Theyre covering something up. The identity of a soldier struck and killed by a vehicle on Fort Bragg last week was released Monday. William J. LaVigne II, 37, was found dead near a Fort Bragg training area close to the body of Army veteran Timothy J. Dumas, 44, Dec. 2. Fort Bragg But the Army isnt giving any, Illustration by Mike McQuade for Rolling Stone. Click the "subscribe'' link at the top of this article. 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. Were still looking into it.. Army Investigates Deaths of Green Beret and Veteran at Fort Bragg Officials have not said how the men died. Well, I got 120.. I kill people for a living., After his dozen-plus deployments, Lavigne was no less haunted by moral injury. What substances were involved in both fatal and non-fatal overdoses? Report No. DODIG-2020-131: Evaluation of Medical We lost our friend, he told the dispatcher. Enrique Roman-Martinez of Fort Braggs 82nd Airborne Division was beheaded during a camping trip with six other soldiers. He was arrested for a final time on September 17th, in Fayetteville, this time on a prostitution charge. death He enlisted in the Army on March 12, 2019, as an x-ray Special Forces candidate. He didnt respond, she says. His home burned. WebCaitlin Brink/Marine Corps) Recent deaths during initial training across the services is the subject of a new Defense Department inspector general project, according to a Dec. 4 memo. 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. 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 Ukiah police and fire log: Tuesday, Feb The deaths began in January 2020, when a 19-year-old Texans body was discovered in his bunk in an advanced state of decomposition; the Army has not disclosed the cause, and one year later, the investigation remains ongoing. He repaired construction equipment and was assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, a Fort Bragg news release said. 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. He was promoted to master sergeant in July, becoming an operations team sergeant for a Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha, officials said. LaVigne died of multiple gunshot wounds and was shot by (an) unknown person, his death certificate states. He was just a boy, she quotes him as saying. In recent years, whistleblowers have alleged that the use of hard drugs is widespread among special operators. He was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in March 2017 after completing airborne school at Fort Benning, Georgia. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. Estella doesnt know if he was still on the premises when the cops arrived. Fort Bragg Obituaries - Latest Obituaries in Fort Bragg, NC Both girls witnessed what happened next. Accidental? Joseph Zygarowski who died during a training exercise at Fort Bragg on April 19. - Page 2. He tells me I should go smoke in the back because theres going to be a shooting.. Indeed, you would have to pore over the news archives long and hard to find a single negative story on the unit, whose official name is the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, also known as the Combat Applications Group. Both men had young daughters. He was taken home that same night by some of his Delta Force teammates. We have a lot of Delta Force members in our community, says Ballard, the police detective in Vass. Only his severed head had been found. The authorities have kept completely mum. Editors Note: This report is limited to the latest information obtained by SOFREP about the death of MSG Lavigne and Timothy Dumas. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. I think Billy was dealing with his own demons, she says. Out of view of the girls, Leshikar and Lavigne continued to drink and use drugs. Half of those deaths have been ruled suicides. 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. Pfc. They were joined by Lavigne, the girls godfather, whom she called Uncle Billy, and his daughter, who was like a younger cousin to her. As a psychological operations specialist, Boyd deployed eight times, including tours to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Qatar, the Philippinesand Lithuania. According to officials, 33 of the fatalities are of undetermined causes. Tracie Augusta Smith. That last part wasnt true, it later emerged. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time A pair of skimpy running shorts known in the Army as ranger panties were all that he was wearing. Absolutely. This morning, a group of five senators led by Sen. Edward Markey demanded answers from the military on the subject of overdose deaths in the armed forces, in a letter sent to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. His use of alcohol was of even greater concern. 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. Posted 2023-04-21T13:30:09+00:00 - Updated 2023-04-21T23:20:10+00:00 Hearing her father call her name, she went and let him inside. He confessed that he had once killed a child soldier. They are a very hush-hush community, says Diane Ballard, a police detective in the tiny town of Vass, where numerous Delta Force operators, current and retired, own houses. Lt. Col. Val Moro, commander of 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, said those who served with Mount will mourn his loss. July 17, 2021 (83 years old) View obituary. If you had a problem, you could count on Bryan to help.. Pfc. Fort Bragg Everything thats happening at Fort Bragg is horrible, says Lynda Lewis, mother of the Special Forces medic who murdered his pregnant wife. To date, the House Armed Services Committee seems not to have noticed the similar pattern at Fort Bragg. She fatally shot her fianc. Though the offense was a felony, he was not charged. As she lay dying, her baby girl was born; she was going to be named Isabella, but she did not live. Matthew Disney, 20, of Aberdeen, Maryland. Billy joined Special Forces in 2006, became a Green Beret, and over the next decade averaged about one deployment a year. Most of Billys friends or associates, Ive talked to or met, says his father. The young soldier who called 911 also told the dispatcher, unprompted, that Roman-Martinez had suicidal tendencies, which his sister strenuously disputes. Editors picks He was a three-time volunteer on his second combat deployment, said Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, the commander of the 82nd. Leshikars mother, Tammy Mabey, knew her son had a substance-abuse problem. Over the next year, Leshikar moved on to benzodiazepines, then MDMA, then cocaine. 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? Just a while ago the FBI went and dived in the area, and didnt find anything. During the eight-hour drive back to North Carolina, Laura split off to take her sister to the airport in Raleigh. FORT BRAGG A soldier is being mourned after he was killed during a training exercise at Fort Bragg, officials said Friday. Yet it looked as if he had been killed in his sleep. Sometimes when I would walk into Billys house, it was just everywhere., She personally observed, on two or three occasions, the same four guys cutting up and snorting lines of white powder. But she was acquainted with Timothy Dumas, the 44-year-old veteran who was found dead alongside him. At least 44 Fort Bragg soldiers died stateside in 2020 several of them were homicides. Fort Bragg 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. In total, a staggering 83 active-duty soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg died in the 18 months ending June 2021, according to data obtained by Rolling Stone. One minute after midnight on February 17th, 2020, Lavigne crashed his truck into a womans vehicle in Fayetteville. 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. But in each case, the charges were dismissed. Full disclosure, Nicole says, me and Billy and Mark all did coke together., On multiple occasions, she saw other special operators snorting cocaine, too. Caleb Smither, 19, of Lubbock, Texas, died Jan. 28, 2020, in his barracks room on Fort Bragg. 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. I hurt Sarah, and my career is ruined. I talked to him for a long time. George Allen taught Villalon at East Aurora High School. I would rather see peace than war. In just 18 months, Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from sudden and unexplained causes. In 2018, former senior special-forces sergeants Daniel Gould and Henry Royer were busted trying to import punching bags that had been gutted and packed with cocaine from Colombia. He attended Special Forces Assessment and Selection and graduated as a Special Forces engineer sergeant in October 2007, beingassigned to the 19th Special Forces Groups 2nd Battalion. What is the protocol for informing family in the event of an overdose, including non-fatal overdoses. Army Investigates Deaths of Green Beret She claims to have known Lavigne well, and to have seen him do cocaine, crystal meth, and heroin. Night had fallen, and the suburban cul-de-sac was lit up by emergency lights. 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. Cumberland County spokesman Sean Swain says he has no idea if Lavigne was drug tested, but seemed to think it unlikely since Lavigne was never arrested, even though he had just used his personal firearm, a .45-caliber handgun, to kill a decorated Green Beret. When Marky would spiral was when he drank too much. He would turn to his wife and say things like, You know Im a bad person, right? He was seeing bad things.. 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. Spc. Fort Bragg We have not ruled anything in or out as the investigation continues.. The sheriffs office refused to share a full investigative report on the incident with the Leshikar family, which, Swain says, is department policy. They do what they want.. The DAs office did not respond to multiple requests for more information. 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. Cruz De Leon was an infantryman assigned to the divisions Company A, 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team. No one I spoke to had any clue, or even a theory, who the surviving shooter or shooters were. 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. Villalon was captain of the physical fitness team and a member of the drill team in the Navy Junior ROTC program, said Allen, who was a teacher in the program for 18 years. Maybe. death Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, he says, pretty much anywhere the U.S. had anything going on between 2006 and 2018, he was there. By 2012, he had made the ultra-selective cut for Delta Force, which rejects the overwhelming majority of Rangers and Green Berets invited to try out. On top of the sort of training that all Rangers, Green Berets, and Navy SEALs have to go through, he had been schooled in sabotage, demolition, hostage rescue, tactical driving, lockpicking, and spy-trade craft such as how to shadow people, use dead drops, and live under a cover identity. The onslaught totaled the neighbors car, which Sarah tried to hide behind. Bragg that are still unexplained but many believe might be tied to the U.S. Armys policy of mandatory covid-19 vaccinations:. 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. He was trying to get into Buddhism. 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. He was a very hostile individual, says a detective who used to rent a house from Dumas. She also retrieved her Glock from the bedroom and stuck it under a couch cushion. View obituary. 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. 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. Fort Bragg Fish ate them, says his sister (above at her brothers funeral and on the beach where his remains were found). Goodman was in the 3rd Special Forces Groups 2nd Battalion, according to the statement. They quickly became the best of friends. He called me and said, Mom, Ive got a gun to my head. When they found my brothers remains, he didnt have eyes. Goodman was born in Pasadena, California, but grew up near Chicago andenlisted in July 2002 and transferred to the Army National Guard in 2005. Related Its not just combat trauma and moral injury, says Naylor. We need answers, and we need solutions., Im calling on the Department of Defense to account for these deaths, he continued, and to give us a plan of action for safeguarding the active-duty service members who keep Americans safe.. The Army said it was investigating the deaths last week of a Green Beret and an Army veteran whose bodies were found in a training area at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. How they knew each other, the nature of their connection, remains a mystery. SHERIFFS REPORTS The following were compiled from reports prepared by the Mendocino County Sheriffs Office: BOOKED: Jason Colson, 34, of Fort Bragg, was arrested on Feb. 19 at 11 p.m. Born in New York City on April 27, 1985, Boyd enlisted in the Army from Tampa, Florida, in 2004 as a psychological operations specialist. You can clearly see the moment a small black hole appears in the sheetrock, blowing out a cone of gypsum powder. deaths The remaining three are still at large from incidents in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Queens, N.Y., and Detroit, Mich. Leshikar opened the hood of the car, a Honda Accord, and with the engine still hot, began to disassemble it. He sounded somewhat normal, but anxious and preoccupied. Only two months remained before he would become eligible for retirement. More: Fort Bragg paratrooper dies following accident in Syria. It far surpassed Fort Hood, where 28 soldier deaths in 2020 led to a congressional investigation, a sweeping indictment of the installations toxic culture, and the dismissal of most of the chain of command. Fort Bragg is home to two of the most important formations in the Pentagons sprawling, complex special-operations bureaucracy: the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, or USASOC, which includes the Rangers and the Green Berets; and JSOC, the black ops component of the military. The discovery of Lavignes and Dumas bodies also raised hard questions for local law enforcement in Fayetteville, which may be home to Fort Bragg, the largest Army base in the U.S., but remains a relatively small Southern town, whose red-brick historical center, built around a white clock tower, quickly gives way to the strip-mall sprawl of discount supermarkets, hamburger drive-throughs, gun stores, and Baptist churches. Inside the Rash of Unexplained Deaths at Fort Hood | Vanity Fair Army vet Timothy Dumas, 44, was found shot and killed alongside Lavigne.
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