Eddie Ray Routh waited behind bars while the state of Texas prepared its murder case against him. Months passed. The delay in an indictment seemed curious. Autopsies, ballistics tests, and interviews certainly needed to be conducted; still, the prosecutor had Routh’s confession in hand. On the night of February 2, 2013, Routh admitted, he had killed two men at a rifle range southwest of Dallas. The victims—a former Navy SEAL named Chris Kyle and his friend, Chad Littlefield—had brought Routh, an ex-Marine who was suffering from symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, to the range. Routh turned his gun on them. Texas law automatically grants bail to anyone not indicted within ninety days, but that stipulation does not apply in death-penalty cases. Last week, nearly six months after Routh pulled the trigger, the state finally indicted him for capital murder. (I wrote about Routh and Kyle last month for the magazine.)

Routh’s days at the Erath County Jail have not been placid ones. He was tasered by a guard a few hours after being booked, and his combativeness kept a mental-health expert from even completing her assessment of whether he is competent to stand trial—a question that remains. In a recent episode, Routh yanked his television from the wall, blocked his shower drain, and tried to flood the cell. He cannot sustain a cogent conversation.

One needn’t be at all sympathetic to Routh’s travails to grant that his psychological distress (and his inability, before the shooting, to get proper treatment from the Veterans Affairs facility in Dallas) factored into the tragic events in February. He has, however, received no counselling from the V.A. since late January.

The indictment is itself a rather empty document. It is one page, rehashing what has long been known: that “on or around the second day of February, AD, 2013 … [Routh] intentionally and knowingly cause[d] the death” of Kyle and Littlefield, and that both murders were “committed during the same criminal episode.” An additional three pages lay out the judge’s gag order, effective immediately. Due to the “unusually emotional nature” of the case, its “unique nature of security issues” and the “extensive local and national media coverage” that it has already received, the judge directed all relevant law enforcement and judicial bodies, as well as Routh and his family, to refrain from any interaction with the media that might “interfere with the defendant’s right to a fair trial.”

Though trials are implicitly suspenseful and unpredictable events, the chances of Routh walking away a free man are slim. Kyle—a highly decorated former SEAL who wrote a best-selling memoir, “American Sniper,” and whose second book, “American Gun,” was published posthumously and is currently on the Times hardcover best-seller list—was buried in Texas State Cemetery following a memorial service in Cowboy Stadium. His funeral procession may have been the longest in U.S. history. His SEAL teammates had nicknamed him “the legend,” for his marksmanship skills. According to “American Sniper,” he recorded more sniper kills than anyone in American history.

Some of Kyle’s assertions in “American Sniper” have been challenged. He claimed, for instance, to have punched out Jesse Ventura at a bar in San Diego. Ventura, the governor of Minnesota and a one-time professional wrestler, reacted to the story by suing Kyle for defamation. Both sides hired lawyers, took depositions, and prepared for a trial that was expected to begin as early as next month. Kyle’s death scrambled the timetable, but not Ventura’s resolve. The man known in his wrestling career as “the Body” announced that he planned to pursue his charges against Kyle’s wife, and two weeks ago, a judge permitted him to proceed. What started as a bizarre, ego-driven duel between two former sailors (Ventura served in the Navy during the nineteen-seventies) has devolved into a shameless display. Unfortunately for Kyle’s wife, there is no competency test for callousness.

Illustration: A. J. Frackattack; Photograph: left: Reuters; right: Eric Tanner.