The man dubbed "America's Deadliest Sniper" is dead.  Killed in cold blood along with another man on a shooting range in Texas.

Chris Kyle, a former Navy SEAL who wrote American Sniper, a best-seller about his career as a sniper in Iraq was shot to death on the shooting range at Rough Creek Lodge in Texas. Another man, Chad Littlefield was also shot to death on the gun range.

The gunman is identified as Eddie Ray Routh of Lancaster, Texas who was arrested after a brief pursuit.  Routh has been arraigned on two counts of murder and is being held on a $3 million bond.

Routh is in the Marine Corps Individual Ready Reserve, a U.S. military official confirmed. As such, he is not active or drilling with a unit.

Routh's service record shows that he was an armorer with the rank of corporal and served from June 2006 to January 2010. He was deployed three times -- to Iraq, various locations in Europe and the Middle East, and to Haiti.

Chris Kyle, also a Texas native, served four tours in Iraq with Navy SEAL Team 3.  His shooting skills during the battles of Ramadi and Fallujah became legendary.  Insurgents put a bounty on his head and labeled him "The Devil Of Ramadi."

Kyle is credited with 160 confirmed kills, the longest at 2,100 yards which is 1.2 miles.

In a February 2012 interview with NBC News, Kyle said he didn’t want to put the number of kills in the book but the publisher insisted.

“If I could figure out the number of people I saved, that’s something I would brag about,” he told NBC News' Lester Holt.

After leaving the Navy, Kyle founded Craft International, which provides training to military, police, corporate and civilian clients, Reuters said.

"It just comes as a shock and it's staggering to think that after all Chris has been through, that this is how he meets his end, because there are so many ways he could have been killed" in Iraq, Scott McEwen, who co-wrote "American Sniper," told Reuters.

Kyle leaves behind a wife and two children.

 

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