‘American Sniper’ Author Shot And Killed At Texas Shooting Range

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Chris Kyle, a former Navy SEAL and famous sniper, was fatally shot Saturday at a shooting range in Texas, the New York Times reports. Kyle was the author of “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.”

According to the Times, the man now being charged with the murder of Kyle and his companion was a veteran whom Kyle had invited out to the shooting range. Kyle often brings veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder to the range as a kind of therapy. A companion of Kyle’s who was with him Saturday, Chad Littlefield, was also killed.

On Sunday, the police identified the shooter as Eddie Ray Routh, a 25-year-old veteran with a history of mental illness who had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The police offered no information about a possible motive.

 

Mr. Routh shot the men at about 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, at the Rough Creek Lodge, an exclusive shooting range near Glen Rose, 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 then fled in a pickup truck and was arrested on Saturday night at his home in Lancaster, a southern Dallas suburb. He has been charged with two counts of capital murder, Mr. Haschel said.

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