On June 6, 1996, Police Officer David Waddell responded to an emergency call from the Rowlett, Texas home of Darin and Darlie Routier. He arrived there to find three people who had been viciously attacked by a knife wielding intruder.  Darlie Routier was seriously injured. Her oldest son, Devon, was dead. Damon Routier, two years younger, was dying.

Officer Waddell’s first response, on arriving, was to go into the bathroom and throw up. He proceeded, according to testimony he later gave in court, to make an inadequate effort to secure the crime scene or search for a possible intruder. He made no attempt to aid Darlie or her boys, giving her contradictory advice (first telling her to help her boys, even though she was obviously bleeding from a slashed throat, then telling her to sit down). He remained at the crime scene until approximately 7 a.m. During that time, he failed to preserve the crime scene for investigators, made an inadequate search of the neighborhood with a K-9 officer which is now known to have overlooked crucial evidence, and made other serious procedural errors

Officer Waddell’s testimony in court was often contradictory, misleading, and outright false. Despite significant doubt as to her guilt and a significant amount of evidence pointing to her innocence, Darlie Routier was eventually convicted of capital murder, and sentenced to death. She has now been on death row for 17 years.

In recent months, several wrongly-convicted men and women have been freed from death row due to reviews of their cases and examination of evidence which was not available at the time of their original trials. In each of these cases, the defendants innocence was proven beyond question. In each, police misconduct contributed to their convictions.

Officer Waddell was transferred from the Rowlett Police Department shortly after the Darlie Routier case. He continues to be employed by the Police Department in Plano, Texas.  He has also appeared on television as an “expert” on other cases, often presenting shoddy or outright false information.  In some cases, he has been unable to accurately recall the names of crime victims.

Of all police personnel who were at the crime scene on June 4, 1996, Waddell is the only one who continues to work actively in law enforcement. In view of his serious mishandling of a case which led to an innocent woman being condemned to death row, along with his actions since, we believe that Waddell has no business working for any law enforcement agency.

Please sign here to add your support to our demand that David Waddell be removed from active duty at the Plano police department. His incompetence has been responsible for at least one wrongful conviction, possibly others. He should not be allowed to continue adding to such a shabby track record.