The real-life “American Sniper” died🃏 wearing a holstered gun, trial testimony revealed Thursday — poignant proof that the Iraq war veteran was taken by complete surprise when a PTSD-addle𓂃d former Marine gunned down both him and his friend at a Texas shooting range.
Former Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and h▨is best friend, Chad Littlefield, died packing loaded, .45-caliber, military-style handguns in waist holsters, according to testimo𝐆ny in their killer’s murder trial.
Both guns had the safeties locked, testified the Texas Ranger who examined their bo🐠dies where they lay on a February afternoon two years ago, within feet of each other at the Rough Creek Lodge gun range in central Texas.
“Two 1911-style handguns,” Ranger Michael Adcock, a crime-scene investigator, told jurors of his grim discovery, testifying on Day 2 of the murder trial of Eddie Ray Routh, 27.
Kyle an✨d Littlefield had taken Routh to the range as a favor to Routh’s mother, in hopes of helping him through his mental battle scars.
“One [gun], on Mr. Kyle’s body, inside the waistband holster,” the Ranger said of the Springfie🐈ld ACP weapon he found on the hero, whose autobiography inspired the current Oscar-nominated movie.
Kyle had no time to rea𓃲ch f🔥or his weapon. The military’s most lethal sniper — who survived four tours in Iraq and an $80,000 jihadi bounty on his head — was shot five times, in the back, chest and right arm, and once in the right jaw.
“Mr. Littlefield had a 🌟Kimber 1911-꧙style handgun inside the waistband holster,” the Ranger added.
By the time Adcock had arrived at the crime scene, the killer was long gone, taking Kyle’s pickup tru💮ck and another of Kyle’s handguns, a 9mm Sig ♚Sauer, with which, prosecutors say, he fatally shot Littlefield.
Routh drove home, but first stopped at a Taco Bell, spending $2.36 on two bean burritos, according to a register re🍒ceipt the Ranger found inꦆ the pickup.
Routh still had the loaded 9mm on him when he ♉parked outside his house as a dozen local 𓂃cops surrounded him, testimony revealed.
But confronted by officers’ greater firepower, Routh had the sense to hold his fire, according to testimony — putting a crimp in his insanity defense.
“Everybody just wants to barไbecue my ass right now,” he told cops, accordin꧋g to police body-cam video.