Soldier (just back from Iraq) held for allegedly killing wife

[Newsjock]

http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_042104WABsoldierwifedeathKC.14ac53b46.html

From KING Staff and Wire Reports

LAKEWOOD, Wash. - A 31-year-old soldier based at Fort Lewis was arrested Wednesday for allegedly killing his wife at their apartment in Lakewood.

According to Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer, the soldier turned himself in Wednesday, saying he had committed a homicide.

... The soldier, who was in the Triple Nickel and had just returned from Iraq, and his family were from Ohio and have no relatives in the area.

more

[arcane1]

1. I just had a flashback to those Ft Bragg stories

from last year

:evilfrown:

[nodehopper]

10. oh yeah, the Larium murder spree?

who knows what chemicals those soldiers got pumped full of...not to mention the psychological trauma.

[saigon68]

25. ITS IRAQ-NAM-- DEATH SHOWS NO FAVORITES

A place where Death rides a Pale Horse

Sometimes Death travels beyond the boundaries of the combat zone and wreaks havoc on mere bystanders.

Death inflicts the ultimate penalty in no particular order.


The Innocent, The Guilty, The Careless and The Unlucky-- are all targets.


I would say the woman is in the first category. I have seen this before, death always wins.


saigon68 Tan Son Nhut---Viet-Nam 1968-1969

[pippin]

33. There will only be more

tragedies of this kind.

[smallprint]

40. exactly my thoughts

an old article from 2002 about the murders:


The string of murders began June 11, when Sergeant First Class Rigoberto Nieves, returned just two days earlier from Special Forces duty in Afghanistan, fatally shot his wife, Teresa, and then killed himself.

On June 29, just weeks after returning from Afghanistan, another Special Forces soldier, Master Sergeant William Wright, strangled his wife Jennifer and buried her in a shallow grave.

Sergeant Cedric Ramon Griffin, a member of an engineering battalion, stabbed his estranged wife, Marilyn, 50 times and then set her house on fire July 9.

On July 19, the same day that Wright was arrested for murder, Sergeant First Class Brandon Floyd shot his wife Andrea to death and then turned the gun on himself, taking his own life. According to the Fayetteville Observer, Floyd was a member of the super-secret Delta Force, an elite unit specializing in assassination and covert hit-and-run operations, who had returned from Afghanistan in October.

...

Pentagon spokesmen, who at first dismissed any connection between the homicidal domestic violence and the Afghan war, now say military internal investigations will consider the soldiers’ experience in Afghanistan as one possible contributing factor. In point of fact, Special Forces troops in Afghanistan have been at the center of operations that can only be described as massacres: the bombing of villages, the slaughter of unarmed prisoners, the killing of bands of irregular and largely defenseless militiamen.

...

“I truly in my heart believe that his training was such that if you can’t control it, you kill it,” said Penny Flitcraft, the mother of Andrea Floyd, who was slain by her husband, the Delta Force Sergeant. Her assessment was backed up by one of the police officials in charge of the investigation into the murders. “They’re trained people,” said Sheriff Earl Butler of Cumberland County, North Carolina. “Their job is to go to Afghanistan to fight.... I think the nature of their training has a lot to do with these types of killings.”


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/brag-a02.shtml



personally i think this was one of the reasons the neocons wanted this war in the first place--- they needed a way to turn 'ordinary' soldiers into men who will kill their own without hesitation....

[kalian]

2. This is turning out to be very common....

:eyes:

[TheDebbieDee]

7. It happens just as often when soldiers aren't returning..........

from a deployment. Domestic violence is a big problem with the military and always has been. It didn't just recently become an issue - but the military and the general public just recently started paying attention.

[Mari333]

3. They are going insane over there

and theres NO help when they get home. None. None. None.
bring the troops home now
http://www.bringthemhomenow.com

[Failure]

4. Did anyone else hear that the suicide rate was up?

I heard it is the highest it has ever been. Anyone know what the figure is?

[PaDUer]

14. That's right..

look what they're teaching these guys! I hate to think what's going to happen when and IF these people do come home..They've created a monster in more ways than one! Do they care?--Hell no!

[loyalsister]

32. It's a matter of "marketing"

In the early study of semantics, it was noted that the soldiers who went into the armed forces in WWI expecting "glory" had a more difficult time than those who expected war to be an ugly thing.

The propaganda that preceeded this war painted a picture for the soldiers that was not based in reality. They are living a nightmare they don't feel like they signed up for. Especially considering the fact that so many of these soldiers are reservists.

[PaDUer]

38. I'm certain they're going to come home,

if they come home, like my ex..Divorced after he thought he was back in Nam and put a knife to my throat at nite.

[Occulus]

15. Let him know I'm here for him too, Mari....

Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

The only way we can stop this is to ensure warfare is our last resort, to protect our borders. Nothing less will do.

I could say more, but I'll distill it to this: we have immense military power, unlike any the world has ever seen. Unless and until we see the use of that might as our last resort, our final option, we will continue to see warfare wages by our country in ever increasingly horrifying and devastating methods.

I'm not against those methods when and only when we are threatened with invasion. Otherwise, war should be our final option given our military power.

[Fort Worth Cowboy]

20. Of course

Blame bush and his cronies for this idiot murdering his wife. :eyes:

[Mari333]

28. They sent the kid to an illegal war, the blame lies

at the white house. Theres no help for these kids when they get back, the same thing happened after Vietnam
Damn right I blame the Bush administration
for the murder of over 700 US soldiers and the wounding of over 3000 US soldiers and
the deaths of 20,000 civilians and the massacre of even more now
and the wounding of thousands of others
I blame the Bush admin for being war criminals and taking kids over there for NOTHING and then the kids come back and freak out and lash out in anger with no help for Post Trauma
damn right I blame Bush and his asshole warmongering lower then scumsucking friends.
bring the troops home now
http://www.bringthemhomenow.com

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

36. I blame ignorant asshole freepers like you. Bush wouldn't be in office

without you.

[bobthedrummer]

22. There's volunteer help aplenty, but still hell at most VA facilities.

I had a USMC cousin that did two tours in Viet Nam, I was adopted by him and some of his buddies who thought I was crazy for wanting to go there as artillery volunteer but broke my ankle at my going away party.

They shared a lot with me, ear necklaces, scalps, etc. I know I would have competed to get the most myself at the age of 20-21-war trophies--anyway my cousin hated the government upon completion of USMC, and so did many of his brothers, he built his own house, and stole both the water and electricity or used a generator, and his loving wife stuck with him through all this.

She was sometimes struck when my cousin was drinking, that's what happened to her when she finally had had enough-he had raised some bad bruising near her temples. She died 4 days after leaving him.

I lost contact with my cousin after that, he later committed suicide.
It is not an uncommon story, it is what the effects of war are on those that fought in it and those that love them.

[ConcernedCanuk]

5. This is so sad, disgusting and PREVENTABLE

.
.
.

This is an unnecessary war, and the effects even in America will be devastating and long-lasting.

The "immediate and present danger" is the USA's own Administration!

And there IS a "child left behind"

From the Article:

A 28-year-old woman was subsequently found dead in the apartment on the 9300 block of 57th Ave. SW in Lakewood, Wash., apparently from homicidal violence.

Troyer said the woman's 9-year-old son, who was at school at the time of the murder, was retrieved from school and taken into protective custody.

"He's obviously going to be traumatized," Troyer said of the boy. "He's lost his mother and now he's lost his father."
________________________________________________________________

That's going to be one messed up kid.

Lord help him.

(sigh)

[Dhalgren]

6. I'm afraid that the"Lord" must be on vacation, somewhere...

damn.

[PartyPooper]

12. No, the Lord is quite busy these days.

You see, He's getting ready for the "Rapture."

:eyes:

[opiate69]

16. Damn..

my mother-in-law used to live in that complex...

[Fort Worth Cowboy]

21. Read post #20

EOM

[ConcernedCanuk]

24. Bye bye!

.
.
.

[saigon68]

30. ADIOS

Be seeing you Cowboy


))))))))))))))))))))Ping((((((((((((((((((((

[jobycom]

8. Tragic. A lot of times

Sometimes this type of story has an infidelity behind it. There's a tradition around military bases that the wives of soldiers on leave hang out at the bars and hook up with other men. The soldiers are usually doing similar things with prostitutes wherever they are. It's one of those unwritten codes that couples don't ask, don't tell, when they are reunited. Not all can deal with it when they return, though. And sometimes just the suspicion is enough.

Combine that type of anger, hurt and betrayal with a return from a place where killing for far less reason is considered good, and you get a bad mix.

That poor child. A year younger than my daughter. He would have been thrilled beyond words to see his father again, and then in an instant it turns to a nightmare.

[seventhson]

9. The daughter and grandson of a childhood friend were murdered

by the returning boyfriend and father of the baby.

He had been deployed to the war.

This was just a month ago.

I fear this will continue for many years.

[cliss]

11. I agree. These young men who come back

from killing and mayhem are deeply traumatized. They're probably still functioning on some level, but on another level they've been disassembled on the inside.

I've heard about VietNam vets who were not able to come home after their tour was up. They knew there were only fragments left on the inside, and they were smart enough to go to places like Morocco, Spain and Greece to put themselves together.

God damn the warmongers and their war.

[shanti]

13. omg, not another one

:-( this is becoming all to common. was this ever as common during vietnam?

[saigon68]

31. Reports have circulated that 50,000 Nam veterans have committed suicide

I don't know if that is accurate out of the 3.5 million who actually were in the shit.

I know lots of these murders occurred when Johnny found out that Jody stole his girl. On the surface this appears to be the case here.

[TahitiNut]

35. I can believe it. I came very close.

:-(

[SoCalDem]

17. As a military brat, I can tell you that long deployments are part

of the cause here.. Add life and death struggle, and it's magnified..

"Some" soldiers are very controlling figures in their family, and when they are called away to duty, that leaves the Mom in charge (maybe for the first time in her life).. It seems as if she will never be able to manage all that needs doing, but she finds that she is good at balancing the checkbook, arranging for car repairs, helping with homework, and running the household by herself..

Fast forward to the "homecoming".. the soldier expects to pick up where HE left off, and suddenly finds that they DID manage just fine without him.. It's not uncommon for them to be depressed and mad as hell, that their family has changed without them, and the people they returned to are not the same.. THEY are not either, but if they were the controlling sort before they left, they are likely to be even more so when they return..

Wives want them to talk about their experiences and that's the last thing that lots of them want..

In a way, war makes some men turn "feral", in order to survive, and when they return home, they are expected to go back to their "ordinary" life, but it's slipped away from them in their absence...

There might be infidelities involved from time to time, but I think it's the overwhelming emotional experience that they have all undergone that tears the families apart..

Living on the edge of death for long periods of time is not something that can be reconciled easily..

[bleedingheart]

18. Until his death my father had nightmares about WWII

he lived through some very fierce fighting and his reaction was to turn to alcohol and basically become somewhat of a "playboy"..although he didn't have a lot of money....he led a happy go lucky life....it was only when he married my mom that he settled down but even then he drank a bit to drown out the memories and he had nightmares at night....that was his reaction ....but many I am sure turn to violence.

[GinaMaria]

34. good at making soldiers but

not so good at making men are they? Those lyrics just keep playing in my head. Sorry about your Dad. He paid a big price. Thinking of him today.

[ConcernedCanuk]

19. This is where the mod wants it, so here it is

.
.
.

other comments in locked thread

and links/comments from locked thread

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/3030351/detail.html

LAKEWOOD, Wash. -- An Army sergeant from Ohio who recently returned from Iraq has been arrested in Lakewood, Wash., in the slaying of his wife.

James Kevin Pitts, 31, of Sheffield Lake, Ohio -- who is stationed at Fort Lewis in Washington -- was booked into the Pierce County Jail Wednesday night for investigation of murder.

more

Another link

http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040422/APA/...

<snip>"He hasn't been the same since he got back from Iraq," the brother, Joshua Pitts, said in a telephone interview from Ohio. "Something happened to him over there."

:hi:

[rawstory]

23. register

Please try to find and post *non-registration required* links.

[0007]

26. I stationed in Ft. Lewis in the early 50's

The ugly side of life produces the product of war, that we all hate.

[prolesunited]

27. I guess somebody forgot

to flip the "off" button on this killing machine.

So sad and what a tragic loss of life, both hers and his. I hope the families can survive this.

[davhill]

29. Is this what the Republicans mean

by their "Family Frendly" policies? I fear we will see far too many headlines like this as the soldiers come home from Iraq.

[genius]

37. What do they expect? He's been forced to kill civilians and babies

over there. Why should he change when he gets home?

[Judi Lynn]

39. The Washington Post story adds a small quote worth seeing

Army Sergeant Charged in Wife's Death

The Associated Press
Friday, April 23, 2004; 2:30 AM


TACOMA, Wash. - An Army sergeant who recently returned from a year in Iraq was charged Thursday with second-degree murder, accused of drowning his wife in a bathtub.

Sgt. James Pitts, 31, of Sheffield Lake, Ohio, pleaded not guilty a day after turning himself in to military authorities at Fort Lewis. Bail was set at $250,000.

A medical examiner said an autopsy on Tara Pitts, 28, showed she had a neck injury consistent with her husband's account of holding her head underwater, Pierce County prosecutor Dawn Farina said. She was found dead Wednesday in her Lakewood apartment.
(snip)

"This has devastated me," Pitts' father, also named James, told KIRO-TV of Seattle. "My son called and said, 'I just killed my wife.' ... He's not my son anymore. I feel my son is still in Iraq. You can thank George W. Bush for this."
(snip/...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35513-2004Apr23.html