gene Cole, “I was just sitting in the back seat of the truck, and nobody would talk to me.
“They were simply transporting me to the range, so I shot them.
“I felt awful about it, but they refused to talk to me. I am convinced they have forgiven me.”
Routh’s defenders claimed he was mad at the time of the murders, while prosecution witnesses suggested he was faking schizophrenia.
Routh was convicted guilty of the two men’s murders on February 24, 2015.
Before the trial, prosecutors chose not to seek the capital penalty, therefore the judge sentenced him to life in jail with no possibility of release.
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