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Guilty Verdict Returned In 'American Sniper' Murder Trial

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Eddie Ray Routh
Dallas Morning News

A Texas jury reached a guilty verdict in the murder trial of Eddie Ray Routh, the ex-Marine charged with killing former U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, author of the memoir American Sniper.

Routh was sentenced to life in prison without parole for shooting Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield to death at a gun range near Fort Worth in 2013. Defense lawyers had argued that Routh suffers from paranoid schizophrenia; Routh had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Kyle's autobiography, published in 2012, spent months on The New York Times best-seller list and was adapted by director Clint Eastwood in the film American Sniper, in which Kyle is portrayed by Bradley Cooper.