He was getting clean.. 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. 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. Pvt. According to Sarahs mother, Rhonda Phillips, on at least two occasions in 2020, the last being December 11th, Sarah reported Lewis to his unit, and informed them that she feared for her safety. More: Myron B. Pitts: Fort Bragg name to become a thing of the past good. Boger was a student of the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. Night had fallen, and the suburban cul-de-sac was lit up by emergency lights. She shows me the brief clip on her phone. Aint got much faith in CID.. Enrique Roman-Martinez of Fort Braggs 82nd Airborne Division was beheaded during a camping trip with six other soldiers. 1st Class Nikyisha T. Boyd, 35, of Kissimmee, Florida, died Nov. 9, from injuries suffered during a traffic accident, officials said. We have not ruled anything in or out as the investigation continues.. Spc. When he came home, notably, you could see a droopiness in his eye, she tells me. The remaining three are still at large from incidents in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Queens, N.Y., and Detroit, Mich. Leshikar was a native of rural Idaho and had lived in Washington state, near the Canadian border. Joseph Zygarowski, 25. 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. He had a strong personality. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. She and her whole family had gone into the back bedroom to hide. Fort Bragg cannot explain why dozens of soldiers are dying in their own bunks. Lt. Col. Val Moro, commander of 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, said those who served with Mount will mourn his loss. He was trained for that., The Army officer who did the line-of-duty investigation, a copy of which was first obtained by Jack Murphy of Connecting Vets, noted several discrepancies between the statements Lavigne gave and the evidence collected, including the absence of a screwdriver. The base so far this year has seen five homicides, seven suicides, eight accidents, two illnesses and five deaths that are still under investigation. By the end of the year, there had been 21 suicides at Fort Bragg, more than at any other U.S. military post. The 26 deaths so far this year, nears 2018 and 2017 full 12 month numbers of 28 and 29 respectively. Daddy started walking towards Uncle Billy, and Uncle Billy started shooting him. 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. He loves views, too. The only known common denominator between them was Fort Bragg. I would rather see peace than war. In early 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic descended on the United States, his run-ins with the law became more frequent. There were a couple others that were with us, she tells me, drinking and partying. 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. On April 11th, shortly before the number of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. surpassed 1 million, Dumas had been arrested in Winston-Salem. He made it a point to choose guys who played musical instruments or painted. Her husband and Lavigne remained with the other car, bound for Fayetteville, with the girls in the backseat. He was deadly serious., She pretended to laugh it off, and when Dumas left to get a part from the hardware store, she called her neighbors to come over and sit with her. 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. According to officials, 33 of the fatalities are of undetermined causes. Nathan Goodman, 36, of Hope Mills, died Jan. 14, 2020, in a free-fall training exercise near Eloy, Arizona. Mount is survived by his wife and parents. 0:44. Their brains bounced against their skulls a dozen times on that tour, in addition to calling in airstrikes, or being in an armored vehicle that gets rocked by an IED. In addition to Rolling Stones investigation of Fort Bragg, the senators letter to Secretary Austin cited a number of other alarming reports, including: evidence of rising overdose deaths among veterans and in military hospitals; an incident in March of this year in which five West Point cadets nearly died from taking fentanyl-laced cocaine; and the June 2021 death of Pfc. July 15, 2021 (24 years old) View obituary. In any event, there is no court record showing that he was ever prosecuted. He had migraines, nightmares, personality changes., She still has his body in cold storage, in a freezer in Alaska, because the Army wont turn over his autopsy report or medical file, and she doesnt want to lose evidence that his brain was damaged from TBI or that he was medicated for PTSD. 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. It did cite, however, what it described as an unhealthy sense of entitlement among special operators. She sent him a text message and agreed to hear him out on condition they meet at Leshikars grave site. They speak Spanish with a Caribbean accent and dont know any Timothy Dumas. User may use CAC to register and log in. McLaughlin and Villalon were soldiers who were part of the B Company, 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. 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. 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. He sped off from the scene and was charged with a hit-and-run. More: Fort Bragg paratrooper dies following accident in Syria. One minute after midnight on February 17th, 2020, Lavigne crashed his truck into a womans vehicle in Fayetteville. McLaughlin is survived by his wife and four children. 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. . But he would be dead before his scheduled court appearance. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time Anthony Whitten. The militarys overdose crisis, though most severe at Fort Bragg, affects the entire Army and every other service branch, too. Sens. Did he have demons? He fell in love with what he was doing and decided he was going to make a career out of it, says his dad, who still lives in the remote Upper Peninsula of Michigan where Billy grew up skateboarding and riding motocross. 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. Here's who they are. Investigators identified the soldiers as Spc. Pentagon Finally Stops Hiding Military Overdose Epidemic 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. Even though its a closed case, Laura says, they told us the investigation doesnt see the public eye.. In the bed of the truck and on the ground beside it were two dead men. She also claims to have given Lavigne a tattoo on his chest, and her description matches what CID agents described to Mabey: The tattoo includes the initials M.L., for Mark Leshikar, the date he died, and an inscription, Till Valhalla.. That was the only drug he was for; everything else he was against. They say get a lawyer., I just dont know whats going on with our military right now, says Mabey. There were two people that my brother insisted that I meet, she says, and Billy was one of them., Nicole, a spiritual life coach and Reiki energy teacher, says Lavigne was different from the other off-duty operators her brother hung around. Fish ate them, says his sister (above at her brothers funeral and on the beach where his remains were found). Billy joined Special Forces in 2006, became a Green Beret, and over the next decade averaged about one deployment a year. She fatally shot her fianc. - Page 2. He wore camouflage but sat in a cubicle. He was from a suburb of Los Angeles called Chino. Around 4 p.m., they arrived at Lavignes house, a cookie-cutter tract home at the end of a blank cul-de-sac. In just 18 months, Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from sudden and unexplained causes. He saw people die. 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. Search Fort Bragg obituaries and condolences, hosted by Echovita.com. A tricked-out Chevy Colorado with matte-black wheels and racing tires was stuck in a rut on a dirt road near Lake MacArthur. The onslaught totaled the neighbors car, which Sarah tried to hide behind. 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. Edward Allen Bellis III. The police came and he was arrested in possession of cocaine, a digital scale, a crack pipe, a revolver, a hunting rifle, a snub-nosed pistol, and a pump-action shotgun. There was never no mention of this Dumas. Nicole and Laura say the same. She used to rent a house from him in Carthage, another little town on the periphery of Fort Bragg. Thirteen U.S. service members were killed in the attack and 45 were wounded. 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. So does his best friend, 21-year-old Christian Romero, who is also a paratrooper stationed at Fort Bragg, but in a different unit. During the eight-hour drive back to North Carolina, Laura split off to take her sister to the airport in Raleigh. He thought the car was bugged. 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. His care-free, easygoing personality made him approachable and well-loved, Moro said. Yet their names and faces, as well as the oversize trucks they tend to drive, are well-known to plenty of ordinary people who live around Fort Bragg. In this one, he is sitting in what looks to be a restaurant booth, dressed in a gray vest and a purple dress shirt. He enlisted in the Army on March 12, 2019, as an x-ray Special Forces candidate. Early Saturday afternoon, park rangers had approached the group from Fort Bragg to ask them to move their vehicles, which were encroaching on protected sand dunes. Lavignes death.. Fort Bragg paratroopers killed in Afghanistan remembered for their sacrifice, Fort Bragg paratrooper dies following accident in Syria, 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, Myron B. Pitts: Fort Bragg name to become a thing of the past good, Death of Special Forces soldier found on Fort Bragg ruled as homicide, , died Jan. 28, 2020, in his barracks room, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy.
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