The last time his father spoke to him was Thanksgiving. No one at Fort Bragg will talk to me at all. 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. But neither JSOC nor USASOC responded to repeated requests for comment. A tricked-out Chevy Colorado with matte-black wheels and racing tires was stuck in a rut on a dirt road near Lake MacArthur. There were a couple others that were with us, she tells me, drinking and partying. No screwdriver was found anywhere near Leshikars body. Virtually everything to do with this organization is classified, says Sean Naylor, author of Relentless Strike, a history of JSOC. His home burned. From 2020 through 2021, there were 109 active and reserve deaths among Fort Bragg soldiers, according to military records. As she lay dying, her baby girl was born; she was going to be named Isabella, but she did not live. 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. Asia Graham, a Fort Bliss soldier who died of an overdose of fentanyl and synthetic cannabinoids after she reported being sexually assaulted by a fellow soldier. He repaired construction equipment and was assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, a Fort Bragg news release said. And he fell down on the ground and Uncle Billy kept shooting him. Graves was the night she died. The cause of his death is under investigation by the Fort Bragg Criminal Investigation Division. 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 broke me, Romero says. No one I spoke to had any clue, or even a theory, who the surviving shooter or shooters were. 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. He changed dramatically in a short period of time, says his father, who came from Michigan to stay with him after the shooting. 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. 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. Only his severed head had been found. His dream was to go to pharmacy school. 3 Sarah Lewis, 34, was allegedly shot dead by her husband Staff Sgt Keith Lewis Credit: Facebook 3 He was from a suburb of Los Angeles called Chino. 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. Lavigne, who was divorced and had a succession of girlfriends, loved being a dad, Nicole says. Through the intercom she says that she is just as clueless as anyone else and that she and Dumas led separate lives.. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Some of them are really great. 2023 Rolling Stone, LLC. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports. Anthony Whitten. 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. 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. Did he struggle with drugs, alcohol, cocaine, tramadol? 0:04. His rudeness annoyed her. No one could tell me who the escapee was, or what they had escaped from, but Cumberland County dropped all charges against Lavigne. She fatally shot her fianc. They say get a lawyer., I just dont know whats going on with our military right now, says Mabey. In 2018, Lavigne shot and killed his best friend, a Green Beret named Mark Leshikar, in an inexplicable, drug-fueled altercation that no one witnessed but two little girls. The Fort Bragg soldiers were deployed to Afghanistan and Syria in support of Operations Freedoms Sentinel and Inherent Resolve. He was in an IED blast. Lavigne was transported downtown, but did not remain long in the police station. For David George and Sarah Hartsfield, the first eight months of 2018 were marked by death and destruction. Maybe. The Fort Bragg Murders At least 44 Fort Bragg soldiers died stateside in 2020 several of them were homicides. It would be an exaggeration to say that Fayetteville must be a more dangerous duty station than Raqqa or Kandahar, and yet piecing together data provided by Col. Buccino, and previous Army disclosures to the McClatchy news agency, as well as reports in the local media, I count no fewer than 44 active-duty deaths at Fort Bragg during 2020. The 50 Worst Decisions in Music History hree weeks before Christmas, in the piney woods outside of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a deer hunter came across the fallout from a firefight that, to date, no one has been able to explain. 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. 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. Special operation forces induct members into regiments at Fort Bragg. By the end of the year, there had been 21 suicides at Fort Bragg, more than at any other U.S. military post. Master Sgt. At no time during that interaction did they mention a missing person, a spokesman for the National Park Service told ABC11. The Navy SEALs have been seared by repeated scandals in recent years, but until Lavignes mysterious death in December, Delta Force had been spared accusations of drug use in its ranks. Dec. 7, 2020. He was strung out and weeping over Leshikar. 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. Lavigne himself turned up dead a few years later, shot in the chest and left in the back of his own truck. Maybe drugs could have been a reason why this happened, he speculates, without elaborating. Salazar was an infantryman assigned to 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team. Based out of a high-security compound inside Fort Bragg, it has become a covert military within the military. Mount, 25, from St. George, Utah, died July 21 as the result of a vehicle rollover accident while conducting reconnaissance operations, July 21 in Eastern Syria. All rights reserved. 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. The next day around 7 p.m., one of the campers called 911. A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, May 13th 2023 at the Veteran's Hall (360 N Harrison St, Fort Bragg, CA He was arrested for a final time on September 17th, in Fayetteville, this time on a prostitution charge. He didnt spend a single night in jail. 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. He was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in March 2017 after completing airborne school at Fort Benning, Georgia. 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. 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. 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. Everybody seemed to know the same people. Uh-huh., CID is aware of the deceaseds alleged drug activities, Grey, the CID spokesman, says. Ever since he killed Leshikar, he had been in a downward spiral. 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. Sgt. Pvt. She and her husband, a Navy submariner, were moving to North Carolina, and stayed for a time at Leshikars apartment. In May of that year, he met Mark Leshikar, another stubborn, hardheaded country boy from way up north. He was a sweet, animal-loving kid who went to Afghanistan at the age of 19 and came back a different person, she says. Just a while ago the FBI went and dived in the area, and didnt find anything. As soon as the rockets began to burst, We had to get out of there. He left the military in 2016, and for a time operated a nightclub in Fayetteville, which evidently brought him legal troubles. Joseph Zygarowski who died during a training exercise at Fort Bragg on April 19. CIA Director, Noam Chomsky Named in Epstein's Private Calendar: Report 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. Joseph Zygarowski, 25. July 3, 2022 (91 years old) View obituary. But she was acquainted with Timothy Dumas, the 44-year-old veteran who was found dead alongside him. But he scared me.. August 12, 2022 (52 years old) View obituary. Those two would always pull some shit, she says. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. We were trying to find the park ranger or their offices, or anything.. The GAO opened its investigation in October 2019 in an attempt to understand a spate of deadly mishaps that keep occurring. 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. Fort Bragg; which has nearly double the soldier population as Fort Hood, is reporting 24 deaths so far this year, with five of them happening in accidents, one homicide, seven from illness, nine by suicide and two still pending. 2020 Soldier Fatalities on Major Installations, January 1 2020 August 13 2020 (KWTX) 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. 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. 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. We have a lot of Delta Force members in our community, says Ballard, the police detective in Vass. 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. In the three years since, De Nola has tried to lobby members of the House of Representatives to investigate opioid abuse in the military, but until now, there hasnt been any real action at the federal level. Its not just combat trauma and moral injury, says Naylor. He sped off from the scene and was charged with a hit-and-run. Her brother enlisted for a steady paycheck and for the GI Bill. A few minutes later, she began to record a video of her little godson dancing on the living-room carpet. Breaks Down His Killer White House Correspondents Dinner Set, Pharrells Something in the Water Fest Cancels Final Day Due to Severe Weather, Stagecoach: Kane Brown Breaks Mental Health Stigma With 'Memory,' Talks Depression. A warrant for his arrest was issued, and this time, for whatever reason, the charge was not dropped. Enrique was blind as fuck without his glasses, Romero says. Finally, one womans face lights up. Fayetteville Police did not respond to multiple requests for more information. 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. 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.. Smither enlisted in the Army in May 2019 and was stationed at Fort Bragg in December 2019. Zygarowski, who enlisted in the Army in 2018, was a mechanic assigned to Almost every time I saw Billy, he was strung out on something., 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.. .An Idaho forensic pathologist on Wednesday detailed how doomsday mom Lori Vallows two children were killed in 2019, including how her 7-year-old son was allegedly strangled to death by a plastic bag over his head and duct 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. I called every day for a month. A Fort Bragg spokesperson identified the soldier as Sgt. On a half dozen occasions since 2014, a Navy SEAL or a Green Beret has pleaded guilty to heavy-duty narcotics charges. Related Accidental? He was looking to be helpful and to be part of the team.. They might have spent a hundred days where they did 40 raids, and in 15 of the raids they were within 10 yards of a breach explosion. David Bragg. Pentagon Finally Stops Hiding Military Overdose Epidemic On June 20th, in Carthage, he was arrested at a McDonalds for striking a woman with a bag of food. Who Where Receive obituaries Bessie Carine March 25, 2023 (90 years old) View obituary Robert Ingram March 8, 2023 (53 years old) View obituary Three unnamed Navy SEALs told CBS in 2017 that various teammates of theirs had tested positive for cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, and heroin, and that the substance-abuse problem was growing. In 2014, a Navy SEAL named Angel Martinez-Ramos pleaded guilty after being arrested at Miamis airport with 10 kilos of cocaine in his carry-on. People who knew him tell me that in life, he fit a certain kind of American archetype: the wannabe special-forces guy, a fake operator who, in order to impress people or intimidate them, passed himself off as an ex-commando. 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. Billy joined Special Forces in 2006, became a Green Beret, and over the next decade averaged about one deployment a year. Even if Leshikar had come at him with a screwdriver, Billy wouldnt just forget how to disarm somebody, Nicole says. We are far from the flagpole and are expected to be incorruptible.. Born in New York City on April 27, 1985, Boyd enlisted in the Army from Tampa, Florida, in 2004 as a psychological operations specialist. 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. 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. Most recent obituaries in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The base so far this year has seen five homicides, seven suicides, eight accidents, two illnesses and five deaths that are still under investigation. Im tenderhearted, she says. He was promoted to master sergeant in July, becoming an operations team sergeant for a Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha, officials said. Here's who they are. She sent him a text message and agreed to hear him out on condition they meet at Leshikars grave site. Multiple people who knew Lavigne tell me that he regularly snorted cocaine, took MDMA, popped pills, and drank heavily. He was a three-time volunteer who enlisted in the Army in May 2019 and reported to his first duty assignment at Fort Bragg in October. 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. This May will be that investigations one-year mark, and no suspects have been identified. 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. The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, 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. A Fort Bragg spokesperson identified the soldier as Sgt. WebDeath notices in Fort Bragg are another source of valuable information for discovering those elusive ancestors. 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. 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, Bernie Sanders: Many GOP Leaders 'Don't Even Believe in Democracy', Ted Cruz Maligns Biden, Claims He Is 'Behaving Like a Terrorist' with Debt Ceiling, Top Fox Hosts Are Telling Friends They Could Be the Next to Go, DeSantis Suggests He Personally Prayed a Hurricane Away From Florida, Minnesota Lawmaker Needs to Roll Smaller Joints, Roy Wood Jr. In his LinkedIn photo, Dumas looks fairly nondescript. 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. 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. LaVigne died of multiple gunshot wounds and was shot by (an) unknown person, his death certificate states. Mount joined the Army in January 2016 and came to Fort Bragg in June 2016. 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. 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. CID rejects any notion that anything but a complete and unbiased investigation was conducted, Grey says. I have to prove that he was not in his right mind, she says. She claims to have known Lavigne well, and to have seen him do cocaine, crystal meth, and heroin. When he came home, notably, you could see a droopiness in his eye, she tells me. 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. Appropriate adverse action, which was previously initiated in response to substantiated misconduct, was being finalized at the time of Master Sgt. Joseph Zygarowski who died during a training exercise at Fort Bragg on April 19. A pair of skimpy running shorts known in the Army as ranger panties were all that he was wearing. Pfc. He was just a boy, she quotes him as saying. 'These Kids Are Dying' Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg Families want answers. He was a human resource specialist in the 82nd Airborne Divisions 37th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team. Had it been properly looked into, she says, all the bodies and drugs that have come in the last two and a half years might have been avoided.. He was the rock in my life. He doesnt believe the story told by the other six campers that Roman-Martinez simply wandered off at night, leaving his phone, wallet, and glasses behind in the tent. He made it a point to choose guys who played musical instruments or painted. 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. FORT BRAGG A soldier is being mourned after he was killed during a training exercise at Fort Bragg, officials said Friday. Im a monster. Bragg that are still unexplained but many believe might be tied to the U.S. Armys policy of mandatory covid-19 vaccinations:. 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. Search Fort Bragg obituaries and condolences, hosted by Echovita.com. Goodman was born in Pasadena, California, but grew up near Chicago andenlisted in July 2002 and transferred to the Army National Guard in 2005. 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. The man in the bed of the truck, by contrast, didnt have to inflate his military credentials. 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. Appropriate adverse action, which was previously initiated in response to substantiated misconduct, was being finalized at the time of Master Sgt. In the iconography of American militarism, in the esoteric cult of special forces, the black censor bar across the eyes confers an unmistakably dark prestige. What substances were involved in both fatal and non-fatal overdoses? To date, the House Armed Services Committee seems not to have noticed the similar pattern at Fort Bragg. 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. Families want answers. 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. 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. He was seeing bad things.. It makes me feel great, said Carole De Nola, when she learned of the letter. Him and my brother had similar features., Leshikar, bearded and scowling in most photos, was six-foot-four, with a square jaw, a head of light-brown hair, and tattooed shoulders. I dont get intimidated by people easily. The autopsy showed that he had been shot from multiple angles, including from behind. 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. The authorities have kept completely mum. A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, May 13th 2023 at the Veteran's Hall (360 N Harrison St, Fort Bragg, CA You always got the sense from him that he was involved in something illegal, like some kind of crime ring. Sgt. Pvt. 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. He was a three-time volunteer on his second combat deployment, said Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, the commander of the 82nd. 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. But he would be dead before his scheduled court appearance. The Fayetteville Observer. Army vet Timothy Dumas, 44, was found shot and killed alongside Lavigne. I killed my best friend, he said, according to Patino. He once saw him using LSD at a barracks party, he says. I think Billy was dealing with his own demons, she says. Zygarowski, who enlisted in the Army in 2018, was a mechanic assigned to

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