As Navy rape case unravels, questions of homicide appear

Pineda, a seaman from Barstow, Calif., training as a Navy SEAL, spent three months in jail for sexual assault. Antonacci, a 22-year-old ordnance disposal trainee from Long Island, N.Y., was threatened with prosecution. The case didn’t go far: Antonacci’s body was found hanging in a closet, his nose bleeding, his face and back bruised.

Read the entire story here.

Air Force commander grapples with servicemember’s suicide

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — While most people hunkered down for the night as a typhoon pounded the Tokyo area, an American airman plunged to his death from the 11th floor of a nearby hotel. Before dawn, Yokota base commander Col. Mark August received one of those calls that almost always bring a different kind of turmoil.

August learned he had lost a man — the first since he rose to command level 15 years earlier.

 

“When you get that phone call first thing in the morning — no one wants to get it, but when it happens, it triggers a very specific response, an AFI-driven response,” August told Stars and Stripes a few weeks after the death last fall.

Read the entire article here.

Nevada town mourns Marines who died in explosion

HAWTHORNE, Nev. -- Hundreds of residents in a rural community steeped in military history turned out to mourn the loss of at least seven Marines as investigators arrived at an ammunition depot to try to determine how a mortar shell exploded at the Nevada base and sent shrapnel flying into troops during a training exercise.

Read the entire article here.

Mum: Army hiding truth into soldier's death

The grieving mother of a dead Kiwi soldier asked for the return of his clothes but was told they were burned as the items were considered "bio-toxic".

An Army investigator also told Venus Poa she may never know the truth about the death of her son in Afghanistan last year.

She replied: "We are Ngapuhi - we will get to the truth, however long it takes."

Read the entire story here.

Real-life NCIS: Was sailor murdered?

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Three years after a sailor was found dead, the investigation into his death is being reviewed again by authorities in Illinois. New evidence obtained by I-Team 8 could help reveal the truth behind 22-year old Kyle Antonacci ’s death. A death that happened when the young man was serving as an informant in a sexual assault case for NCIS, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Read the entire story here.

-- submitted by Lois Vanderbur

Petition

Hello!
I've started the petition "President Obama and the Department of Defense: Properly investigate military non-combat deaths" and need your help to get it off the ground.
Will you take 30 seconds to sign it right now? Here's the link:
http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-and-the-department-of-defense-properly-investigate-military-non-combat-deaths
Here's why it's important:
Military members' non-combat deaths are not being properly investigated and this is an unacceptable insult to their national service and memories.

You can sign my petition by clicking here.
Thanks!

MARINE COLONEL’S DEATH MURDER NOT SUICIDE: WIDOW SUES MILITARY TO REOPEN INVESTIGATION CITING NEGLIGENCE AND COVER

Exhausting all other efforts, Kimberly Stahlman, the widow of Col. Michael Ross Stahlman, has filed a precedent-setting Complaint under The Administrative Procedures Act (APA) asking a Federal judge to force the reopening of her husband’s death investigation and to change his Manner of Death from “suicide” to “homicide.”

Read the entire story here.

Widow of Marine Corps Launches Campaign to Prove Her Husband Was Murdered

Widow of Marine Corps Colonel Involded in Haditha Trials Launches Campaign to Prove Her Husband Was Murdered

Military widows join forces to raise awareness of non-hostile military deaths.

Marine Corps Colonel Michael Stahlman was an investigating officer in the case against Lt. Andrew Grayson, an intelligence officer charged with making false statements, attempting fraudulent discharge, and obstructing justice, in connection to the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in the city of Haditha.

Colonel Stahlman was vocal in his disappointment with the manner in which the entire Haditha matter was handled by the Marine Corps hierarchy and recommended that charges against Grayson be dropped. The recommendation was rejected by prosecutors and Grayson eventually was cleared of all charges in June 2008.

At the time of Grayson’s acquittal, Colonel Stahlman was serving as the Rule of Law Coordinator at Camp Ramadi Iraq, where he was found unconscious with a gunshot wound to the left side of his head on July 31, 2008. Never regaining consciousness, he died months later on October 5, 2008 at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

His shooting was immediately suspicious to his widow Kimberly. Despite the fact that Colonel Stahlman was right-handed and had no history of depression, the Naval Criminal Investigative Services and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology apparently labeled his shooting a suicide within hours of the incident without performing all available evidence testing.

Read the entire story here.

Bizarre, Unexplained Marine Colonel 'Suicides'
What the Hell's Going on?

Take the case of Marine Colonel Michael Stahlman who you might say was the ultimate Marine officer. Enrolled in Marine military school from the age of 14, Col Stahlman's father was one of the founding members of President Kennedy's Peace Corps. After becoming an officer in 1985, Michael Stahlman went to flight school and became qualified to fly the F-4 Phantom jet fighter. Then his career took a turn and he became increasingly involved in the legal aspects of the United States Marines. Along the way he became parachute qualified and as a result, his uniform bears both the wings of a Naval Aviator, and the jump wings synonymous with the legendary Marine Corps Force Recon Battalions. Those two areas, aviation and infantry, could not be any farther apart in the Corps.

At the age of 45, this Marine Colonel was about to begin a new life as a civilian with his wife and daughters who he always stayed in touch with via email and phone, according to Cilla McCain, author of Murder in Baker Company: How Four American Soldiers Killed One of Their Own. She's researching the story behind Col Stahlman's death and talked about her work in a recent interview with an Encino, California radio station.

This Marine officer was preparing to head home on leave, and he was close to retiring from his career in the military, according to author Celia McCain, when his untimely death came out of nowhere on 31 July 2008. Oh, and it was also a 'suicide' the Marines said. It happened at Camp Ramadi in Iraq's Anbar province, a place I flew into as a reporter covering the Iraq war about a month after the Colonel's death.

McCain explains that right-handed Stahlman suffered a gunshot wound to left side of head. His wife just never believed that it was suicide, and she was given the standard regard, and treated as a 'widow in denial' by a government content to view this warrior's death simply as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His wife and McCain both seem to believe there is quite a bit more to it.

Read the entire story here.

--submitted by Cilla McCain

The Shameful Way the Military Handles Non-Combat Deaths

Little or no information is given to families

What drove 1st Lieutenant Debra Banaszak of the Missouri National Guard over the edge?
It is a question her family tried to answer for a year after she committed suicide in Kuwait in 2005. Her family simply could not believe this loving mother and police officer who also had served 17 years with the Army National Guard would take her own life.

The family tried to pry more information out of the military, but what they were getting in return did not give them closure.

To this day, the Missouri National Guard still offers a press release dated October 31, 2005 — which is just three days after Banaszak was found dead — as the only information they can provide regarding her death. The release simply states that Banaszak “died of a non-combat related injury” on Oct. 28 in Kuwait.

“I’ve given you all the information I can on this,” said Major Tamara Spicer, public affairs officer for the Missouri National Guard, just recently to this reporter.
When pressed for anything more concrete than the 2005 press release, she continues to repeat herself and says nothing more: “I’ve given you all the information I can on this.”
Because of the military’s lax response, the Banaszak family told this reporter they have had to put the death of Debra behind them, or continue to suffer.

Read the entire story here.

Lawmaker: Commands shouldn't investigate military rape cases

The concerted campaign by Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, aims to remove military sex crimes investigations and prosecutions from the standard chain of command. Even if it falls short, the campaign already is a case study in how 21st century political momentum is built.

"This silent epidemic is over," Speier said of military sexual assault Thursday.

This week, Speier introduced a bill that would assign all military sexual assault cases to a new Sexual Assault Oversight and Response Office. Another new Pentagon office would oversee all sexual assault-related prosecutions.

Speier says the new bureaucracy is necessary for sexual assault-related cases because the current system is "woefully inadequate" and overly influenced by the chain of command.

Read the entire story here.

Soldier’s Death Raises Suspicions in Chinatown

From The New York Times:

"And though military officials have reassured the Chens that a thorough investigation is being conducted, their grief is laced with suspicion, shared by their supporters in the local Chinese community, that they will never learn the truth."       

"From the little that the military has told them, family members believe that investigators are focusing on suicide as the cause of death. If that is the determination, the case may echo that of another Asian-American, Lance Cpl. Harry Lew, a Marine from California who killed himself in April in Afghanistan after fellow Marines allegedly subjected him to a brutal hazing. Last week, the Marines were ordered court-martialed. "      

Read the entire story by clicking here.

Missing evidence is among military crime lab’s new problems

WASHINGTON — The Army’s crime lab, already beleaguered by multiple internal investigations, has something new to explain: missing evidence.

Examiners misplaced evidence in a possible suicide investigation and an assault case. One of the analysts didn’t notify his superiors for months that a handwriting sample he was supposed to examine had been missing, a miscue that delayed an investigation into the matter until recently.

Meanwhile, two former senior employees of the lab’s high-profile forensics testing in Afghanistan have accused their bosses of firing them in August in retaliation for complaining about mismanagement.

Read the entire story here.

Petition regarding non-combat death investigations

Please consider creating an account at whitehouse.gov and sign our petition.

Ensure that the Department of Defense honor its own Instructions 5505.10 and 1300.18 regarding non-combat deaths.

"All military non-combat deaths, not of natural causes, must be investigated as potential homicides, as the most current Department of Defense Instructions, 5505.10 and 1300.18 specify. We believe that the Department of Defense should obey their own guidelines regarding investigations. Rules about informing family members of these fallen military men and women should be followed. Breaches of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by members of the Armed Forces which have contributed to these non-combat deaths or to the dissemination of false official statements must be punished according to the UCMJ. An independent review panel should be created to investigate discrepancies presented by families. "

Link to Discussion of DoD Instructions on Non-combat Death Investigations

Click here to listen to a discussion about the Department of Defense Instructions on the investigations of non-combat deaths.  Learn something about the rules which are often ignored and about the acknowledged rights of families in these cases.

Civilian Police and Non-combat Death Investigations, Part Three

Jose Guerena Killed: Arizona Cops Shoot Former Marine In Botched Pot Raid

As the SWAT team forced its way into his home, Guerena, a former Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq, armed himself with his AR-15 rifle and told his wife and son to hide in a closet. As the officers entered, Guerena confronted them from the far end of a long, dark hallway. The police opened fire, releasing more than 70 rounds in about 7 seconds, at least 60 of which struck Guerena. He was pronounced dead a little over an hour later.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department initially claimed (PDF) Guerena fired his weapon at the SWAT team. They now acknowledge that not only did he not fire, the safety on his gun was still activated when he was killed. Guerena had no prior criminal record, and the police found nothing illegal in his home. After ushering out his wife and son, the police refused to allow paramedics to access Guerena for more than hour, leaving the young father to bleed to death, alone, in his own home.

Read the entire story here.

Editor's note:  This story closely parallels my son's death in 2001.  It establishes a pattern of behavior by civilian police.

The following article is re-printed with the permission of Marti Hiken:

How the Police Get Away With Murder

By Luke Hiken and Marti Hiken

Police officers who murder citizens in our communities are more likely than not to get off scot-free. The odds are that they will not be prosecuted at all, and if they are, they will be offered a plea bargain to misdemeanor assault or manslaughter, at worst. The reasons that police can kill at will are found in the laws themselves. 

The disparity in how police officers who kill are treated, as compared to citizens who kill, lies in the way the state deals with the two groups. A citizen who is accused or suspected of killing another citizen, is immediately arrested, held without bail, and subjected to sustained and often brutal interrogation. The threats that police make to murder suspects are the subject of books, television dramas and newspaper articles. The pressure applied by police officers to murder suspects borders on the illegal in most situations, and can even constitute the sort of torture we’ve come to expect from our lawless government. The treatment of “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo is only marginally less horrific than the treatment of prison inmates and gang members suspected of committing serious offenses. Threats to “throw the book” at a suspect, if (s)he doesn’t confess, threats to arrest and/or deport family members, threats of beatings and worse, are the every day grist of police interrogations. The justification is that suspects are “bad” people, and deserve what they get. Naïve principles about presumptions of innocence go out the window when the interrogation room door closes.

Within hours, if not days, of a citizen suspect’s arrest, the police will have gathered incriminating evidence, a confession, or leads to witnesses who can assure a conviction in the case. Only the most street-wise defendants will assert their right to remain silent, or speak with a lawyer in the face of the kind of bullying that goes on in these situations. Those charged with murder will not be released on bail, and only the wealthy will have access to an attorney who will have time to spend with them before their first court appearance.

Compare that situation with that of a police officer who kills a citizen. In San Francisco, the officer will first be placed on “paid administrative leave.” [See SFPD General Order 8.11, entitled “Investigations of Officer Involved Shootings and Discharges.”] The officer will then be asked to participate in an internal police investigation, where (s)he is represented by an attorney, and provided with all of the rights set forth in the “Police Officer’s Bill of Rights.” 

The trail of obfuscation begins the day of the killing when the police officer is hustled into the custody of the police and away from public scrutiny. The police officer then becomes the property of the internal police agencies and their chain of command.

Initially, there are two investigations for police officers. One is a criminal investigation, which is conducted separately by the Homicide Detail and the Office of the District Attorney (DA). The other is the Administrative Investigation conducted by the Management Control Division. Then, the Emergency Communications Division, and the immediate supervisor or platoon commander where the crime took place, take command. This agency notifies the Field Operations Bureau Headquarters (Center), who notifies at least nine more internal police agencies. Also, the DA’s and Office of Citizen Complaints are notified as well as the police Legal Division. 

The victims’ family members, their attorneys, and the media are not allowed to interview the officer; and, no public bodies have access to the officer while the police investigation is proceeding. This period of grace affords the officer the opportunity to work with his/her colleagues and attorneys to assure that no damaging version of the offense is publicized or pursued. A cynical individual might surmise that it also gives the police department an opportunity to destroy inculpatory evidence, or “turn” witnesses who might have damaging testimony or versions of what occurred.

The police officer is escorted from the crime scene to the Bureau Headquarters (department facility) where the officer will be interviewed by the Homicide Detail Inspectors. Officers shall not return to regular assignment for a minimum of 10 calendar days. “This reassignment is administrative only and in no way shall be considered punitive.” 

Within 5 business days, the Chief of Police shall convene a panel to discuss whether it is appropriate for the involved member to return to duty. There is a mandatory debriefing (per DGO 8.04, Section 1.A), where a written report is made and sent to the Police Commission and Director of the OCC. The written report “shall not be disclosed to any member of the public except by court order.” Then the Police Commission meets with the Chief of Police to review the Chief’s findings and decision. The officer is also debriefed by the Crisis Incident Response Team. 

It is both the Homicide Detail and the Management Control Division that respond immediately and conduct an investigation into every officer-involved shooting. Within 45 calendar days the Firearm Discharge Review Board shall receive the Homicide Detail Investigation report. Within 60 days, the Management Control Division findings shall be completed and submitted to the same Firearm Discharge Board, which must convene within 30 days. It then has 120 days to complete its investigation and issue its findings.

After these months of delay (and cover-up?), the police officer might be charged with an offense by the DA’s office. Picture how many murder prosecutions there would be for citizens who were provided the same protections as police officers before being arrested and interrogated. The state would never be able to charge anyone with murder if citizens were secluded and protected the way the police are.

This disparate treatment is a blatant violation of the Equal Protection Clauses of our state and federal Constitutions, and defense attorneys should challenge this outrageous contradiction at every stage of the criminal process. The reasons police get away with murder in our society, while citizens are often convicted of crimes they didn’t even commit, is simply because of the differing way the laws are written and designed. Our society doesn’t mind cops who kill, only citizens who do. 

______________________ 

Marti Hiken is the director of Progressive Avenues. She is the former Associate Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and former chair of the National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force. She can be contacted at info@progressiveavenues.org, 415-702-9682. 

Luke Hiken is an attorney who has engaged in the practice of criminal, military, immigration, and appellate law.

More errors surface at military crime lab as Senate seeks inquiry

By Marisa Taylor and Michael Doyle

McClatchy Newspapers

Published: May 16, 2011

WASHINGTON — The military's premier crime lab has botched more of its evidence testing than has been previously known, raising broader questions about the quality of the forensic work relied on to convict soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

Now, the Supreme Court could weigh in, while two senators want the Pentagon to open a full-blown investigation. If they start looking, Pentagon officials will find that the crime lab's problems extend beyond one discredited analyst.

Read the entire story here.

More:

Army slow to act as crime-lab examiner falsified, botched tests

Crime-lab worker's errors cast doubt on military verdicts

Discredited Army analyst built his career around crime lab

Mother: 'I just wanted to know what happened'

Her son died of non-combat injuries at end of his Afghan tour

By ROBERT STANTONHOUSTON CHRONICLE

May 8, 2011, 8:04PM

Army Spc. Riley S. Spaulding had just finished his Afghanistan tour and was about to returned to Germany, then back to Texas.

But somehow — no one yet knows how — Spaulding was killed in a non-combat incident.

"I just wanted to know what happened," Micki Spaulding said of her 21-year-old son, of Sheridan, about 70 miles west of Houston. "But they couldn't tell me."

Read the entire story: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7555752.html.

More on the Patrick Rust Case

Watch the full episode. See more Public Eye with Jeff Cole.

An interview with the Jefferson County Sheriff, the lead detective in the case, and Crime Wire Consultant and private investigator Bill Sullivan, was aired over the weekend on the local Watertown, New York PBS station. If you'd like to see it, the link is http://www.wpbstv.org/COVE_Images/PublicEye-April-01-2011.htm

Army Slow to Act as Crime-lab Worker Falsified, Botched Tests

WASHINGTON — For nearly three years, the military held the key to Roger House's exoneration and didn't tell him: A forensics examiner had botched a crucial lab test used in the Navy lieutenant's court-martial

 

Read the entire story by clicking here.

Civilian Police and Non-combat Death Investigations, Part Two

What Would Dr. Quincy Do?

The first TV series about the use of forensics to solve crimes by scientific methods was Quincy, M.E, which aired from 1976 – 1983.  It was a huge hit.  Jack Klugman played the crusading forensic pathologist, who had a tendency to perseverate (and make idealistic speeches) when working on finding cause of death.  The police were usually a few ticks behind in the investigations.  They tended to jump to false conclusions.  It was Quincy’s job to use the available technology to prove or disprove the theories of the police as to cause of death.  The public was persuaded that this was the proper and prevalent practice in the United States whenever someone died of suspicious or unknown causes.  Dr. Quincy was the symbol of integrity and justice.

Currently, the general popularity of the new TV series like CSI, NCIS, Crossing Jordan, Body of Proof, etc. brings gory pseudo realistic forensics into the homes of the American Public.  Again, these are very big television programs which lead us all to believe that whiz bang technology can pinpoint cause of death as well as circumstances and place of death.  We all believe, from watching these series, that each and every suspicious death that occurs in the US is thoroughly investigated with the very newest technology.

We are SO wrong about that.  In most of the cases I’ll talk about here nothing as basic as fingerprints were taken from the crime scenes, let alone other types of forensic evidence.  The recent PBS Frontline program, Postmortem showed that most elected rural coroners in the US are not forensic pathologists or doctors of any kind and that facilities for the examination and storage of bodies is often non-existent.

Our current fascination with forensics in the US is ironic in that large political factions of our country have expressed a distrust and a rejection of science.  I can only wonder if this is the basis for the dichotomy between our entertainment choices and the reality of crime detection in the US.

Stephen Killian

MSSR Stephen Killian was in the Navy.  His 1999 death occurred, ironically, in the home of the original CSI series:  Las Vegas, Nevada.  He was in the Navy, so you’d think that NCIS, the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, would also be involved in his death investigation.  That proved not to be true.

NCIS is the primary law enforcement and counter-intelligence arm of the US Department of the Navy.  “Types of crimes investigated by NCIS include rape, child physical and sexual abuse, burglary and robbery, theft of government and personal property, and homicide. NCIS also has responsibility for investigating any non-combat death involving a naval service member where the cause of death cannot be medically attributable to disease or natural causes. “ 

Furthermore, according to their website:  “NCIS special agents, intelligence analysts and security specialists routinely work with local, state, federal and foreign law enforcement to address criminal incidents, identify and mitigate threats to U.S. and forces and assets, and pursue joint proactive operations.”

 If you’ve ever watched the TV series, you may believe that NCIS has access to advanced technology comparable to that showcased in the CSI series.  Yet, in reality, neither the Las Vegas police nor NCIS did much in the way of investigation.

In fact, in the three cases I’ll profile in this part of my discussion of Civilian Police and Non-combat Death Investigations, you will see that NCIS plays a decidedly secondary role in the death investigations of two members of the US Navy and one member of the US Marine Corps.  They each died outside of their assigned military bases, and were, therefore considered the responsibility of civilian police where investigation was concerned.

In Stephen’s case, according to his mother, Sonya, the civilian police did a cursory investigation of his death by hanging, immediately labeling it a suicide, despite some very suspicious circumstances.   There was no spectacular CSI investigation and no “Dr. Quincy” to insist on proper assessment of the body to make sure that Stephen wasn’t murdered.

Sonya was denied copies of the crime scene photos by the Las Vegas police.   They said that they destroyed investigation files, including the evidence, in July 1999, two months after Stephen died, as they considered the case closed.

Thomas Traylor

AOC Thomas Traylor was a Navy Aviation Ordinance Chief on active duty stationed at the Weapons Testing Squadron, Naval Station, China Lake, CA.   On December 6th 1998, he was found dead, in rural Inyokern, CA, from a gunshot wound to the chest. The cause of death was listed as suicide.

Thomas Traylor was a kind-hearted, soft-spoken career Navy man who joined up in 1983.  He was scheduled to retire in five years.

The Navy pretty much left Traylor’s death investigation to the Kern County, California, police.  The immediate conclusion was suicide.  Motivation was assigned to various rumors concerning his marriage.  This is usually the tack taken by NCIS in any investigations of non-combat deaths:  find a motive to shore up the initial “cause of death” and that’s the end of it.  

Charolette Traylor, who had been away tending to an elderly relative, was not immediately informed of Traylor’s death.  Her pleas for information were ignored for long periods of time.  Like many military family members, she eventually started her own investigation, employing investigators and having a second autopsy done.

If you click on the link to AOC Traylor above and read her account, you will see that private forensics investigators concluded that Traylor could not have shot himself in his vehicle.  There are many intriguing clues which were left at the scene.  The crime scene photos, which are usually difficult for the family to obtain, were key in making forensics findings.

It is truly unfortunate that “Dr. Quincy” wasn’t in Kern County, California to use the forensic clues left behind to do a thorough investigation.  It is also sad that the Navy had so little regard for one of their own.

Kirk Vanderbur

If any case would give cause to skepticism about “official” cause of death, it would be that of Kirk Vanderbur.

2^nd Lt. Kirk Charles Vanderbur was found dead February 17, 1992 at a private gun range in Hubert, NC, near Camp Lejeune.  The Sheriff of Onslow County, NC, Ed Brown was the civilian police authority responsible for investigating Kirk’s death.  He is the current Sheriff of Onslow County, North Carolina.

Onslow County has been the setting for other less than straight forward non-combat deaths of Marines, including LCpl. Maria Lauterbach, and LCpl. Jonathan M. Outz, among others.

Kirk had gone to the shooting range on the afternoon of February 16^th.  Marines and soldiers who are serious about maintaining their shooting skills practice periodically, so this was not an unusual situation.  It is believed that there were actually two more individuals at the range that afternoon.  The manager was also on duty, but said that she did not see Kirk’s car in the parking lot when she left that evening.  His body wasn’t found until the next day.

Kirk’s parents, Lois and Gene Vanderbur, were told that Kirk accidentally blasted himself in the chest with birdshot, and then crawled 8 ½ to 10 feet to shoot himself in the head right between the eyes with a semiautomatic rifle.  The rifle was in contact with his hand when his body was found, although Lois stated that this weapon had quite a “kick” when fired and would likely have been thrust away from the body if events happened the way the police theorized.  Furthermore, the range provided waist-high tables on which weapons were placed, so she asks how the rifle got on the ground.  Where is Dr. Quincy when you need him?  Surely not in Onslow County, NC.

As the responders loaded Kirk’s body into the ambulance they noticed the abdominal wound and pulled up his sweatshirt, which pulled his internal organs out. Two days later, without even testing Vanderbur’s hands for gunshot residue, Sheriff Ed Brown decided the death was a suicide and the NCIS agreed.

Lois Vanderbur said “I think the sheriff botched the investigation, didn’t do a homicide investigation and I don’t think the Marine Corps cared”.

Gene Vanderbur wrote: “my son was murdered. I concluded this after a long search for information dealing with a conspiracy of combinations of silence, endless and continuous obfuscation by people in authority, denial of access to evidence, data and photographs, obvious lying, neglect in performance of minimum reasonable investigation, misdirection, shameless displays of arrogance, ignorance and/or more malfeasant actions.”

Kirk’s family has requested copies of the crime scene photos taken by NCIS, which were never delivered.

On February 14, 2011, I spoke on the phone with Major Frank Terwilliger of the Onslow Co., NC Sheriff's Department.  He said that they do not share investigation material because "they are not public records."   He said that a private investigator and NCIS investigators "came to the same conclusion" about Kirk's death being a suicide.  He did not want to say any more.

Lois says that the extent of NCIS’ investigation was to question people as to possible motivations for committing suicide.  No one was theorizing that being shot with two separate guns ten feet apart could have been homicide. 

Dr. Quincy would, at least, have used some science to rule out murder before suggesting suicide.

Donna Janeczko