Master Sgt. I dont get intimidated by people easily. He changed dramatically in a short period of time, says his father, who came from Michigan to stay with him after the shooting. She claims to have known Lavigne well, and to have seen him do cocaine, crystal meth, and heroin. Most immediately, though, the discovery of Lavignes body represented a problem for the leadership at Fort Bragg. In March 2018, Mark and Laura Leshikar took their daughter to Disney World to celebrate her fifth birthday. Over the course of several months of correspondence, the public-affairs office eventually disclosed the number of homicides and suicides, but not deaths from accidents and illnesses, which would include drug overdoses. He returned to active duty in 2010 and was assigned to his current unit. Its the last thing we spoke about.. The last person to have seen him alive that I could identify is a woman named Jessie Marie Patino, a tattoo artist and junkyard mechanic. 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. A small boy about waist high is dancing next to a laundry hamper to music from the television. 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. Weve been looking for him all day. I was like a fly on the wall, she says, watching their interactions. Unlike his buddies, Lavigne never bragged about the number of people he had killed. JSOCs budget is classified, but it reportedly costs between $1 million and $2 million to train the average special operator, and much more has likely been invested in each soldier by the time they reach the level of whats known as a Special Mission Unit, such as Delta or SEAL Team 6. Sheriffs deputies took him to the station, but he was never placed under arrest or charged with a crime. WebThey are: Master Sgt. Absolutely. He had been shot multiple times in the chest, wrapped in a type of nylon blanket that soldiers call a woobie, and placed in the back of his own truck, the gray Chevrolet. Matthew Disney, 20, of Aberdeen, Maryland. Terry Wayne Smoot. At least 44 Fort Bragg soldiers died stateside in 2020 several of them were homicides. But my brother was murdered back in May. Find an obituary, get service details, leave condolence messages or send flowers or gifts in memory of a loved one. 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. Leshikar was a native of rural Idaho and had lived in Washington state, near the Canadian border. We dont know where he has gone. He added, When we woke up he was not here. Nathan Goodman, 36, of Hope Mills, died Jan. 14, 2020, in a free-fall training exercise near Eloy, Arizona. It did cite, however, what it described as an unhealthy sense of entitlement among special operators. I think Billy was dealing with his own demons, she says. 'These Kids Are Dying' Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg On a cold evening in late January, when I visit the approximate spot where he was found, the woods are perfectly still and quiet, with not even a bird chirping. Roman-Martinezs partial remains were later found May 29, after washing up on Shackleford Banks Island, which is part of the Cape Lookout National Seashore. I dont know any soldier who has done the tours he had done that doesnt., That was certainly the case with Lavigne. Ari McGuire, died of a fentanyl overdose at Fort Bragg in August 2019, after he was allegedly introduced to drugs by his platoon sergeant in Afghanistan. Ballard, the only full-time detective in Vass, didnt know Billy Lavigne. He made it a point to choose guys who played musical instruments or painted. The details, gleaned from an administrative inquiry by the Army to determine whether Leshikar died in the line of duty, are sketchy: Around 1 p.m., while still on the road, Lavigne texted Laura to tell her that Leshikar was acting paranoid. That broke me, Romero says. Here are some of the tragic deaths that have plagued the base in recent months: Pvt. Pvt. Fort Bragg soldier found dead in barracks; mother questions death Finally, one womans face lights up. August 12, 2022 (52 years old) View obituary. More: Death of Special Forces soldier found on Fort Bragg ruled as homicide. 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. She fatally shot her fianc. In 2015, former SEAL James Matthews got pulled over in New Jersey towing a trailer loaded with $1.4 million worth of marijuana. 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. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports. Fort Bragg needs to be blown up, that is, exposed to scrutiny, says Tammy de Mirza, Sarahs aunt. 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. 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. Ian Paul McLaughlin, 29, of Newport News, Virginia, was killed Jan. 11, 2020, by an improvised explosive device in Kandahar, Afghanistan. She faults the Army for prescribing him tramadol, an addictive opiate, after he suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2017 from a roadside bomb in Tajikistan. Editors picks The last time his father spoke to him was Thanksgiving. 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. That last part wasnt true, it later emerged. Theyve done coke in front of me, she says. Anthony Whitten. Smither enlisted in the Army in May 2019 and was stationed at Fort Bragg in December 2019. 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. Im a monster. Goodman completed four deployments to Afghanistan, one to Iraq, two to Africa, and one to Kyrgyzstan, the statement said. 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. As the madness of 2020 settled over the country, bringing with it a nationwide wave of drug abuse and violent crime, Lavigne was also spinning out of control. 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. It was out of control, says his best friends wife, Laura Leshikar. 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. He never responded again., UPDATE: After this story went to press, a U.S. Army Special Operations Command spokesperson gave this statement to Rolling Stone regarding how the command handled Billy Lavignes legal trouble: Due to his length of service, Master Sgt. Its just wonderful, she said. 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. In the past six weeks, four wives of soldiers at Fort Bragg have been murdered. 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.. 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. FORT BRAGG, N.C. (WTVD) -- A soldier at Fort Bragg died April 19 during a training exercise. The autopsy showed that he had been shot from multiple angles, including from behind. Lavigne was entitled to a variety of due process protections. Command Sgt. Through the intercom she says that she is just as clueless as anyone else and that she and Dumas led separate lives.. At bars like ODonnells Pub in Southern Pines, they are easily identified by their signature off-duty style, which incorporates elements of biker culture, and is characterized by beards, tattoos, muscles, sun-faded baseball caps with tattered brims, and concealed handguns. Salazar was an infantryman assigned to 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team. CID rejects any notion that anything but a complete and unbiased investigation was conducted, Grey says. Graves was the night she died. Lavigne was transported downtown, but did not remain long in the police station. MILITARY. That was the only drug he was for; everything else he was against. George Allen taught Villalon at East Aurora High School. We have a lot of Delta Force members in our community, says Ballard, the police detective in Vass. Three Fort Bragg soldiers died while deployed overseas in 2020, according to the Department of Defense. In just 18 months, Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from sudden and unexplained causes. Dumas and his dreadlocked sidekick went into the apartment across the corridor, and she went into hers. 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. 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. Its real strange, says Bill Lavigne Sr., father of the slain Delta Force soldier, that something like this can go on at Fort Bragg, and nobody seems to know nothing. Tier 1 operators have ascended so high in the lethal bureaucracy that they no longer exist. 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. 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. View obituary. The next day around 7 p.m., one of the campers called 911. His rudeness annoyed her. 0:44. When he came home, notably, you could see a droopiness in his eye, she tells me. He left the military in 2016, and for a time operated a nightclub in Fayetteville, which evidently brought him legal troubles. The young soldier who called 911 also told the dispatcher, unprompted, that Roman-Martinez had suicidal tendencies, which his sister strenuously disputes. 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. His death was ruled a homicide. His dream was to go to pharmacy school. A tricked-out Chevy Colorado with matte-black wheels and racing tires was stuck in a rut on a dirt road near Lake MacArthur. Appropriate adverse action, which was previously initiated in response to substantiated misconduct, was being finalized at the time of Master Sgt. They quickly became the best of friends. 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. Cruz De Leon was an infantryman assigned to the divisions Company A, 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team. Of fatal overdoses, how many were ruled a suicide? You can clearly see the moment a small black hole appears in the sheetrock, blowing out a cone of gypsum powder. More: Myron B. Pitts: Fort Bragg name to become a thing of the past good. 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. He was getting into all kinds of legal trouble, says Tammy Mabey, Leshikars mother, hanging out with bad people, deep into drugs, and nobody said or did anything. The camera flash has rendered his retinas red. It was his last hoorah, says Nicole, who spoke to her brother for a final time on St. Patricks Day. Sgt. Roman-Martinez joined the Army in September 2016. The cause of death was homicide. Were still looking into it.. According to military records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a hard-to-believe 105 soldiers assigned to the base died stateside in 2020 and 2021. 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. And when my daddy looked up, I could see he wasnt there anymore.. 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? Yet there were no firearms to be found at the scene, and no trace of the third man, the surviving shooter. Multiple people who knew Lavigne tell me that he regularly snorted cocaine, took MDMA, popped pills, and drank heavily. 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. According to the medical examiner, Roman-Martinez had been decapitated. Pvt. She and her whole family had gone into the back bedroom to hide. Support local journalism with a subscription to The Fayetteville Observer. As she lay dying, her baby girl was born; she was going to be named Isabella, but she did not live. Absolutely. Her brother enlisted for a steady paycheck and for the GI Bill. Billy seemed to have ideals that matched mine. Everybody seemed to know the same people. 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. Col. Kara Soules, a press officer for JSOC, also did not respond to questions. Fort Bragg cannot explain why dozens of soldiers are dying in their own bunks. The Army Criminal Investigation Command is investigating the death as a homicide, as an autopsy report states he was decapitated. 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. During the eight-hour drive back to North Carolina, Laura split off to take her sister to the airport in Raleigh. They are ghosts. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Carol Ann Brown to pay them a last tribute. But she was acquainted with Timothy Dumas, the 44-year-old veteran who was found dead alongside him. Lewis followed her outside, holding their three-year-old daughter on one hip and a gun in the other hand. Full disclosure, Nicole says, me and Billy and Mark all did coke together., On multiple occasions, she saw other special operators snorting cocaine, too. She and her husband, a Navy submariner, were moving to North Carolina, and stayed for a time at Leshikars apartment. 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. He had served 19 years in the Army, including time in the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, but as a property book officer, a glorified supply sergeant. Click the "subscribe'' link at the top of this article. FORT BRAGG, N.C. (WTVD) -- A soldier at Fort Bragg died April 19 during a training exercise. But in each case, the charges were dismissed. It was a story he would later repeat to Leshikars mother, sister, and wife. Around 4 p.m., they arrived at Lavignes house, a cookie-cutter tract home at the end of a blank cul-de-sac. Fish ate them, Griselda says, and begins to cry. He sincerely felt it was the key to mental illness, a cure for depression, PTSD., Roman-Martinez had poor eyesight and wore thick glasses above a friendly smile. Other operators that were there. Joseph Zygarowski who died during a training exercise at Fort Bragg on April 19. The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time The Armys Criminal Investigative Command, or CID, also concluded that the homicide was justified, likewise for reasons that it refuses to make public. No one at Fort Bragg will talk to me at all. His father didnt always know where he was in those days. On March 28th, the Fayetteville police responded to an incident in which he was suspected of shooting into an occupied dwelling. By the end of the year, there had been 21 suicides at Fort Bragg, more than at any other U.S. military post. More like brothers, says Leshikars 31-year-old sister, Nicole, who spent three weeks hanging out with them in February 2018. 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. More: Fort Bragg paratrooper dies following accident in Syria. Ultimately, he concluded in his March 11th, 2019, report, I determined that [Lavigne] was NOT credible.. He was repeatedly arrested for possession of untaxed liquor, failure to return rented property, and permitting a minor to consume alcohol. Get service details, leave condolence messages or send flowers in memory of a loved one in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. But the Army isnt giving any, Illustration by Mike McQuade for Rolling Stone. Hes one of those guys whos into nature. Half of those deaths have been ruled suicides. The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. LaVigne died of multiple gunshot wounds and was shot by (an) unknown person, his death certificate states. 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. They speak Spanish with a Caribbean accent and dont know any Timothy Dumas. 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. 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. He wasnt looking for another rank or another award, Allen said. She sent him a text message and agreed to hear him out on condition they meet at Leshikars grave site. 18h ago. - Page 2. Officials said foul play was not suspected. According to officials, 33 of the fatalities are of undetermined causes. 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. Acid is the most commonly abused substance on post, in Romeros estimation, because people think its impossible to detect through urinalysis (its not). Dec. 7, 2020. 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. 1st Class Nikyisha T. Boyd, 35, of Kissimmee, Florida, died Nov. 9, from injuries suffered during a traffic accident, officials said. Investigators identified the soldiers as Spc. MILITARY. Over the next year, Leshikar moved on to benzodiazepines, then MDMA, then cocaine. For David George and Sarah Hartsfield, the first eight months of 2018 were marked by death and destruction. You always got the sense from him that he was involved in something illegal, like some kind of crime ring. Lavigne himself turned up dead a few years later, shot in the chest and left in the back of his own truck. Uh-huh., CID is aware of the deceaseds alleged drug activities, Grey, the CID spokesman, says. He stands in front of a parking lot at night, a middle-aged, broad-chested black man with a shaved head, dressed in whiskered jeans and a shirt with vertical stripes. He went out and bought a dress in his size, says Laura. No way., Romero knows one of the other paratroopers who was on the camping trip. A 24-year-old military mechanic died Wednesday at Fort Bragg during a traffic accident at Fort Bragg, officials announced Friday. Jean Cruz De Leon,20, of Marrero, Louisiana, was killed in a Sept. 9 training accident when his parachute malfunctioned, according to a statement released by the 82nd Airborne Division. His home burned. June 23, 2021. Then 9/11 happened, touching off the longest period of war in U.S. history. He was never booked, photographed, or taken before a magistrate for a bond hearing. 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. WebDeath notices in Fort Bragg are another source of valuable information for discovering those elusive ancestors. The DAs office did not respond to multiple requests for more information. A Fort Bragg spokesperson identified the soldier as Sgt. 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. . Army investigators have disclosed nothing, not even the identities of the other soldiers who were on the camping trip, one of whom was a young woman. He was from a suburb of Los Angeles called Chino. Taking part in and witnessing violence, being away from home for long periods of time, and disillusionment with the mission can put special operators at heightened risk, Donati says, of divorce, alcoholism, substance abuse, and anger issues.

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