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. He thought the car was bugged. She claims to have known Lavigne well, and to have seen him do cocaine, crystal meth, and heroin. He changed dramatically in a short period of time, says his father, who came from Michigan to stay with him after the shooting. Law enforcement still has no known suspects in the case. Could these deaths indicate a surge in suicides and overdoses? Its just like taking an antidepressant, he would say. We have not ruled anything in or out as the investigation continues.. Exclusive: Army Files Charges in Mysterious Fort Bragg Beheading Case, Bereaved family members welcomed the senators efforts towards reform. Why is Fort Bragg less safe than it was before the mask, testing and vaccine mandates? 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. 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. You got 42 confirmed kills? she says, imitating a mans deep voice. Thats when he made the statement that if I wanted my husband gone, he could take care of it, she says. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. They are ghosts. She and her whole family had gone into the back bedroom to hide. 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? It makes me feel great, said Carole De Nola, when she learned of the letter. 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. Defense grilled on fentanyl crisis post Fort Bragg, Fort Bliss, West Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from sudden and unexplained causes, and stopped reporting on the deaths after June 2021 by: Lance D Johnsonfor Natural News. Billy joined Special Forces in 2006, became a Green Beret, and over the next decade averaged about one deployment a year. Of fatal overdoses, how many were ruled a suicide? Absolutely. The Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) is used to detect surges of injury and illness in the military to make sure that all individuals are combat ready. 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. 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. It continues, "The deaths and non-fatal overdoses at Fort Bragg, Fort Bliss, West Point, and in states with high military populations like Alaska, . We have a lot of Delta Force members in our community, says Ballard, the police detective in Vass. Full disclosure, Nicole says, me and Billy and Mark all did coke together., On multiple occasions, she saw other special operators snorting cocaine, too. Pentagon Finally Stops Hiding Military Overdose Epidemic After the COVID-19 vaccine protocol was mandated on the military, the number of medical issues spiked to 22 million in the first 10 months of 2021 a 1,000 percent increase! He was repeatedly arrested for possession of untaxed liquor, failure to return rented property, and permitting a minor to consume alcohol. It went from being very rarely used to becoming, in the post-9/11 era, an organization that was running a dozen missions a night around the world., Those missions often take place in failed states or amid frozen conflicts where the United States has no acknowledged presence, and American soldiers operate in a grey zone where morality and ethics are in the eye of the beholder, and everything goes so long as the mission is accomplished and your tactics arent known to the public or explicitly to the higher-ups, as one former Green Beret writes me from federal prison, where he is doing time for smuggling 50 kilos of cocaine into Florida on a military aircraft. 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. But in each case, the charges were dismissed. Out of nowhere, she says, this tall, baldheaded black dude comes up with a skinny black guy with dreads. 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. The Army is failing to keep soldiers combat-ready, and this is evidenced by the militarys own medical surveillance system. Billy Lavigne joined the Army right out of high school, in February 2001, to get free corrective eye surgery and money for a new dirt bike. All of that has a cumulative effect., A damaged soul plagued by mental torment, and also more thoughtful, more introverted than his Delta Force teammates, is how Nicole describes Lavigne. 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. What role do these bioweapon shots have on the number of unexpected and undetermined deaths? She shows me the brief clip on her phone. Drugs are only a small part of the problem. In March 2018, Mark and Laura Leshikar took their daughter to Disney World to celebrate her fifth birthday. One day in late November, she says, she was working on a customers car when she turned around and there was Billy, wearing a black ski mask and carrying a crossbow. On February 9, 2022, Seth reported the death of 83 soldiers at Fort Bragg in the 18 months ending in June 2021. That he would take care of him permanently. He saw people die. 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. He was the oddity amongst the special-forces guys I was introduced to., In the one picture of Lavigne that exists in the public domain, his official Army portrait, his head looks like a white egg, and his face has the pale and drawn appearance of a man who has just shorn off a beard and shaved his scalp to the skin. Personnel numbers are also kept secret, but two years ago, a retired Delta Force colonel, a veteran of the Iraq War, told me that the unit is made up of about 250 operators, plus another 2,000 support troops. Dumas and his dreadlocked sidekick went into the apartment across the corridor, and she went into hers. The 100 Best Albums of 2022, No narcotics were reported recovered, but for the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, which is headquartered at Fort Bragg, it had all the makings of yet another drug scandal, the latest in a string of them to hit the special-operations community. Walder, Nancy ~ 27 . The U.S. Army and Fort Bragg refuse to investigate or report on the surge in deaths, disrespecting the soldiers and their families. Sens. The same is true in the case of a young Ohioan, a Green Beret candidate, who in March was found unresponsive in his barracks. On February 9, 2022, Seth reported the death of 83 soldiers at Fort Bragg in the 18 months ending in June 2021. That last part wasnt true, it later emerged. There had to have been at least one. Pay Just S&H For Most Items! Notice: There are affiliate links present on this website, both from the control of Survive the News and from other websites that we do not control. The role of fentanyl in opioid-related deaths and substance-involved deaths as-a-whole continues to be a primary concern. Let's Break the Censorship Together, Opt in and Spread the Word! HomicideTracker (2022) At least 360 people were killed in 2022. in the St. Louis area through Dec. 29. According to the data, the five-year average for medical issues in the military was 1.7 million codes. There were at least six deaths by suicide among the 11,500 soldiers there. Trial dates for the soldiers vary, beginning on May 31 for Becerra and ending with Cochell's trial, which is scheduled for Sept. 26 to 29. 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. Enrique Roman-Martinez of Fort Braggs 82nd Airborne Division was beheaded during a camping trip with six other soldiers. His injuries were not done by a shark or boat propeller. Its not just combat trauma and moral injury, says Naylor. 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. Lavigne was transported downtown, but did not remain long in the police station. The U.S. Army and Fort Bragg refuse to investigate or report on the surge in deaths, disrespecting the soldiers and their families. Joshua Diamond, 35, and Pfc. Elite soldiers have access to whatever they want to get into: whores, guns, drugs, you name it, he writes. A pair of skimpy running shorts known in the Army as ranger panties were all that he was wearing. Seth Harp on Twitter: "83 soldiers died at Fort Bragg in the 18 months And I said, Well, no, because its not legal, says Mabey. He would leave his phone and wallet for sure, but not his glasses. According to the data, the five-year average for medical issues in the military was 1.7 million codes. Fort Bragg cannot explain why dozens of soldiers are dying in their own bunks. Harpwrote: Fort Bragg soldiers have been turning up unresponsive in their barracks on a disturbingly regular basis since the beginning of 2020, including Caleb Smither, Terrance Salazar, Jamie Boger, Joshua Diamond, Matthew Disney, Mikel Rubino, Michael Hamilton, and numerous others who have not been named.. According to Dumas wife, the nightclub doesnt exist anymore. Out of view of the girls, Leshikar and Lavigne continued to drink and use drugs. To date, the House Armed Services Committee seems not to have noticed the similar pattern at Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg soldier killed, 3 others injured in military vehicle accident Why is Fort Bragg less safe than it was before the mask, testing and vaccine mandates? One minute after midnight on February 17th, 2020, Lavigne crashed his truck into a womans vehicle in Fayetteville. One of the largest military installations in the world, Fort Bragg is home to approximately 54,000 military personnel and includes the Special Forces, the Airborne Corps, and the Joint Special Operations Command. Based out of a high-security compound inside Fort Bragg, it has become a covert military within the military. He left the military in 2016, and for a time operated a nightclub in Fayetteville, which evidently brought him legal troubles. Well, I got 120.. I did not get the impression that he was joking. In any event, there is no court record showing that he was ever prosecuted. On a half dozen occasions since 2014, a Navy SEAL or a Green Beret has pleaded guilty to heavy-duty narcotics charges. 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. In response to these and other embarrassments, including President Trumps pardon of former SEAL Eddie Freaking Evil Gallagher, the commander of all special-operations forces, Gen. Richard Clarke, ordered a comprehensive ethics review in August 2019. Posted: Mar 26, 2022 / 05:15 PM EDT. (Video), COVER UP: DOJ Decided Against Having FBI Agents Monitor Search by Bidens Personal Lawyers For Classified Documents, Atty. 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. In the bed of the truck and on the ground beside it were two dead men. Fort Bragg stops reporting soldier deaths after dozens found dead in 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 Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) is used to detect surges of injury and illness in the military to make sure that all individuals are combat ready. Theyre covering something up. But she was acquainted with Timothy Dumas, the 44-year-old veteran who was found dead alongside him. 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. Night had fallen, and the suburban cul-de-sac was lit up by emergency lights. 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. Her son, Spc. It did cite, however, what it described as an unhealthy sense of entitlement among special operators. A pixelated face is the apogee of the operator aesthetic, which begins with long hair, a bushy beard, and a checkered keffiyeh worn around the neck. Jason, Sarah ~ 28 February, 2023. Not only was he a decorated Green Beret with dozens of badges and patches and medals from 14 different deployments, he was also a member of Delta Force, the most elite military unit in the United States. . He confessed that he had once killed a child soldier. Theyve done coke in front of me, she says. Enrique was blind as fuck without his glasses, Romero says. Nicole and her husband also had small children. 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. She sent him a text message and agreed to hear him out on condition they meet at Leshikars grave site. The camera flash has rendered his retinas red. The modus operandi that investigators have shown in these cases is to shut out the public, decline to answer questions, apprehend no perpetrators. 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. 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. He was trying to get into Buddhism. 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 was planning on coming home and building a log cabin on our property, says his dad. The military continues to be assaulted by mandates that harm soldiers physically and mentally. 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. You can clearly see the moment a small black hole appears in the sheetrock, blowing out a cone of gypsum powder. The man on the ground, who had been dropped by a single bullet to the right temple, was 44-year-old Timothy Dumas. . They do what they want.. Soldiers were dying there at a rate of 1 every 3 days in August. At least 36 of the victims were children. A Green Beret named Calvin Rockward passed away from a sudden, unexpected medical event. The 38-year-old was in excellent physical condition, too. - Page 2 . He loves views, too. Its a lot of TBI, or traumatic brain injury. Two from the 82nd Airborne were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and another paratrooper, a combat engineer, lost his life in a vehicle rollover in Syria, for a total of three who perished overseas. . He is unsmiling, his eyebrows raised, his eyes intently focused on the photographer. Since then, the military has administered more than 6.4 million doses, fully inoculating 90.1percent of active-duty service members with the two-dose protocol. Fort Bragg Advocate-News obituaries and Death Notices for Fort Bragg California area . Aside from suicide, overdose and complications from drug abuse including steroids was the leading cause of death. Watch the video below as Atty. 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. 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. Fort Bragg Advocate-News Obituaries - Legacy Could there be a serious drug problem going on at Fort Bragg? Fish ate them, says his sister (above at her brothers funeral and on the beach where his remains were found). I dont know any soldier who has done the tours he had done that doesnt., That was certainly the case with Lavigne. Ruth was born July 22, 1931, to Ray and Esther . Sheriffs deputies took him to the station, but he was never placed under arrest or charged with a crime. 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. As she lay dying, her baby girl was born; she was going to be named Isabella, but she did not live. By Minyvonne Burke. She met him in 2013, when she and her husband moved to North Carolina and answered a rental ad he had posted for a small brick house on Barrett Street, an uncurbed strip of asphalt just off the town square. A soulless expression would come over him, like he was looking through you, when he got to drinking, Nicole says. But he scared me., a copy of which was first obtained by Jack Murphy of. Leshikar was a native of rural Idaho and had lived in Washington state, near the Canadian border. Appropriate adverse action, which was previously initiated in response to substantiated misconduct, was being finalized at the time of Master Sgt. Also, this website is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Janet Baron Obituary (1954 - 2022) - Albion, CA - Fort Bragg Advocate-News Ive seen it. Smith, Mary Jane ~ 01 March, 2023. No one at Fort Bragg will talk to me at all. This means soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg are twenty-seven times more likely to die unexpectedly on their home base than in overseas combat! This means soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg are twenty-seven times more likely to die unexpectedly on their home base than in overseas combat! 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. An investigative reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine, Seth Harp, has been looking into this medical anomaly. 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. Her brother enlisted for a steady paycheck and for the GI Bill. As Sarah pounded on the neighbors door, he opened fire on her. Weve been looking for him all day. They all knew Billy., Laura echoes Nicoles account when I speak to her separately. The island is small, with few trees and a thick crowd of people that weekend. Fort Bragg Murders: String of Violent Deaths at U.S. Military Base 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. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. 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. . Lavigne then grabbed the girls, took them inside of the house, and locked out Leshikar. Nine Fort Bragg soldiers recently died of unknown causes Two months later, someone nearly died of a heroin overdose at Lavignes house. Both girls witnessed what happened next. 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. In his LinkedIn photo, Dumas looks fairly nondescript. He didnt respond, she says. It showed multiple chop injuries, a broken jaw, lacerations, and fractures of the cervical spine. We are far from the flagpole and are expected to be incorruptible.. Five days ago, an early morning shooting along Highway 20 resulted in the death of 52-year-old Fort Bragg man Daniel Martin Shealor. 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. Fort Bragg needs to be blown up, that is, exposed to scrutiny, says Tammy de Mirza, Sarahs aunt. The data was provided to Senator Ron Johnson at a historic round table meeting with doctors and lawyers. 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. He sounded somewhat normal, but anxious and preoccupied. Only two months remained before he would become eligible for retirement. The . Five senators are calling on the Department of Defense to investigate overdose deaths at Fort Bragg, reports Rolling Stone. What substances were involved in both fatal and non-fatal overdoses? Even if Leshikar had come at him with a screwdriver, Billy wouldnt just forget how to disarm somebody, Nicole says. Lavigne was entitled to a variety of due process protections. To the many lives she touched, from Milwaukee to Albion to Beijing and beyond, Rainbird's legacy is one of indelible passion, fierce independence, intellectual . 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).. The Army is failing to keep soldiers combat-ready, and this is evidenced by the militarys own medical surveillance system. In all nine cases, you can see the causes are "Determination pending" in the documents below. Even though its a closed case, Laura says, they told us the investigation doesnt see the public eye.. Col. Kara Soules, a press officer for JSOC, also did not respond to questions. The man in the bed of the truck, by contrast, didnt have to inflate his military credentials. He was two years younger than Lavigne and had recently completed Special Forces selection, a rugged, punishing Fort Bragg program known as the Q-course. The letter, sent to Defense Secretary . In West Virginia, Drug Overdose Deaths Fell. Elsewhere, The Crisis Just a while ago the FBI went and dived in the area, and didnt find anything. 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. Inside the Rash of Unexplained Deaths at Fort Hood | Vanity Fair We were trying to find the park ranger or their offices, or anything.. He went out and bought a dress in his size, says Laura. The autopsy showed that he had been shot from multiple angles, including from behind. 2022 in North Carolina. According to officials, 33 of the fatalities are of undetermined causes. On February 9, 2022, Seth reported the death of 83 soldiers at Fort Bragg in the 18 months ending in June 2021. And I looked at Daddy and it was like he was dancing. 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. She wipes away tears. Nevertheless, local officials were satisfied by Lavignes claim of self-defense.