STEPHENVILLE, TEXAS // Defence attorneys are set to present their first full day of testimony in the trial of a former Marine accused of killing “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle and another man.
Attorneys for Eddie Ray Routh will appear before a Texas jury on Wednesday.
Prosecutors rested their case on Tuesday, and defence attorneys called Routh’s mother, Jodi Routh, as their first witness.
She testified that she did not know after asking Kyle to help her troubled son that they would be going to a shooting range.
Asked if she regretted not telling Kyle of threats Routh had made to kill himself and his family, she said, “I was just looking for help for my son.”
When prosecutors asked Mrs Routh what she had told Kyle about her son, she said she told Kyle that he had been hospitalised several times but was not getting the treatment he needed. “He assured me he knew what Eddie was going through,” she said.
Routh is charged in the deaths of the famed former Navy Seal sniper who served four tours in Iraq and his friend, Chad Littlefield, at the range in February 2013.
The trial has drawn intense interest, partly because of an Oscar-nominated film based on Kyle’s memoir.
Routh has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys are mounting an insanity defense.
Family members have said he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq and in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake.
* Associated Press
