After Killing Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield, Eddie Ray Routh Said People Were Eating His Soul

A little before 5:00 p.m. on Feb. 2, 2013, the bodies of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield were discovered by a wilderness guide at Rough Creek Lodge & Resort, a shooting range in Glen Rose, Texas. According to The Washington Post, Justin Nabours would later testify that he was accompanied by two people who were hoping to meet Kyle, the man whose memoir became the hit film American Sniper. Both men were dead from multiple gunshot wounds.

Although Kyle and Littlefield were armed with .45-caliber 1911-style pistols, they were still holstered. The guns used to murder the two men belonged to Kyle. Earlier that day, they arrived at Rough Creek with another Marine veteran named Eddie Ray Routh. Court records showed that Kyle texted Littlefield about Routh while the three were driving to the gun range. "This dude is straight-up nuts," wrote Kyle. Routh was later arrested and convicted of murder. Where is he now? Here's what we know.

Three years after Routh fatally shot Littlefield and Kyle, the disturbed Marine veteran was found guilty of capital murder, per The Guardian. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and is serving his time at the W. F. Ramsey Unit in Rosharon, Texas. It only took two and a half hours for the jury to reach a unanimous verdict, which district judge Jason Cashon read to a expressionless Routh.

Routh sat in stoney silence while Kyle and Littlefield's family members read their victim impact statements prior to sentencing. "You took the lives of two heroes; men that tried to be a friend to you," said Jerry Richardson, Littlefield's stepbrother. Outside of the courtroom, Littlefield's mother told reporters she and her family "waited two years for God to get justice" for them on behalf of their son." Kyle's wife testified during the trial but left before the sentencing.

Kyle and Littlefield brought Routh to the gun range as a form of therapy. Routh's uncle testified during his trial that earlier in the day, his nephew was behaving strangely, per CNN. James Watson said that Routh's girlfriend called him and asked if he could come over because the two were fighting. When Watson arrived, he and his nephew smoked some marijuana and chatted until Kyle picked Routh up.

After Routh was arrested, he spoke with police for a little over an hour, all while rambling incoherently. "I had to kill men today," Routh said in his confession. "It wasn’t a want to, it was a need. I had to, to get out of that situation I was in today." When asked by Texas Ranger Danny Briley why he fled, Routh said, "I didn’t know what else to do. My adrenaline was so high. I didn’t know what was right. I didn’t know what was wrong."

There were times during his confession when Routh made very little sense. At one point he started talking about his soul. "You can’t just keep letting people eat your soul up for free, you know," explained Routh. "It’s not what it’s about, it’s about having a soul that you have in you for yourself. And there are tons of people that are eating on my soul right now."

Routh's defense tried to use those sorts of unintelligible statements to argue he was insane at the time of the murders. However, Gene Cole, who worked for the Erath County Sheriff’s Office at the time, testified that he heard Routh say he shot Kyle and Littlefield because they wouldn't talk to him. " I was just riding in the back seat of the truck and nobody would talk to me," he said.