You always got the sense from him that he was involved in something illegal, like some kind of crime ring. You can clearly see the moment a small black hole appears in the sheetrock, blowing out a cone of gypsum powder. He had been shot multiple times in the chest, wrapped in a type of nylon blanket that soldiers call a woobie, and placed in the back of his own truck, the gray Chevrolet. Enrique was blind as fuck without his glasses, Romero says. He never responded again., UPDATE: 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. 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. Its known from postmortem toxicology that Leshikar was taking Valium, tramadol, MDMA, and cocaine. This is a previous edition of the Homicide Tracker. His death was ruled a homicide. Click a Banner Below to Get Started, ~Everything on this site should be considered as entertainment ONLY, nothing else!~. 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. Other operators that were there. The military continues to be assaulted by mandates that harm soldiers physically and mentally. Fort Bragg lost over 80 soldiers from sudden and unexplained causes, and stopped reporting on the deaths after June 2021, Atty. Drugs are only a small part of the problem. Thomas Renz reveals the DoD whistleblowers, Digital Tyranny: Beware of the Governments Push for a Digital Currency, WISDOM FROM PSALM 30-31 & PROVERBS 20: FOR THE LORD PRESERVETH THE FAITHFUL (Video). An orange sun is setting behind row upon row of monotonous pines. 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. He stands in front of a parking lot at night, a middle-aged, broad-chested black man with a shaved head, dressed in whiskered jeans and a shirt with vertical stripes. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. On several occasions, various people at Fort Bragg have offered to sell him tabs, Romero says, including the soldier from the camping trip. Fort Bragg needs to be blown up, that is, exposed to scrutiny, says Tammy de Mirza, Sarahs aunt. That last part wasnt true, it later emerged. Some of them are really great. 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 tells me I should go smoke in the back because theres going to be a shooting.. 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. 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. He was getting clean.. But my brother was murdered back in May. He finally put the gun down. In the aftermath, Lynda says, There were no real repercussions.. We are far from the flagpole and are expected to be incorruptible.. . And he fell down on the ground and Uncle Billy kept shooting him. Acid is the most commonly abused substance on post, in Romeros estimation, because people think its impossible to detect through urinalysis (its not). Lavigne was transported downtown, but did not remain long in the police station. 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. No screwdriver was found anywhere near Leshikars body. 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. He was trying to get into Buddhism. JANET BARON OBITUARY. In May of that year, he met Mark Leshikar, another stubborn, hardheaded country boy from way up north. They were joined by Lavigne, the girls godfather, whom she called Uncle Billy, and his daughter, who was like a younger cousin to her. Cumberland County sheriffs deputies responded to the scene. Enjoy. Fort Bragg cannot explain why dozens of soldiers are dying in their own bunks. 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. The island is small, with few trees and a thick crowd of people that weekend. December 31, 2022 (85 years old) View obituary Wayne Richard Swanson December 25, 2022 (78 years old) View obituary William Schroeder Mertle December 23, 2022 (80 years old) View obituary Patricia Ann Menzies October 26, 2022 (82 years old) View obituary Peter Charles Paskos November 20, 2022 (87 years old) View obituary Norma Edith Wright Greene On June 20th, in Carthage, he was arrested at a McDonalds for striking a woman with a bag of food. 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." They are a very hush-hush community, says Diane Ballard, a police detective in the tiny town of Vass, where numerous Delta Force operators, current and retired, own houses. Did he struggle with drugs, alcohol, cocaine, tramadol? He kind of represented himself as an SF operator, she says, though he was just a logistics guy. Sept. 26, 2022. 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. It was a story he would later repeat to Leshikars mother, sister, and wife. Fayetteville Police did not respond to multiple requests for more information. Owings, Elizabeth Ann Mendocino, CA . Both girls witnessed what happened next. Thank you for your service. 'These Kids Are Dying' Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg On March 28th, the Fayetteville police responded to an incident in which he was suspected of shooting into an occupied dwelling. | Fish ate them, Griselda says, and begins to cry. Elite soldiers have access to whatever they want to get into: whores, guns, drugs, you name it, he writes. 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 . Fort Bragg Advocate-News obituaries and Death Notices for Fort Bragg California area . Lavigne was entitled to a variety of due process protections. She has photos of a tub of used syringes found in Lewis closet, including vials of drostanalone propionate and trenbolone acetate, both of which are illicit anabolic steroids that can cause severe mood disturbances. During the eight-hour drive back to North Carolina, Laura split off to take her sister to the airport in Raleigh. Only his severed head had been found. Their deaths came despite an effort that spent. You got 42 confirmed kills? she says, imitating a mans deep voice. In March 2018, Mark and Laura Leshikar took their daughter to Disney World to celebrate her fifth birthday. Two months later, someone nearly died of a heroin overdose at Lavignes house. Neutralizing the Spike Protein: Shikimic Acid*. 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. Ruth was born July 22, 1931, to Ray and Esther . They do what they want.. Learn What NESARA/GESARA is HERE. Theyre covering something up. Samuel Sigoloff, Peter Chambers and Theresa Long. Thats when he made the statement that if I wanted my husband gone, he could take care of it, she says. Could these deaths indicate a surge in suicides and overdoses? Out of nowhere, she says, this tall, baldheaded black dude comes up with a skinny black guy with dreads. The militarys overdose crisis, though most severe at Fort Bragg, affects the entire Army and every other service branch, too. What is the protocol for informing family in the event of an overdose, including non-fatal overdoses. Its the last thing we spoke about.. What followed has never been adequately explained. Sometimes when I would walk into Billys house, it was just everywhere., She personally observed, on two or three occasions, the same four guys cutting up and snorting lines of white powder. For the latest update on stopping the mandates in the military, read Liberty Councils updates on the Navy SEAL 1 v. Austin case. On February 9, 2022, Seth reported the death of 83 soldiers at Fort Bragg in the 18 months ending in June 2021. Disney was found dead along with fellow radarman Joshua Diamond in the Fort Bragg barracks. 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. 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. There is no record of an indictment for either offense. His use of alcohol was of even greater concern. 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. 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. In January 2022, attorneys Thomas Renz and Leigh Dundas retrieved the DMED data from military whistleblowers, Drs. The sheriffs office refused to share a full investigative report on the incident with the Leshikar family, which, Swain says, is department policy.