fort bragg deaths 2019

On May 9, 2018, roughly three months after Becky Kunzes death, Sarah Hartsfield fatally shot her onetime fianc in the large home they had moved to from Texas months before. Steve Kirsch has reported on recent deaths at Fr. CID rejects any notion that anything but a complete and unbiased investigation was conducted, Grey says. The colonel used to be involved in selection, he said, and in addition to superlative marksmanship, he would look for introversion and artistic ability in potential recruits. Related Congress has finally taken notice of an unprecedented wave of fatalities at Fort Bragg, some 17 months after Rolling Stone first brought attention to an apparent drug crisis at the base. Goodman was in the 3rd Special Forces Groups 2nd Battalion, according to the statement. Exclusive: Army Files Charges in Mysterious Fort Bragg Beheading Case, Bereaved family members welcomed the senators efforts towards reform. Sgt. I could never take anything serious.. But he had a gun. There was another vivid memory that particularly bothered him: walking through the rubble of a demolished city with a Belgian Malinois, a service dog, and allowing the animal to eat the brains from a dead mans broken skull as a treat.. A day after the bodies were found, an unnamed Army official leaked to CBS that both Lavigne and Dumas, at the time of their deaths, were under investigation for trafficking narcotics on Fort Bragg, and that investigators suspected a double homicide from a drug deal gone wrong. Special operation forces induct members into regiments at Fort Bragg. A Dallas County jury awarded more than $860 million to the parents of a woman killed in 2019 when a 200-foot steel crane toppled onto her apartment building from an adjacent construction site. Why did it take them till December?. Army authorities wont disclose the total number of soldiers stationed there who died in 2020, but Lavigne was one of a spate of homicides and suicides that brought the tally up to at least 44, pushing Fort Bragg to a decisive first-place finish in a race no one wanted to win. The authorities have kept completely mum. Four Fort Bragg soldiers died while deployed in 2019. Joseph Zygarowski who died during a training exercise at Fort Bragg on April 19. Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528. Absolutely. A memorial service today at Fort Bragg makes 25 years since the 82nd Airborne Division suffered its biggest one-day loss of life since World War II.The He loves views, too. She has photos of a tub of used syringes found in Lewis closet, including vials of drostanalone propionate and trenbolone acetate, both of which are illicit anabolic steroids that can cause severe mood disturbances. Out of view of the girls, Leshikar and Lavigne continued to drink and use drugs. The Fort Bragg Murders At least 44 Fort Bragg soldiers died stateside in 2020 several of them were homicides. Estella called the Fayetteville police, who filed an incident report. Pvt. He was a three-time volunteer who enlisted in the Army in May 2019 and reported to his first duty assignment at Fort Bragg in October. The Department of Defense announced 25 total casualties of service members who died in combat or noncombat-related incidents throughout 2020. As soon as the rockets began to burst, We had to get out of there. Fort Bragg is the largest military base in the U.S. and the command post for the Armys most elite units, such as Delta Force and the Green Berets, which have borne a disproportionate burden of Americas never-ending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, undergoing not just combat trauma and moral injury but a lot of traumatic brain injuries as well. In 2015, former SEAL James Matthews got pulled over in New Jersey towing a trailer loaded with $1.4 million worth of marijuana. and Pfc. He was a human resource specialist in the 82nd Airborne Divisions 37th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team. He was convinced that people were following them. But in each case, the charges were dismissed. The same is true in the case of a young Ohioan, a Green Beret candidate, who in March was found unresponsive in his barracks. The 26 deaths so far this year, nears 2018 and 2017 full 12 month numbers of 28 and 29 respectively. His death was ruled a homicide. Keiths mom, Lynda Lewis, tells me that her son should have been expelled from the Army back in 2016, when he assaulted Sarah and got into an armed standoff with the Fayetteville police. Nor would the base discuss the perplexing incidence of young men turning up unresponsive in their bunks, such as 19-year-old Caleb Smither, whose body was so decomposed when they found him that he couldnt have an open-casket funeral. The remaining three are still at large from incidents in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Queens, N.Y., and Detroit, Mich. He served as an Army sergeant for almost seven years and was deployed three times with one combat tour in Iraq. WebThey are: Master Sgt. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. When I ask if his best friend ever took LSD, Romero says, Yeah. Cumberland County sheriffs deputies responded to the scene. After completing basic combat training and advanced individual training in 2019 at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, he was assigned to the 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, where he served as a combat engineer. Hed read an article about hallucinogenic mushrooms, she says. Graves was the night she died. Roman-Martinez had done multiple parachute jumps in the course of his training, but he was an HR specialist, a guy whose job it was to maintain personnel records. Dumas had been arrested numerous times in North Carolina on charges ranging from making terroristic threats to impersonating a cop, yet had never been prosecuted. Half of those deaths have been ruled suicides. He was looking to be helpful and to be part of the team.. Army vet Timothy Dumas, 44, was found shot and killed alongside Lavigne. They speak Spanish with a Caribbean accent and dont know any Timothy Dumas. Click the "subscribe'' link at the top of this article. Command Sgt. At least 44 Fort Bragg soldiers died stateside in 2020 several of them were homicides. Yet it looked as if he had been killed in his sleep. Thats the way I feel about it.. Mount is survived by his wife and parents. That the FBI has taken the lead makes me feel a little bit better, says Billys father. Lavignes death., Pentagon Finally Stops Hiding Military Overdose Epidemic, Senators Press Pentagon for Answers on Rash of Overdose Deaths, These Kids Are Dying Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg. I was never a detective, she says, but even the limited crime-scene investigation that Ive done tells me these guys are full of shit. Boger was a student of the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. ArMA is the primary source for non-emergency issues (Priority-2 & Priority-3) demand maintenance order (DMO) submissions. Both had been killed by gunshots, and according to news reports, shell casings were scattered on the ground. Virtually everything to do with this organization is classified, says Sean Naylor, author of Relentless Strike, a history of JSOC. He was getting clean.. She shows me the brief clip on her phone. The 172,000-acre Fort Bragg base is one of the world's largest military complexes with approximately 57,000 military personnel, 11,000 civilian employees and 23,000 family members. Through the intercom she says that she is just as clueless as anyone else and that she and Dumas led separate lives.. But he scared me., a copy of which was first obtained by Jack Murphy of. CIA Director, Noam Chomsky Named in Epstein's Private Calendar: Report A burial was held on Monday, April 24th 2023 at the Rose Memorial Park (760 N Franklin St, Fort Bragg, CA 95437). He sped off from the scene and was charged with a hit-and-run. Most of Billys friends or associates, Ive talked to or met, says his father. Maj. Gregory Seymour became Fort Bragg garrison's senior enlisted adviser Feb. 24. Barry Recap: A Tragic Death Shakes Up Bill Haders Dark Satire More generally, how many active duty service members had traces of misused prescription medication or illicit drugs in their system at the time of death? The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. This time he was charged with three felonies: breaking and entering, communicating threats, and impersonating a law-enforcement officer, but all of the charges were dismissed. Even if Leshikar had come at him with a screwdriver, Billy wouldnt just forget how to disarm somebody, Nicole says. El tipo que peg el tiro aqu, she says, pointing to a small black hole in the wall: The guy who fired a shot through here., The other woman, whom Ill call Estella, tells me the story in English. Her son, Spc. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Maybe. He was promoted to master sergeant in July, becoming an operations team sergeant for a Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha, officials said. Lavigne was entitled to a variety of due process protections. July 15, 2021 (24 years old) View obituary. At the relatively young age of 37, after a full 20 years in the military, he would be entitled to a substantial pension and lifelong benefits. Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and three other senators are demanding answers from Defense Sec. Cloaked in secrecy and sloshing with money, JSOC has operational control over the most elite commando units of each of the major service branches, including the Navys SEAL Team 6 and the Armys Delta Force, which it uses to carry out the nations most politically risky, no-fail missions, like the killing of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the emir of the Islamic State, in 2019. Its the last thing we spoke about.. When a friend or babysitter could be found to look after the kids, the group of five parents, all in their mid-thirties, went out on the town in Fayetteville. In 2016, he was reassigned to 1st Special Warfare Training Group as a senior instructor, then chief instructor. MILITARY. In recent years, whistleblowers have alleged that the use of hard drugs is widespread among special operators. Enrique Roman-Martinez of Fort Braggs 82nd Airborne Division was beheaded during a camping trip with six other soldiers. Sens. At age 37, William Billy Lavigne II was a true Tier 1 operator, a master sergeant on the Armys most selective and clandestine task force. But he scared me.. George Allen taught Villalon at East Aurora High School. He sounded somewhat normal, but anxious and preoccupied. Only two months remained before he would become eligible for retirement. Yet there were no firearms to be found at the scene, and no trace of the third man, the surviving shooter. And there have been several murders in the last few years around Fort Bragg with apparent links to drug-trafficking by elite soldiers, or distribution networks run by ordinary enlisted men in the 82nd. Lois Ruth Collins. Editors picks From outward appearances, the two men simply lost their minds. And he fell down on the ground and Uncle Billy kept shooting him. At least 170 Afghan civilians were killed. In late May, a 21-year-old enlisted man from California was killed beheaded, in fact while on a camping trip with six of his fellow paratroopers; once again, no arrests have been made in the case. The autopsy showed that he had been shot from multiple angles, including from behind. hree weeks before Christmas, in the piney woods outside of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a deer hunter came across the fallout from a firefight that, to date, no one has been able to explain. That broke me, Romero says. He was deployed to Saudi Arabia when he read on Facebook that Roman-Martinez, whom hed known since middle school, had gone missing. I would see him staring off in space a lot, thinking. On the Fourth of July, he took his son to see the fireworks at Fort Bragg. More: John Wayne helped pay for a Fort Bragg statue, theres a time capsule with JFK's letter and other tidbits about Fort Bragg's monuments. David Bragg. We were trying to find the park ranger or their offices, or anything.. Nobody would listen., My son was the most honest, loyal, patriotic person, she continues. Just not very well. In July 2018, around the time he and his dad had to flee from that Independence Day fireworks show, he called Mabey to beg her forgiveness for killing her son. Theyve done coke in front of me, she says. The vacation lasted nearly a week. Two days after Dumas and Lavigne were found dead, more details emerged on an earlier Fort Bragg killing: the death of Specialist Enrique Roman-Martinez, who had gone missing over Memorial Day weekend on a camping trip to the North Carolina shore with six of his fellow paratroopers. He changed dramatically in a short period of time, says his father, who came from Michigan to stay with him after the shooting. Enrique Roman-Martinez, 21, of Chino, California, was last seen May 22 while camping with fellow soldiers near Mile Marker 46 on South Core Banks. Nathan Goodman, 36, of Hope Mills, died Jan. 14, 2020, in a free-fall training exercise near Eloy, Arizona. How they knew each other, the nature of their connection, remains a mystery. Two months later, someone nearly died of a heroin overdose at Lavignes house. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time On-post deaths or off-post accidents and incidents: Officials released information throughout the year about the deaths of other Fort Bragg soldiers who either died on post or in off-post inicidents. It was out of control, says his best friends wife, Laura Leshikar. Everything thats happening at Fort Bragg is horrible, says Lynda Lewis, mother of the Special Forces medic who murdered his pregnant wife. He once saw him using LSD at a barracks party, he says. His longtime partner died. In light of this disturbing trend, the letter reads, we write seeking a full understanding of the pattern of overdoses., Sen. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who has sponsored a number of bills to combat the opioid epidemic, is spearheading the oversight effort. It was much easier, ironically, to get information on Fort Bragg-based personnel who died in foreign countries. One minute after midnight on February 17th, 2020, Lavigne crashed his truck into a womans vehicle in Fayetteville. Over the next year, Leshikar moved on to benzodiazepines, then MDMA, then cocaine. But she was acquainted with Timothy Dumas, the 44-year-old veteran who was found dead alongside him. McLaughlin joined the Army in 2012, according to the 82nd Airborne Division public affairs office. What is known is that on December 22nd, Sarah dialed 911 and fled to a neighbors house. For David George and Sarah Hartsfield, the first eight months of 2018 were marked by death and destruction. Nicole and her husband also had small children. I thought it was guns because he would talk about all the parts he had access to, and all the guns he could get., At the time, Ballard had recently left the Navy and had yet to join the police or become a detective. In the few photos of Delta Force that exist in the public domain, their faces are blurred or blacked out, their identities classified. Lavigne was transported downtown, but did not remain long in the police station. On March 28th, the Fayetteville police responded to an incident in which he was suspected of shooting into an occupied dwelling. He was trying to get into Buddhism. A memorial service today at Fort Bragg makes 25 years since the 82nd Airborne Division suffered its biggest one-day loss of life since World War II. Ian Paul McLaughlin, 29, of Newport News, Virginia, was killed Jan. 11, 2020, by an improvised explosive device in Kandahar, Afghanistan. During the eight-hour drive back to North Carolina, Laura split off to take her sister to the airport in Raleigh. Tammy Mabey, Leshikars mom, had spent 18 years in law enforcement, working as a dispatcher, a jailer, and a patrolwoman in California, Idaho, and Nevada. By the end of the year, there had been 21 suicides at Fort Bragg, more than at any other U.S. military post. There were a couple others that were with us, she tells me, drinking and partying. In May of that year, he met Mark Leshikar, another stubborn, hardheaded country boy from way up north. Its a horrible photo, Nicole says, like hes already dead. In real life, she says, he was more handsome: tall and bald, with a neatly trimmed beard. The three-year-old was either let go by Keith or slipped free, and went running into the arms of one of the officers who responded to the scene. Over the past 20 years of continuous war, from the snowy passes of the Hindu Kush to the desert scrublands of Somalia, JSOCs budget and autonomy have continuously grown, and so has the scope of its mission. Each death is blamed on the husband. Her brother enlisted for a steady paycheck and for the GI Bill. July 3, 2022 (91 years old) View obituary. Just a while ago the FBI went and dived in the area, and didnt find anything. Dumas and his dreadlocked sidekick went into the apartment across the corridor, and she went into hers. Caleb Smither, 19, of Lubbock, Texas, died Jan. 28, 2020, in his barracks room on Fort Bragg. Such a pigheaded, egotistical man was the first impression he made on his wife, Laura, a 39-year-old paralegal from Hawaii whose dad was a Marine. Hughes was an unmanned aerial vehicle operator assigned to the A Troop, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. Half of those deaths have been ruled suicides. Why in the hell would you just let some guy off on murder?, A waste of paper is how Nicole describes CIDs report, which she received in heavily redacted form. A $25,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the apprehension and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Roman-Martinezs murder. I did not get the impression that he was joking. No one I spoke to had any clue, or even a theory, who the surviving shooter or shooters were. Then 9/11 happened, touching off the longest period of war in U.S. history. They have a different society, Lavigne would respond, in Nicoles recollection, and while I dont agree with it, we shouldnt be doing what were doing over there. . It did cite, however, what it described as an unhealthy sense of entitlement among special operators. T Pvt. Kiss Paul Stanley Has 'Thoughts' About Parents Who Support Kids Gender Identities Pfc. On Friday night, there was a thunderstorm. In the three years since, De Nola has tried to lobby members of the House of Representatives to investigate opioid abuse in the military, but until now, there hasnt been any real action at the federal level. He would leave his phone and wallet for sure, but not his glasses. As a psychological operations specialist, Boyd deployed eight times, including tours to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Qatar, the Philippinesand Lithuania. Fayetteville Police did not respond to multiple requests for more information. recruits that occurred from January 1, 2015, through December 31, 2019.1 We obtained and reviewed documents related to the recruit deaths from the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner and the Military Services, including death certificates, electronic medical records, and command and medical investigations and reviews. He tried to rationalize it, telling his mom that he and his fellow Green Berets would snort coke to stay awake on sleepless missions. Col. Tage Rainsford, a spokesman for USASOC, did not respond to written questions regarding allegations of cocaine and MDMA use among members of Delta Force, and would not say whether operators are tested for drugs. She hung up on him, but later had second thoughts. Sgt. He was repeatedly arrested for possession of untaxed liquor, failure to return rented property, and permitting a minor to consume alcohol. We are far from the flagpole and are expected to be incorruptible.. His use of alcohol was of even greater concern. You would not believe how many people I have reached out to. People not inclined to be team players, he explained, somewhat paradoxically. There had to have been at least one. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Carol Ann Brown to pay them a last tribute. The bases spokesman, Col. Joe Buccino, acknowledged that illegal drug use seems to have been a common factor in all of the homicides that involved Fort Bragg soldiers, but emphasized that all but one of the killings pertained to the special-forces units at Fort Bragg, which he could not speak for. One evening in October 2013, Dumas came over to fix an electrical outlet, and Ballard had the distinct impression that he was hitting on her: He was trying to pry about where my husband was. She told him they were separated at the moment. Fort Bragg is the largest military base in the U.S. and the command post for the Armys most elite units, such as Delta Force and the Green Berets, which have borne a disproportionate burden of Americas never-ending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, undergoing not just combat trauma and moral injury but a lot of traumatic brain injuries as well. The justification was unconvincing on its face. Sgt. She and her husband, a Navy submariner, were moving to North Carolina, and stayed for a time at Leshikars apartment. Elizabeth Warren, Lisa Murkowski, John Cornyn, and Martin Heinrich were also signatories to the letter, which posed six questions to the Pentagon, starting with, How many active military service members overdosed from January 1, 2017 to present?, The letter referenced Rolling Stones most recent report, published in the September issue, on rising overdose deaths at Fort Bragg, and in the U.S. Army more generally. Joseph Zygarowski who died during a training exercise at Fort Bragg on April 19. In the past six weeks, four wives of soldiers at Fort Bragg have been murdered. It was late at night and she was out front smoking a cigarette. Had it been properly looked into, she says, all the bodies and drugs that have come in the last two and a half years might have been avoided.. On February 2nd, the Charlotte field office put out a bulletin seeking assistance from the public to establish a timeline of the two mens movements up until their deaths. Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told Rolling Stone that recent medical studies showed a fast and dramatic rise in the number of fatal overdoses among active-duty military men. We lost our friend, he told the dispatcher. Mount, 25, from St. George, Utah, died July 21 as the result of a vehicle rollover accident while conducting reconnaissance operations, July 21 in Eastern Syria. Terrance Salazar, 24, of Pleasanton, Texas, was found unresponsive in his room Nov. 11 and could not be revived, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division said. He was taken home that same night by some of his Delta Force teammates. He kind of represented himself as an SF operator, she says, though he was just a logistics guy. We want to hear it. Pentagon Finally Stops Hiding Military Overdose Epidemic Lavigne, who was divorced and had a succession of girlfriends, loved being a dad, Nicole says. Thats when he made the statement that if I wanted my husband gone, he could take care of it, she says. He enlisted in the Army on March 12, 2019, as an x-ray Special Forces candidate. Roman-Martinezs partial remains had washed up on Shackleford Banks a few days later, but in the six months since then, few details had been forthcoming. According to the medical examiner, Roman-Martinez had been decapitated. A small boy about waist high is dancing next to a laundry hamper to music from the television. The next day, he was indicted on two felony charges: harboring an escapee and maintaining a vehicle or dwelling place to manufacture a controlled substance. Ruth Sparks, a native of San Jose, California, and resident of Fort Bragg, California, passed away on December 1, 2022, surrounded by her family. The cause of death is listed as homicide and the case is being investigated by the Army Criminal Investigation Command. But when she called her husband on FaceTime, he seemed perfectly normal, leading her to conclude that they were playing a joke on her. Matthew Disney, 20, of Aberdeen, Maryland. Governor Roy Cooper ordered all U.S. and North Carolina flags at state facilities to half-staff beginning immediately until sunset Wednesday, April 26, in honor of U.S. Army Sgt. These incidents, the letter read, indicate a problem that may be underreported, and are a call for urgent action. Succession Recap: Logan Roy Makes Shock Return, Shiv and Tom Get Kinky Almost every time I saw Billy, he was strung out on something., A day after the bodies were found, an unnamed Army official leaked to CBS that both Lavigne and Dumas, at the time of their deaths, were under investigation for trafficking narcotics on Fort Bragg, and that investigators suspected a double homicide from a drug deal gone wrong.. Nice, normal people. Others, she says, are narcissistic, or have some other character defect that produces a sense of entitlement, like they can get away with anything. He didnt spend a single night in jail. Joseph Zygarowski, 25. Even though some people use the term interchangeably, they are The things that have happened with special forces are outside the purview of the Fort Bragg command, he says. Here's who they are. Smither enlisted in the Army in May 2019 and was stationed at Fort Bragg in December 2019. To cap off a freakish year at Fort Bragg, just three weeks after Lavigne and Dumas turned up dead, a 31-year-old combat medic assigned to Special Forces named Keith Lewis shot and killed his pregnant wife, Sarah Lewis, an Air Force veteran who was due to give birth at any moment. Did he have demons? In 2016, he was assigned to the 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, where he served as a horizontal construction engineer and later as a squad leader.

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