Lavigne was a member of the Army's elite counter-terrorism unit, Delta Force, and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. in the Army to go. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Thereafter, things moved very slowly toward a trial. We want to hear it. My granddaughter was so relieved that he was dead that she was crying, Mabey said. The wars that Delta Force had been on the bleeding edge of since 2001 had deteriorated into lost causes, but the special-operations forces had completed their takeover-from-within of the military, becoming the paramount force in the Pentagon, with the most political clout in Washington. That would have been enough, Poppe argues, to spook Scanlon into making a false accusation of rape, lest word get out and she be reprimanded for fraternization. On March 17, Leshikar called his sister, Nicole Rick, to wish her a happy Saint Patrick's Day. Helicopters crashed in mountains, fair weather, Army says, Army Special Ops Command welcomes first female command sergeant major, Army identifies 3 soldiers killed in Alaska helicopter crash, Army grounds helicopter fleet for force-wide safety stand down. Poppe was unable to remember the substance of Matrafailos testimony, only that it involved some aspects of the investigation that had not been discussed., A few months after the trial, Matrafailo would be accused of making inappropriate contact with Scanlon on social media: sending her suggestive emojis, making weird comments about ads for lingerie, and the like. I ask whether Cris Valley is in attendance. The DA treated the killing as a justifiable homicide and Lavigne was not charged with a crime. In addition, according to USASOC, the court reporter deleted the audio. We drank so much, she says. The jury would have been able to see from her dress blues that, in stark contrast with Vallejo, she was a rookie officer in a conventional unit. The death certificates say the two men were found about 3:30 p.m. Dec. 2, in the woods on Fort Bragg. Army investigators with CID had initially washed their hands of the case, but the two JAG prosecutors, Morman and Cohen, claimed to have only belatedly learned that the victim and defendant were both soldiers, which gave the military parallel jurisdiction to try Vallejo. They would have these epic parties, tailgate pool parties, where they would put a liner in the back of a truck and fill it up with water. On one occasion, they hired midget wrestlers to come out, she says. As a senior non-commissioned officer of Delta Force, the most elite and secretive special operations unit in the U.S. military, Command Sergeant Major Tom Satterly fought some of this country's most fearsome enemies. The case is being investigated as a homicide, a spokesperson for Army Criminal Investigations Division told Connecting Vets. A sort of Delta Force biker gang that story wouldnt have been good for the Army, not at a time when the Navy was getting hammered by allegations of rampant drug abuse, fratricidal violence, and sexual assault in the ranks of its SEAL teams. While awaiting trial, Vallejo had stood down as an active-duty operator, attached to USASOC as an ignominious SURPLUS SLDR, according to his enlistment-record brief. Some were deployed, others reassigned, or otherwise bureaucratically reshuffled. I represented 1LT [First Lieutenant] Erin Scanlon as her special-victim counsel, Capt. He loved weapons. Locklear shows me the spot where she says he once threw a knife into the trunk of a tree in the front yard, which is littered with hundreds if not thousands of cigarette butts. The detective told me, This guys active-duty, she recalls. The next morning, she told the guy she was dating at the time that his buddy had raped her, but he didnt believe her, she says. LaVigne was assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command and had been in the Army for 19 years. They convened a weird meeting, Scanlon says, with her and the district attorney, Billy West, whose office declined to comment on this case or on Lavignes record of arrests. Stateside they lived intense lives, too. Over the course of 18 months between 2020 and 2021, more than 80 military members stationed at the base died from "sudden" and. A senior defense official told ABC News in late March 2018 that the shooter was an active-duty member of a Special Missions Unit, known as Delta Force. Delta Force was chiefly formed by Charles Beckwith, an officer in the Green Berets and a veteran of the American war in Vietnam.He had served with the British SAS (Special Air Service) during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation (1963-66), when Indonesia opposed the formation of The Federation of Malaysia.. Now, she told him that she would be over shortly, and used her phone to order an Uber to take her there. If you felt that 1LT Scanlon was sexually assaulted, why was she not taken to the hospital as soon as possible? another asked the staff sergeant. Let me know when your [sic] home safe. To this he appended a heart emoji and a kissy-face. An Uber driver started toward the warehouse at 2:50 a.m., according to screen shots of the app that Scanlon gave police. He was a great dude. He was seven inches taller than her and 70 pounds heavier. The warehouse is three blocks from police headquarters, but a spokesman for the Fayetteville PD denies knowing anything about the place, and had no relevant incident reports pertaining to the address. I represented him in Cumberland County.. William J. Lavigne II and Timothy Dumas, a veteran previously stationed at the post, were found dead at a training site on the base Wednesday afternoon. Three of four gunshots struck Leshikar, according to the ME report. Lavigne retained him while still under Army investigation into the . Instead, on June 26, Matrafailo was the first person called to the stand by the defense. You want to think theyre not comparing?, According to Scanlon, Poppes initial line of questioning was not subtle. There might be a good reason for Vallejo to avoid the spot where, almost five years ago to the day, he met Scanlon. William LaVigne II, 37, and Army veteran Timothy Dumas, 44. William F. Garrison: Retired Major General. Lavigne was assigned. The tipster also indicated that drugs would be present, the affidavit attested. Instead, her aunt and grandmother relayed what she described. A spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command said the investigation continues into the deaths of Master Sgt. Sgt Lavigne was a Green Beret and Delta Force member. Looking back on the court-martial, it was a solid case and my testimony was powerful, Scanlon says, but I was this lowly lieutenant up against Delta Force and USASOC and JSOC, and all that entails. Leshikar's daughter said that William or Uncle Billy was scaring her, and unlocked the door for her father to enter, Leshikar's family said. This industrially zoned property, which Vallejo rented from a chemical company, is cut off from any obvious street access, being surrounded on all three sides by train tracks, storage buildings, and scrap yards. He never denied having sex with Scanlon, but maintained that it was consensual. They might have noticed that the shooter was a witness for the alleged rapist, and that they both belonged to the same motorcycle club, made up of soldiers from the Armys most elite unit. William J. Lavigne II, 37, was one of two men found dead Dec. 2 in a training area on Fort Bragg, N.C., the Army said in a statement. William J. Lavigne II and Timothy Dumas, a veteran previously stationed at the post, were found dead at a training site on the base Wednesday afternoon. A spokesman for USASOC tells me that no transcript of the audio recordings of the trial proceedings was ever typed up because Vallejo was acquitted, so there was no possibility of an appeal. Leshikar began working on his car out in the driveway. The third was a superficial grazing wound across the left side of his neck, the bullet arching at a 45-degree downward angle, the bullet passing from back to front. Reach Jack Murphy:jack@connectingvets.comor@JackMurphyRGR.Want to get more connected to the stories and resources Connecting Vets has to offer? From March 15 to 19, Leshikar and Lavigne were on vacation with their families at Disney World in Florida. 1LT Scanlon never told me that she remembered seeing a female the Green Berets red-haired widow who may have witnessed a portion of the alleged assault., It looked like Scanlon was lying, or at a minimum, misremembering what had happened. A CID investigation reached the same conclusions as the sheriff's office, that Leshikar's killing was deemed justifiable. From the perspective of the Armys image-conscious leadership, the failure on the part of the press to catch wind of Vallejos court-martial was a lucky break. "Mark and Billy had a brotherly relationship and (the second Delta operator) was the papa bear that put them in line, Leshikar's sister described. The Cumberland County Sheriffs Office investigated and declared the death justifiable homicide.. Its like watching a scary movie. from 67] house in Fayetteville, he had shot and killed his closest friend, a Green Beret named Mark Leshikar, with whom he had been drinking and doing drugs for days on end during a family vacation to Disney World. My testimony was so long and painful. Throughout, she rigidly refused to make eye contact with Vallejo or even look at his side of the courtroom. After taking her statement and reviewing her text messages, Detective Matrafailo drove her the three blocks to the warehouse in an effort to identify the precise location. He is courteous, with an iron handshake, and gives his name as Joe. Yet, the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office which ran the investigation of Leshikar's death since it happened off post, ruled it to be a "justifiable homicide." There have not been any arrest(s) and we are not releasing any additional details at this time, Shelly Lynch, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Charlotte, said in an email this week. Twice she broke down in tears and the court had to call a recess, she says. He busted a few rounds in the direction of Ian Detar, an inveterate burglar who has no fewer than 29 mug shots on file with the county. His spiral into drugs and paranoia culminated in him shooting at a man on the streets of Fayetteville in July 2020. The location was well-known, though, to other municipal authorities, who suspected it of being an illegal bar and a fire hazard, according to internal emails between city and county officials that I obtained. He had a dudes brains on his boot, she says, and he just flicked it off, as if completely unfazed. First Class Mark Leshikar, two years prior. Starting in 2019, victims who testify get a copy of the court-martial record, including audio, whether it was an acquittal or conviction.. A spokeswoman for the FBI confirmed this month that the homicide investigation into the shooting deaths of Master Sgt. Rick said Lavigne was also in Delta Force. The 50 Worst Decisions in Music History At times, she observed their operations on a video feed. This was 37-year-old William Lavigne III, a Master Sergeant and former 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (aka Delta Force) soldier. She told me, I feel like I just got raped.. I was Billys attorney, Poppe says. Reached through his lawyer, Vallejo declined to comment for this story. Created in the late 1970s in the image of the British Special Air Service (SAS), Delta Force has been at . She took him for a run-of-the-mill special-forces veteran, retired from the Army or otherwise discharged, because shed been taught that its against regulations for active-duty personnel to solicit donations for a military cause, and that was the whole point of the Coast x Coast Foundation. The staff sergeant had invited her over to his house earlier in the evening, but she and Tina hadnt wanted to leave the party. How did the Uber driver react to the distress shown by 1LT Scanlon? a juror asked Tina. She said that when she opened the door, and her daddy was mad and walking towards uncle Billy and uncle Billy came around and shot him, and then my daddy did this, her family described. This would have been in violation of regulations that prevent the military from excluding crime victims from the trials of their alleged perpetrators, and USASOC says it didnt happen. Those guys, they would drink, and they would need to have sex, she says. He was a broken operator, a worn-out military part, destroyed by PTSD and substance abuse. 1st Class Mark Leshikar. And that was the reason why my case was handled the way it was. (Phyllis B. Dooney for Rolling Stone). Guys like Vallejo and Lavigne are constantly told that theyre the elite, the best of the best, the ultimate badasses, and when it comes to killing and capturing people overseas, they are. She says he grilled her on the quantity of alcohol she had consumed, implying that inebriety had inclined her toward promiscuity. Anything other than you saying yes or asking for it is not consent, her friend replied. Scanlon recalls Morman urging her to consent to a change in venue, arguing that a court-martial offered a better chance to convict, among other reasons, because a guilty verdict does not have to be unanimous under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Investigators ask that anyone with information about the deaths of LaVigne and Dumas call the FBI Charlotte office at 704-672-6100 or Army CID at 910-396-8777. the deaths of Master Sgt. Scanlon and Vallejo both continued to live in Fayetteville and work on Fort Bragg. She has photos to prove that she knew them. Like maybe Im making a bigger deal out of it than it was., It is not your fault, her friend responded, and it is a big deal., Monday morning I went into work, Scanlon says. Scanlon claims that Vallejo raped her that night, and says that the trauma still haunts her to this day. She still didnt know that Vallejo was an active-duty soldier, much less that he was on Delta Force. The police department promptly fired Matrafailo, who had allegedly done the same to two other alleged rape victims. I didnt say anything when he did that. Then, on Dec. 2, 2020, Lavigne turned up dead, shot multiple times in the chest, his body wrapped up as if for disposal, and placed in the back of his truck, which was left abandoned on a dirt road near Lake MacArthur. Other than that, he says, I dont think youre going to get any comment from anybody around here.. A spokeswoman for the Forsyth County Sheriffs Office said the 911 call for the Walkertown incident came it at 12:54 a.m. April 11, 2020, as an anonymous assault in progress. He was scheduled to appear in court March 12, 2019, but the charges and court date disappeared from court records.
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