Fort Lewis Sgt. Amy Tirador May Not Have Shot Herself in Back of the Head After All, Army Says

By Rick Anderson, Tuesday, Jun. 1 2010 @ 9:58AM

​So who killed Fort Lewis Staff Sgt. Amy Tirador in Iraq? Someone, the Army said after she was found last November shot in the back of the head, an apparent execution. No, the Army said early this year, Amy killed herself, a back-of-the-head suicide. Check that, the Army now says. They've found fingerprints on her gun that could belong to someone else who shot her in the back of the head.

Tirador's mother, Colleen Murphy of New York, says the Army Criminal Investigative Division just told her it was awaiting fingerprint and DNA tests on "additional folks who possibly touched" Tirador's 9 mm gun, according to the Albany Times Union.

Murphy had asked Army investigators last month why their investigation into her daughter's death remained open when the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology ruled in January that Tirador shot herself once behind the ear on the Camp Caldwell base.The Army responded three weeks ago that it had discovered "human matter" on Tirador's firearm, Murphy said in an interview ahead of tonight's Memorial Day ceremony, where Tirador will be honored. It then updated the information last week.

Military homicide investigations often result in conflicting - sometimes deceptive - findings. See: Fort Lewis Ranger Pat Tillman and Fort Lewis MP Jesse Buryj. As Cilla McCain - author of Murder in Baker Company - told SW for our story last year on the massacre at Camp Liberty, Iraq by a Fort Lewis sergeant, "If history's our guide, I guarantee the true picture behind [such] shootings will not surface."

--submitted by Cilla McCain