On Monday, February 9^th, a jury was seated on the trail for the man who allegedly murdered American war hero and Navy SEAL, Chris Kyle, along with another Marine. Eddie Ray Routh, a 25-year-old Iraq war vet is trying to file for insanity due to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Because the judge wanted small publicity for the case, more than two-dozen people were dismissed from the jury selection. Ten women and two men will serve as jurors in Routh’s trial. Though he wants very little publicity, the story behind Routh is making a lot of people angry. This isn’t going well through the minds of people outside of the trial. Routh was never in combat during his time with the military. He had served his four years with the Marine Corps as a weaponry and arms repairer/technician, a job in the military spent in an armory working on rifles and other weapons. His military record, which was released to The Washington Post, states that he was never engaged in direct combat.

Besides the fact that he was never in combat, there are factors that could contribute to PTSD. Routh had been in and out of Green Oaks Psychiatric Hospital in Dallas Texas at least twice in the past five months before Kyle was murdered. He had previously threatened to kill himself and his family last September. Police records say that they had found him walking nearby his home wearing no shirt or shoes and smelling of alcohol. He told authorities that he was a Marine veteran that was suffering from PTSD. Routh’s mother told the police that her son had been drinking and became upset after his father said that he was going to sell his gun. Eddie then began to argue with them and saying that he was going to “blow his brains out.”

The trial started on Wednesday, February 11, 2015, starting with opening statements. Predictions of the trial say that it is going to last around two weeks. If Routh is found guilty of the murder of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield, he is expected to be sentenced to life in prison, without parole. Further investigated court documents say that Routh has had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse starting from when he was in high school. “While in the Marines and after his discharge from the Marines, the defendant has smoked marijuana, drank alcohol excessively, smoked ‘K2’ or ‘spice’ (synthetic marijuana) and marijuana potentially laced with PCP or formaldehyde.”

Nobody really knows what drove Routh to committing murder. Capt. Jason Upshaw of the Erath County Sheriff’s Office said, “Only Routh knows the answer to why he did it, I don’t know that we’ll ever know.”

Update:

Eddie Ray Routh was found guilty of murder of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield. The jury rejected his insanity plead and is sentenced to life in prison.