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The other person killed in the apparently professional hit, a 44-year-old ex-soldier named Timothy Dumas, was an Afghanistan vet who had served in the 7th Special Forces Group before being separated from the Army for unspecified unacceptable conduct. Like Lavigne, Dumas had a long record of being arrested but not prosecuted in Cumberland County, for crimes including assault on a female, impersonating a police officer, making terroristic threats, and shooting into an occupied dwelling place. He just ambushed me, she says, repeating what she told Fayetteville police, according to the written report of the detective assigned to the case, Paul Matrafailo. Scanlon realized that this was not going to stop, Matrafailo wrote, and gave up fighting back in the hopes that it would end quickly.. Since he was tried by the military, a branch of the federal government, the double-jeopardy clause of the U.S. Constitution would not bar the state from prosecuting him all over again. Tina watched Vallejo walk up behind Scanlon, causing Scanlon to dart off, according to the statement Tina gave Matrafailo. My (biased) experience, too. She wasnt being truthful about her encounter with Cris Vallejo., They should not have allowed my lawyer to testify against me, Scanlon says. An Uber driver started toward the warehouse at 2:50 a.m., according to screen shots of the app that Scanlon gave police. I knew I would never find out what really happened that night, that her son had been killed. That was how they operated.. Master Sgt. Hes in JSOC.. She was just five years old at the time of her father's death. The detective told me, This guys active-duty, she recalls. She accused a Special Forces operative of rape. LaVignes gray 2016 Chevrolet Colorado pickup was found at the crime scene in the woods off Manchester Road. According to Vallejos enlistment-record brief, obtained by Rolling Stone, he was born in California and joined the Army shortly before 9/11, when he was 19. 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. It appears that a lot goes on here.. William J. Lavigne Wiki - William J. Lavigne Biography. The Army couldnt give Scanlon a transcript because no transcript ever existed. (U.S. Army) Then, on Sept. 1, 2018, Lavigne was charged with felony harboring an escapee and maintaining a vehicle or dwelling to manufacture a controlled substance. It's like winning the lottery twice in a couple years, that's what these odds are.. 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. He was brought down to the sheriff's office the day he killed Leshikar, and a Delta Force member came to pick him up, according to Leshikar's family. His dad and I divorced when he was not even a year old so he kind of stepped into those shoes as the protector. William F. Garrison: Retired Major General. LaVigne was supposed to be in Cumberland County District Court on Jan. 15 for a Feb. 17, 2020, hit-and-run charge, court documents say. In September 2015, he went on the Fox affiliate in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with a military dog named Gunner. The special operations community was rocked this week when the bodies of MSG Lavigne, a decorated Special Operator and Delta Force member, and Timothy Dumas an Army veteran were found in a . Over the course of 18 months between 2020 and 2021, more than 80 military members stationed at the base died from "sudden" and "unexplained" causes. Parker says that Lavigne once gave him money to cover some court costs. In February 2019, Lavigne had another brush with the law. Connecting Vets was provided screen shots of those charges and the court date. At the time Lavignes path crossed Scanlons, his cocaine habit was firmly established, but he remained a team member in good standing on Delta Force, and still had a clean arrest record in Cumberland County. It is the last house in a quiet cul-de-sac on the backside of a neighborhood about 20 minutes away from Fort Bragg. Billys about to be questioned, or face some sort of retribution. He had done three combat rotations with Delta Force two in Afghanistan and one in Iraq but she never guessed that he was a trained killer, in her words. 1st Class Mark Leshikar. That was a crazy ethical mistake.. Another struck hit him in his right side. I wanted this all behind me.. I would refer you to CID for anything having to do with any of their investigations. Anything other than you saying yes or asking for it is not consent, her friend replied. Since learning of Lavigne's death, Leshikar's daughter has opened up about it, saying she was previously afraid Lavigne would kill her mother if she spoke of it, Rick told Connecting Vets. Which is why he became a Green Beret and why 'De Oppresso Liber' meant everything to him because that was who he was to his core.. I looked at my daddy's face and I knew he was gone, the girl told her family members. The tipster also indicated that drugs would be present, the affidavit attested. Thats a significant omission, because Scanlons case is also a signal example of another systemic issue in the military: the entitled attitudes and hard-partying lifestyles of some elite soldiers more than two decades into the war on terrorism; the apparent breakdown in good order and discipline in the Special Forces in recent years, with rising instances of alleged criminality among Green Berets and Navy SEALs; and the special treatment often accorded to special operators by civilian and military law enforcement in and around Fort Bragg. Which is all I wanted to do: deploy with my soldiers. Out of fear that Vallejo [would try to] come looking for me, she wrote, she moved from Fayetteville to another small town nearby. They have zero remorse. She doesnt mean that any of the killings she witnessed were illegal or outside the rules of engagement. On the point of leaving, Scanlon says she asked Vallejo where she could find the restroom. Dumas, an ex-soldier with a shady past, was found murdered along with Lavigne in the woods outside Fayetteville in December 2020. I knew him, Joe says of Lavigne. Shortly after she and Tina arrived at Macs the night of the fundraiser, Scanlon recognized the Coast x Coast clubs logo from a Facebook photo of her old ROTC mentor, the ex-Delta soldier, which made her implicitly trust Vallejo and his crew, she recalls. Its not going to be good for you., For the jury, it must have been a somewhat close call, because they submitted at least 18 questions to the witnesses. It seems he crashed there from time to time. Its like watching a scary movie. The following year, the legal travails of ex-SEAL Eddie Gallagher would make national headlines for months on end. 2023 Audacy, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The adjacent alley was full of junked cars. Its very controlled, she says. As a criminal profiler, Ciolino has investigated and exonerated death row inmates. This is a very secluded parcel, the fire marshal wrote in an email to the zoning department. There might be a good reason for Vallejo to avoid the spot where, almost five years ago to the day, he met Scanlon. But I have accepted this new path. He was host of the event at Macs that night. 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. She says that she was excluded from hearing the testimony of the other witnesses, that her military-appointed attorney was swapped out five separate times, and that one of them was called to provide testimony against her. Sgt Lavigne was a Green Beret and Delta Force member. In 2020, The New York Times, Associated Press, and CNN would cover the sexual-assault allegation against a Navy SEAL on a base in Iraq. Stateside they lived intense lives, too. A spokeswoman for the FBI confirmed this month that the homicide investigation into the shooting deaths of Master Sgt. This experience led Beckwith to advocate for a similar unit in the US Army. RIP, bro., One year later, the authorities have identified no suspects, arrested no perpetrators, and disclosed nothing about the evidence theyve gathered to date. A CID investigation reached the same conclusions as the sheriff's office, that Leshikar's killing was deemed justifiable. She described Scanlons general demeanor as tearful.. That August, two investigators, Maj. Brent Goodwin and Arthur Chancellor from CID, paid a visit to the Leshikar family. He had been in Delta Force. Scanlon lived off-post in an apartment in Fayetteville, a moody military town in the North Carolina pines just outside of Fort Bragg, the biggest Army base in the U.S. On the evening of Sept. 9, 2016, a friend of hers from the gym, a military wife whom Ill call Tina to protect her privacy, invited her to a charitable event at a barbecue restaurant and bar called Macs Speed Shop. He proceeded to rack up practically every qualification an infantryman can attain, undergoing advanced training in land navigation, reconnaissance, surveillance, sniping, and high-altitude parachuting. This was in violation of regulations that forbid fraternization, or close personal relationships between officers and enlisted soldiers, but as the staff sergeant wasnt in her unit or her chain of command, she thought of it as little more than a peccadillo. Howell was unable to say what threats Dumas directed toward the victim but that there was enough evidence to charge him with the crimes. A brief report by CBS 17 in Raleigh-Durham on Sept. 30 named Vallejo as an N.C. 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. I had no idea why they were making me decide this. 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. It was right around 3 a.m. My phone was being blown up by my friend [the staff sergeant] and the Uber driver, who was there trying to find me., Tina had gone out front to smoke a cigarette. Poppe couldnt recall why that was the case, but conceded that it was somewhat unusual for the main police witness in a criminal trial not to align with the prosecution. If he didnt have a knife, he would be toting around, like Rambo, some bow-and-arrow-type shit.. It wasnt really that dark out., I dont remember the precise questions that I asked her, Poppe says today, or what exhibits were introduced in evidence, but I remember the facts of the case, and the evidence supported that she consented to the sexual acts with Cris Valley.. It had been, in retrospect, a dark period in her life, she says, a damaging, booze-soaked run of years in her twenties. It was the last time they would ever speak. But neither ABC News nor the Observer named Vallejo, and ABC only mentioned in passing that the alleged rapist was a member of Delta Force. Scanlon claims that Vallejo raped her that night, and says that the trauma still haunts her to this day. Taught the SF Q course for a bit, met an amazing woman through non army friends, decided one purple heart was enough, retired E7 (offered E8 to stay in). They outfitted the warehouse with couches, a full bar, foosball and ping-pong tables, a stripper pole, and something called a Sybian. At times, she observed their operations on a video feed. One woman who was much better acquainted with both men, and the whole Coast x Coast crew, is an ex-soldier whom Ill call Jane for the sake of anonymity. The person who seems to be in charge is a tall, barrel-chested man of about 40, whose long, scraggly beard is streaked with gray. In local news reports, the shooter wasnt named. But Castro cant say when that investigation began, why Scanlon felt that her initial complaint had been dismissed, or whether the recordings she mentioned still exist. She yelled something unintelligible before disappearing. On one occasion, she says, she had to hide in the bathroom after he walked into a tavern in Southern Pines. The body of Master Sgt. Unlike Tier 2, or white, special-operations forces, made up of ordinary Green Berets, Army Rangers, and Navy SEALs, JSOC units operate under Title 50 of the U.S. Code, which was controversially reinterpreted after 9/11 to permit the military to carry out covert actions, defined by the statute as foreign operations where it is intended that the role of the United States will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't happen. The December 2020 deaths of Lavigne and. Im not a police officer. Dumas was scheduled to appear in Forsyth County District Court on Dec. 17 for charges of breaking and entering, communicating threats and impersonating a law enforcement officer, according to court records. He transferred to Fort Bragg three years later to attend the JFK Special Warfare School, the completion of which entitles a soldier to wear a coveted green beret. Dumass cause of death is listed as gunshot wounds to the chest and head.. He was a part of Leshikar's funeral service, she said. . Master Sergeant. I was resolved to be stoic no matter what, because I knew I had stood up for myself as much as possible. Over those five years, it paid out grants totaling $187,143. 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. He was fatally shot in March 2018 by Army Delta Force member William J. Lavigne, his best friend, who was known as "Billy" to Leshikar's family. One penetrated his neck and lodged in his back. The samples proved a match to Vallejos DNA. Finally, at the end of the first day of trial, she was allowed to step down. Scanlon says reporting the alleged attack, and the subsequent ordeal, hurt her military career. Death. She passed a covered motorcycle trailer with a looming portrait of a slain Delta Force soldier printed on the side. I defaulted to what the USASOC prosecutor and the DA would decide, and consented to removal of the case to Fort Bragg, which resulted in an unanticipated four-month delay. This is classic, let's cover it up. A news release from the FBI in February stated that the bodies of the men were found near a Fort Bragg training area. I said, No, find someone else. Law enforcement later told Leshikar's family that they had found a screw driver, not at the scene of his death, but outside near his car where he had been removing the battery. William Lavigne II, 37, pictured above, was found in Fort Bragg on December 2. He was investigated in 2018 after fatally shooting his friend, Sgt. This was 37-year-old William Lavigne III, a Master Sergeant and former 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (aka Delta Force) soldier. William Lavigne and Timothy Dumas were found dead at a training site on Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I firmly believe that I had to be his victim because I was strong enough to report him., She never got the chance to lay any of this on Vallejo, or the court. But the instructions to the jury show that the judge, Col. Jeffrey Nance, allowed the panel to consider Scanlons relationship with the staff sergeant insofar as it was probative of her motive, if any, to fabricate her allegations against the accused. The judge cautioned the panel that they were forbidden to conclude that Scanlon, having willingly slept with one enlisted man, was likely to do it again; but to use an old legal clich, that was a bit like throwing a skunk into the jury box and instructing the jurors not to smell it. He took that and he always was the one who would protect people who were being bullied in school because he was a big man.. We drank so much, she says. William Billy Lavigne II, whose violent life and cryptic death in the woods outside of Fort Bragg I wrote about for Rolling Stone last year. Bullet fragments were present underneath the carpet as well as in the kitchen and living room areas of the house. Created in the late 1970s in the image of the British Special Air Service (SAS), Delta Force has been at . 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. Attempts to reach these people by phone were unsuccessful, but pretrial filings show that at least two of them were summoned to buttress Vallejos defense of consent. She felt the implication was clear: Obviously youre a liar.. Sometimes it only happens because someone with a dog in the fight gets involved. Its the first time during many hours of interviews that she has lost her composure, and I can understand why. They said Lavigne's harboring a fugitive felony charge could be used to kick him out of Special Forces and discharge him from the military. PART OF AUDACY NEWS. The girl then mimicking how her father collapsed to the floor. 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. What we noted was a warehouse that appeared to pull double duty as a gym and party location, the ABC officer wrote in an email to a colleague. SUBSCRIBE Today!Also available everywhere you listen to podcasts!The recent deaths of Army Delta Force member William J. Lavigne and Army Veteran Timothy Dum. 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. Master Sgt. They were officers in the Judge Advocate Generals Corps, assigned to the Special Forces. 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.