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Eddie Ray Routh
Eddie Ray Routh enters the court during his capital murder trial in Stephenville, Texas. Photograph: LM Otero/AP
Eddie Ray Routh enters the court during his capital murder trial in Stephenville, Texas. Photograph: LM Otero/AP

'American Sniper' jurors to decide: was Chris Kyle's killer ill, or was he faking?

This article is more than 9 years old

Witnesses in trial of Eddie Ray Routh, who killed man who inspired blockbuster film, have given testimony assessing mental health of the defendant

​With American Sniper sure to command national attention this weekend as it vies for six Oscars, including best picture, the trial of the man who killed Chris Kyle moved towards its climax in a small Texas courthouse in front of the former Navy Seal’s friends and family.

Kyle’s widow, Taya, who gave emotional testimony on the trial’s first day, was in court on Friday as the final witnesses assessed the mental state of Eddie Ray Routh, who shot dead the inspiration for the blockbuster film and his friend Chad Littlefield two years ago in rural Texas.

Opposing attorneys offered jurors a stark choice: either Routh was so severely ill that he did not know the difference between right or wrong at the time of the murders, or he was faking some of his symptoms and concocting fantasies about pig-human hybrid assassins after watching Seinfeld on a television in his cell.

The verdict will determine whether the 27-year-old former US Marine will be convicted of murder and spend the rest of his life in prison, or face a possibly permanent stay in a mental health institution.

Eight days of testimony in the town of Stephenville saw prosecutors argue that Routh exaggerated his symptoms, was coherent and calculating when he killed the two men and brought his problems on himself through abuse of drugs and alcohol.

In response, Routh’s lawyers called experts, friends and family to paint a picture of an irrational, volatile man who was acutely disturbed at the time of the crime. On Thursday the court heard testimony from Mitchell Dunn, a psychiatrist who evaluated Routh for more than six hours ​before the trial. Called by the defence, who are mounting an insanity claim, Dunn said​: “There was something really wrong with Eddie Ray Routh on the day of the offence, and that something wrong was mental disease.”

After threatening his girlfriend, Routh spent time in a psychiatric hospital and was released about a week before the murders. Dunn said that Routh was paranoid and obsessed with the idea of lethal swine.

“He began to think that Mr Kyle and Mr Littlefield were some type of pig assassins – hybrid pigs sent here to kill people,” Dunn said. He added that Routh believed his co-workers at a cabinet shop were cannibals and wanted to eat him.

The defence summoned witnesses who testified about Routh’s strange behaviour and apparent post-traumatic stress disorder, including his former girlfriend and several mental health experts.

However, on Friday the prosecution called psychologist Randall Price as a rebuttal witness. According to reports, he questioned claims that Routh was truly suffering from schizophrenia and suggested his paranoia was drug-induced and speculated that his “pig-man” diatribes could have been inspired by a scene in an episode of Seinfeld or a show called Boss Hog on the Discovery Channel.

In earlier testimony the court heard that Routh became uneasy because he felt Kyle and Littlefield were hardly talking to him, and that he came to believe they would murder him unless he killed them first.

Kyle, whose 2012 autobiography was a bestseller, had not previously met Routh but often took troubled veterans on shooting days out as a form of therapy, believing it helped them relieve stress. Routh shot Kyle and Littlefield multiple times at the range on 2 February 2013, then fled the scene in Kyle’s truck. The prosecution argued that his subsequent interactions with family and police show that he was aware he had committed an egregious act.

The defence rested their case on Thursday without calling Routh to testify. A verdict could come on Monday following each side’s closing statements.

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