Get Awesome Patriot Gear Today! Her brother was the same way. The man in the bed of the truck, by contrast, didnt have to inflate his military credentials. 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. He saw people die. 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. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Thomas Renz reveals the DoD whistleblowers during a Senate hearing. People not inclined to be team players, he explained, somewhat paradoxically. Defense grilled on fentanyl crisis post Fort Bragg, Fort Bliss, West Enjoy. Acid is the most commonly abused substance on post, in Romeros estimation, because people think its impossible to detect through urinalysis (its not). There was never no mention of this Dumas. Nicole and Laura say the same. Why is Fort Bragg less safe than it was before the mask, testing and vaccine mandates? In just18 months, Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from sudden and unexplained causes. What substances were involved in both fatal and non-fatal overdoses? Lavigne himself turned up dead a few years later, shot in the chest and left in the back of his own truck. Lavigne was entitled to a variety of due process protections. Fort Bragg needs to be blown up, that is, exposed to scrutiny, says Tammy de Mirza, Sarahs aunt. Hes one of those guys whos into nature. At no time during that interaction did they mention a missing person, a spokesman for the National Park Service told ABC11. In the few photos of Delta Force that exist in the public domain, their faces are blurred or blacked out, their identities classified. When he came home, notably, you could see a droopiness in his eye, she tells me. Hearing her father call her name, she went and let him inside. That broke me, Romero says. Fish ate them, says his sister (above at her brothers funeral and on the beach where his remains were found). He was strung out and weeping over Leshikar. 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. Find service information, send flowers, and leave memories and thoughts in the Guestbook for your loved one. A spokesman for the Army Criminal. *Weve adopted it as such, its not ours. The things that have happened with special forces are outside the purview of the Fort Bragg command, he says. She had called his unit because he had been drinking real bad and using steroids, and asked that he be moved back into the barracks, says Phillips. Receive Daily Banned News StoriesTHEY Don't Want You to Know! Ballard, the only full-time detective in Vass, didnt know Billy Lavigne. Well, I got 120.. Now no one can look away.. No arrests have been made nearly five months after a Special Forces soldier and veteran were found dead Dec. 2, at Fort Bragg, an official said this week. He was arrested for a final time on September 17th, in Fayetteville, this time on a prostitution charge. Samuel Sigoloff, Peter Chambers and Theresa Long. Fort Bragg stopped reporting the fatalities after June 2021, but the bodies continue to pile up. He made it a point to choose guys who played musical instruments or painted. In the bed of the truck and on the ground beside it were two dead men. Enrique was blind as fuck without his glasses, Romero says. His father didnt always know where he was in those days. This led to a physical fight, a wrestling match on the driveway. During that same eighteen-month period, three Fort Bragg soldiers died in overseas combat. 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. Its just wonderful, she said. Could there be a serious drug problem going on at Fort Bragg? 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. 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. The two were found dead on the same day in June 2021, just two weeks after airborne master sergeant Martin Acevedo III was caught trafficking cocaine. Ruth was born July 22, 1931, to Ray and Esther . Fort Bragg Advocate-News obituaries and Death Notices for Fort Bragg California area . (Recommended). Nevertheless, local officials were satisfied by Lavignes claim of self-defense. 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. 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. The DMED is the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branchs web-based tool to remotely query de-identified active component personnel and medical event data contained within the Defense Medical Surveillance System (DMSS).. Lavignes death.. 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. A Green Beret named Calvin Rockward passed away from a sudden, unexpected medical event. The 38-year-old was in excellent physical condition, too. I have to prove that he was not in his right mind, she says. In January of 2021, Army captain Robert Latham died suddenly of an apparent heart attack. The 32-year-old was previously in top physical condition. They all knew Billy., Laura echoes Nicoles account when I speak to her separately. In all nine cases, you can see the causes are "Determination pending" in the documents below. He kind of represented himself as an SF operator, she says, though he was just a logistics guy. Estella called the Fayetteville police, who filed an incident report. We are far from the flagpole and are expected to be incorruptible.. She also retrieved her Glock from the bedroom and stuck it under a couch cushion. Macho as Leshikar might have been, when his little girl told him that he had to wear a dress to attend her tea party, he didnt argue. 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. All Rights reserved. 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. Enrique Roman-Martinez of Fort Braggs 82nd Airborne Division was beheaded during a camping trip with six other soldiers. She believed them to be his fellow Delta Force operators because they had been introduced to her that way, because she had seen the same men drop him off in a vehicle after a training mission, and because they talked and joked about ops they had been on and constantly tried to one-up one another. Multiple people who knew Lavigne tell me that he regularly snorted cocaine, took MDMA, popped pills, and drank heavily. Even though its a closed case, Laura says, they told us the investigation doesnt see the public eye.. Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from "sudden" and "unexplained" causes Everybody seemed to know the same people. 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. 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. Fort Bragg stops reporting soldier deaths after dozens found dead in Out of the 83 sudden and unexpected fatalities, eleven of them were determined to be from natural causes. Janet Baron Obituary (1954 - 2022) - Albion, CA - Fort Bragg Advocate-News Its the last thing we spoke about.. In May of that year, he met Mark Leshikar, another stubborn, hardheaded country boy from way up north. One minute after midnight on February 17th, 2020, Lavigne crashed his truck into a womans vehicle in Fayetteville. Sept. 26, 2022. We have a lot of Delta Force members in our community, says Ballard, the police detective in Vass. 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. During that same eighteen-month period, three Fort Bragg soldiers died in overseas combat. Green Beret Mark Leshikar (left, and at right, with tattoos) was shot and killed by his best friend and fellow special-forces soldier Billy Lavigne (far right), in an inexplicable, drug-fueled altercation witnessed by the two mens young daughters. 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. They quickly became the best of friends. Any income made by this site is reinvested back into STN. Fort Bragg cannot explain why dozens of soldiers are dying in their own bunks. T Some of the tough questions he and the other four senators posed to Secretary Austin included: Fort Bragg is the Armys largest and most important facility, the home of the 82nd Airborne Division, the Special Forces, and the Joint Special Operations Command, including the covert Delta Force. An investigative reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine, Seth Harp, has been looking into this medical anomaly. Its known from postmortem toxicology that Leshikar was taking Valium, tramadol, MDMA, and cocaine. This is a previous edition of the Homicide Tracker. 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. 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. Lavigne, who was divorced and had a succession of girlfriends, loved being a dad, Nicole says. The Military Health System began administering the spike protein mRNA vaccine to military service members on December 14, 2020. 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 data was provided to Senator Ron Johnson at a historic round table meeting with doctors and lawyers. Around 4 p.m., they arrived at Lavignes house, a cookie-cutter tract home at the end of a blank cul-de-sac. Fort Bragg stopped reporting the fatalities after June 2021, but the bodies continue to pile up. But when she called her husband on FaceTime, he seemed perfectly normal, leading her to conclude that they were playing a joke on her. A soldier pronounced dead at the hospital after being found unresponsive in a parked vehicle on Fort Bragg on Friday was identified as Maj. Eric "Adam" Ewoldsen, according to a statement from. It was much easier, ironically, to get information on Fort Bragg-based personnel who died in foreign countries. Why did it take them till December?. What role do these bioweapon shots have on the number of unexpected and undetermined deaths? Families want answers. Lavigne, too, managed to escape prosecution on multiple occasions, though he had been suspected of felonies that included harboring an escapee, maintaining a vehicle or dwelling to manufacture a controlled substance, and even murder. Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Captain Greg Captain Van Patten confirmed that MCSO detectives are considering the death a homicide "because of a gunshot wound." Get service details, leave condolence messages or send flowers in memory of a loved one in Fort Bragg, California. Figure 2. Doctor: if You Have Toenail Fungus, Do This Immediately (Genius!) Just because it was dismissed doesnt mean it didnt happen, says Ballard, who believes that military personnel are given special treatment within the criminal-justice system in the counties around Fort Bragg. 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. 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. Find an obituary, get service details, leave condolence messages or send flowers or gifts in memory of a loved one. Fort Bragg Obituaries - Latest Obituaries in Fort Bragg, NC - Echovita The problems persisted. Watch the video below as Atty. For the latest update on stopping the mandates in the military, read Liberty Councils updates on the Navy SEAL 1 v. Austin case. Fort Bragg stops reporting soldier deaths after dozens found dead in their bunks An investigative reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine, Seth Harp, has been looking into this medical anomaly. I kill people for a living., After his dozen-plus deployments, Lavigne was no less haunted by moral injury. The last time his father spoke to him was Thanksgiving. By Minyvonne Burke. Have a nice day. , I go to the location listed on the incident report to learn more, and find four people, two men and two women, living in a one-bedroom apartment in a drab complex near Cross Creek. Fort Bragg stopped reporting the fatalities after June 2021, but the bodies continue to pile up. According to officials, 33 of the fatalities are of undetermined causes. We look to the Greatest Commandment as our Powering force. He . He once saw him using LSD at a barracks party, he says. The Idol: How HBOs Next Euphoria Became Twisted Torture Porn Disney was found dead along with fellow radarman Joshua Diamond in the Fort Bragg barracks. He sounded somewhat normal, but anxious and preoccupied. Only two months remained before he would become eligible for retirement. Mertle JR, William Schroeder "Bill" Fort Bragg, CA . 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. And I looked at Daddy and it was like he was dancing. As she lay dying, her baby girl was born; she was going to be named Isabella, but she did not live. Absolutely. In November, yet another soldier, a 24-year-old Texan, was discovered unresponsive in his bunk, with no further details from the Army. Aside from suicide, overdose and complications from drug abuse including steroids was the leading cause of death. He was trying to get into Buddhism. You would not believe how many people I have reached out to. He was seeing bad things.. The U.S. Army and Fort Bragg refuse to investigate or report on the surge in deaths, disrespecting the soldiers and their families. And I said, Well, no, because its not legal, says Mabey. Could there be a serious drug problem going on at Fort Bragg? Fort Bragg soldier killed, 3 others injured in military vehicle accident Leshikars killing was ruled a justifiable homicide, but Swain declines to say on what grounds investigators came to that conclusion. Updated: Mar 26, 2022 / 11:17 PM EDT. What role do these bioweapon shots have on the number of unexpected and undetermined deaths? 3 soldiers charged in Fort Bragg cold case, death still 'unsolved' According to Dumas wife, the nightclub doesnt exist anymore. Click a Banner Below to Get Started, ~Everything on this site should be considered as entertainment ONLY, nothing else!~. There is no record of an indictment for either offense. The charges against the soldiers are unrelated to the. 11 House Democrats Snub Biden Speech To Go To Concert, Must See: Pfizer is Unable to Finish Press Conference Because their Spokespeople Keep Collapsing Hysterical Parody Video by The Babylon Bee, President Trump Responds to Corrupt and Criminal Biden DOJ that Wants to Take Presidential Immunity Away from Only Him Not Joe Biden, Media Gaslights Public with Fake High Alert Warning for Day of Hate! Protests Targeting Jews in America That Never Materialized, Kellyanne Conway Finally Divorces Extremely Unattractive Loser Lincoln Projects George Conway President Trump Responds. On Friday night, there was a thunderstorm. Trending The cause of death is currently under investigation . We want to hear it. Maybe drugs could have been a reason why this happened, he speculates, without elaborating. On several occasions, various people at Fort Bragg have offered to sell him tabs, Romero says, including the soldier from the camping trip. He told the county investigator that Leshikar had come at him with a screwdriver, leaving him no choice but to shoot in self-defense, supposedly for the protection of the children. Drugs were in involved in the deaths of Joshua Diamon and Matthew Disney. Fentanyl Involvement as a Proportion of Deaths Across Substance Groups, 2017-2021. The DAs office did not respond to multiple requests for more information. He changed dramatically in a short period of time, says his father, who came from Michigan to stay with him after the shooting. We want to hear it. That was the only drug he was for; everything else he was against. Fort Bragg soldier dies after he's found unresponsive | CBS 17 Me and my mom being Catholic, it was difficult to understand., Fort Bragg was on quarantine and soldiers forbidden from traveling far from base, but seven paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division snuck off for a Memorial Day weekend camping trip at Cape Lookout National Seashore, a barrier island on the gray coast of the Carolinas. . Billy joined Special Forces in 2006, became a Green Beret, and over the next decade averaged about one deployment a year. April 29, 2022, 6:09 AM PDT. I dont know any soldier who has done the tours he had done that doesnt., That was certainly the case with Lavigne. A Green Beret named Calvin Rockward passed away from a sudden, unexpected medical event. The 38-year-old was in excellent physical condition, too. I did not get the impression that he was joking. Lavigne was entitled to a variety of due process protections. Hed read an article about hallucinogenic mushrooms, she says. 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. The role of fentanyl in opioid-related deaths and substance-involved deaths as-a-whole continues to be a primary concern. Pentagon Finally Stops Hiding Military Overdose Epidemic The autopsy showed that he had been shot from multiple angles, including from behind. His injuries were not done by a shark or boat propeller. He went out and bought a dress in his size, says Laura. Appropriate adverse action, which was previously initiated in response to substantiated misconduct, was being finalized at the time of Master Sgt. Learn What NESARA/GESARA is HERE. 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. 2022 in North Carolina. A tricked-out Chevy Colorado with matte-black wheels and racing tires was stuck in a rut on a dirt road near Lake MacArthur. But he scared me., a copy of which was first obtained by Jack Murphy of. Their deaths came despite an effort that spent. 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. To date, the House Armed Services Committee seems not to have noticed the similar pattern at Fort Bragg. But in each case, the charges were dismissed. Thats when he made the statement that if I wanted my husband gone, he could take care of it, she says. Soldiers were dying there at a rate of 1 every 3 days in August. Thomas Renz reveals the DoD whistleblowers during a Senate hearing. We dont know where he has gone. He added, When we woke up he was not here. Fort Bragg: Unexplained Deaths, Child Rape, Murder and Porn Charges They speak Spanish with a Caribbean accent and dont know any Timothy Dumas. He is unsmiling, his eyebrows raised, his eyes intently focused on the photographer. 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. Walder, Nancy ~ 27 . Fayetteville Police did not respond to multiple requests for more information. A warrant for his arrest was issued, and this time, for whatever reason, the charge was not dropped. Lloyd Austin, citing, Senators Press Pentagon for Answers on Rash of Overdose Deaths, Pentagon Finally Stops Hiding Military Overdose Epidemic, These Kids Are Dying Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg, DeSantis Disney Appointee Said Tap Water Might Be Turning People Gay, He Believes Hitler Went to Heaven and Wants to Take Over the Lutheran Church, Trump, Jan. 6 Prisoners Collaborate on Cringe, Alex Murdaugh Juror Says Cellphone Video, 'Big Liar' Testimony Led to Guilty Verdict, The National Stay Up Late to Perform 'Tropic Morning News' on Fallon, David Lindley, Multi-Instrumentalist Who Shaped the Sound of Soft Rock, Dead at 78, How Deem Spencer Learned to be Vulnerable on His New Album adultSW!M. Aint got much faith in CID.. His death was ruled a homicide. The news outlet in early September reported that a total of 109 soldiers assigned to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, active and reserve, died in 2020 and 2021 from drug overdoses. According to Seth, nine more young and fit soldiers were found unresponsive in their bunks. I think Billy was dealing with his own demons, she says. We were trying to find the park ranger or their offices, or anything.. Absolutely. We would appreciate anyone, says Shelley Lynch, an FBI spokeswoman, who may have information about where the men were in the hours before their bodies were found to contact us. The FBI released a photo of Dumas truck, a dark-blue 2015 Dodge Ram, which was found abandoned in another location. They also released a better photo of him. With multiple police pistols pointed at him and officers shouting at him to drop the gun, Lewis raised his weapon and shot himself in the forehead. Fort Bragg stops reporting soldier deaths after dozens found dead in 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. Watch the video below as Atty. 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. Privacy Policy Most immediately, though, the discovery of Lavignes body represented a problem for the leadership at Fort Bragg. For the Vaccinated: NANO SOMA* In recent years, whistleblowers have alleged that the use of hard drugs is widespread among special operators. Why is Fort Bragg less safe than it was before the mask, testing and vaccine mandates? A total of 21 deaths in the two years ending December 2021 can likely to attributed to drug overdoses, according to Rolling Stone. (Video), COVER UP: DOJ Decided Against Having FBI Agents Monitor Search by Bidens Personal Lawyers For Classified Documents, Atty. You always got the sense from him that he was involved in something illegal, like some kind of crime ring. The Army is failing to keep soldiers combat-ready, and this is evidenced by the militarys own medical surveillance system. So does his best friend, 21-year-old Christian Romero, who is also a paratrooper stationed at Fort Bragg, but in a different unit. 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. We lost our friend, he told the dispatcher. It included Dumas name and the type of handgun he used, but its not clear if he was taken into custody. 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. FORT BRAGG, N.C. (WNCN) - A U.S. Army Special Operations Command soldier was found unresponsive inside a parked vehicle on Friday in Fayetteville, Fort Bragg officials announced Saturday. Get Cool Gear & Fund STN 3 soldiers charged in Fort Bragg cold case, death still 'unsolved' Your Army 3 soldiers charged in Fort Bragg cold case, death still 'unsolved' By Davis Winkie Jan 14, 2022 Spc.. He was a sweet, animal-loving kid who went to Afghanistan at the age of 19 and came back a different person, she says. But the Army isnt giving any, Illustration by Mike McQuade for Rolling Stone. 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. In just18 months, Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from sudden and unexplained causes. He didnt spend a single night in jail.