Pvt. Lavena Johnson, was killed in Iraq on July 19th, 2005. Evidence points to assault and murder.

BurtWorm

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Thu Aug-09-07 03:42 PM
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Pvt. Lavena Johnson, was killed in Iraq on July 19th, 2005. Evidence points to assault and murder.

Edited on Thu Aug-09-07 03:46 PM by BurtWorm

The Angry Independent, blogging for The Rude Pundit, has an amazing, profoundly disturbing post up about the apparent assault and murder of a young private in Iraq, the circumstances of which, the Army may have tried to cover up. Here is a portion of the post:

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2007/08/americas-forgotten-soldier-much.html

...

Young Pvt. Lavena Johnson, was killed in Iraq on July 19th, 2005. Evidence in the case points to assault and murder. However, the Army has been covering up the killing, calling the soldiers death a suicide instead. The Army has refused to provide the family with key documents, and has ignored the families attempts to find answers in their daughters death.

Immediately after her death, the Army told the Johnson family that Lavena did not die from suicide. (1) But a few days later, the Army changed its story and called it a suicide by way of a self inflicted gunshot. The case was never properly investigated. The FBI should have taken over this case, once it appeared that foul play was involved.

The family put up an initial fight, but then the case faded.

Right after her death, I attempting to get more light shined on the issue. I wrote newspapers, and TV stations, without success. I guess they felt that it was more important to spend all of their time talking about Strippers like Anna Nicole Smith. I even attempted to get "Black Reporters" Tavis Smiley and Ed Gordon to cover this story, but neither of their programs ever responded to my e-mails via their websites.

I immediately saw red flags with this case, because the circumstances were so suspicious. First and foremost:

1. Lavena Johnson was not a candidate for suicide, based on all of the accounts that described her personality, demeanor, her spirit, etc. None of that pointed to suicide. Also, she was nearing the time when she would be coming home and had been making plans with her family.

2. Secondly, from a physical/scientific standpoint it would have been nearly impossible for her to shoot herself in the side of the head with an M-16 with her weak hand. The bullet wound was on the left side of her head, but Lavena was right handed. Typically this is not how a suicide would be done with an M-16 rifle. In addition, weapons residue & forensics tests showed that she did not even fire the weapon.

3. Her face and upper body showed signs that she had been beaten. She had a broken nose, a busted lip, and her front teeth had been knocked loose. The funeral service workers had to repair her face before her funeral. Other parts of her body also showed signs of trauma.

I did not want to push too hard at the time, because the family did not seem interested in dealing with the issue. They wanted to grieve instead.

But there are now new developments in the case, and the family is once again fighting for a new investigation. Local St. Louis TV Station KMOV Channel 4 covered the case this week, and even more evidence has surfaced in the case that was not previously reported. See video here. The new evidence supports the case that Lavena was brutally murdered in her tent....