Since retiring from the Navy SEALs, Chris Kyle, whom the Pentagon has deemed as among America’s deadliest snipers, would occasionally take fellow veterans shooting as a kind of therapy to salve battlefield scars.
Mr. Kyle, 38, author of the best-selling book “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History,” was with a struggling former soldier on just such an outing on Saturday, hoping that a day at a shooting range would bring some relief, said a friend, Travis Cox.
But the Texas authorities said Sunday that the troubled veteran turned on Mr. Kyle and a second man, Chad Littlefield, shooting and killing both before fleeing in a pickup truck.
“Chad and Chris had taken a veteran out to shoot to try to help him,” Mr. Cox said. “And they were killed.”
The police identified the gunman as Eddie Ray Routh, 25, who had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and had suffered from mental illness. The police offered no information about a possible motive.
Mr. Routh shot the men about 3:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Rough Creek Lodge, an exclusive shooting range near Glen Rose, Tex., about 50 miles southwest of Fort Worth, Sgt. Lonny Haschel, a spokesman for the State Department of Public Safety’s Highway Patrol Division, said in a statement. Mr. Routh was arrested on Saturday night at his home in Lancaster, a suburb south of Dallas. He has been charged with two counts of capital murder, Mr. Haschel said.
Mr. Cox, the director of a foundation that Mr. Kyle created, said he did not know Mr. Routh. Mr. Kyle, he said, had devoted his life since his retirement from the military to helping fellow soldiers overcome post-traumatic stress.
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Sun Feb 03, 2013 7:16 pm
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