Spent Sunday morning knocking on doors in the neighborhood where a 15-year-old girl was stabbed then shot to death during an alleged domestic dispute between her older sister and her Marine boyfriend. 15 is just too damn young to be caught up in all that drama. Read the news. Here are a few photos of [...]

Video of the suspects being booked into jail. ———————————————————————— Two active duty Navy corpsmen and one who was recently discharged were arrested Friday in the shooting deaths of a Carteret County father and son. Investigators detailed the case at a press conference Monday. Read the latest news from the press conference. Read the arrest news. [...]

New reporter Amanda Wilcox, with Mike McHugh’s help, wrote a compelling article about a Marine involved in a murder/suicide late last week. Read the news. They have a good follow-up for today’s newspaper. Check it out. The Marine who killed his wife’s lover before killing himself cried out in many ways. One of them was [...]

Two Camp Lejeune Marines face accusations of rape in what one official called the worst rape and sodomy case they had ever seen. Read the news. After the story was published, 1st Lt. Kristen McCarthy, the deputy public affairs officer for the 2nd Marine Division, sent me an email clarifying that Kaiser and Krout have [...]

Much more will be reported on this case by the time it’s all over with. The story was picked up by The Associated Press and ran all over the world. Read our initial report. And the follow up. The NEW YORK DAILY NEWS report. The weapons and combat equipment were sold online to China, but [...]

Mike McHugh sent me pictures he took of the crime scene photos the D.A. presented during his press conference. I share them now – 111 Fieldcrest Drive: The window: The broken screen: ————————————————————————————————– David Darling was killed April 8. His death was determined to be justified by District Attorney Ernie Lee based on the state’s [...]

Mike McHugh and I spoke today with the Marine who killed two home intruders April 15. Read previous post. He was well-spoken and polite, but said he didn’t want to comment at length about the incident. He said he thought the media coverage of what happened was fair and the community has been supportive. He [...]

Maurice Skinner and�Diego Everette were killed April 15. �These deaths, although tragic for the decedents� families, are justified pursuant to the facts and circumstances of this investigation and the law of North Carolina.� – District Attorney Ernie Lee. Lee said the state’s newly updated Castle Doctrine applies in the case. Read the news. The article [...]

Marine Col. Daniel Lecce is always first to crack a joke about his diminutive height, but there is nothing small about this Devil Dog. Lecce tackled tornadoes, hurricanes, snowstorms and wildfires during his two years as commander at Camp Lejeune. Read about his last few days on the job. Read about the change of command. [...]

Investigation Discovery, one of my favorite cable networks, is featuring the Cesar Laurean case Saturday. I’ve seen the program and it is interesting. Read the news. The actor playing Sheriff Ed Brown doesn’t look much like the real deal, but other than that the re-enactments are good. Two photo stills from the show’s re-enactments- Laurean [...]

The Guardian has a new, in-depth article online which looks at rape in the U.S. military. Read the story. The article refers to “the case of 24-year-old lance corporal Maria Lauterbach, a marine preparing to testify that she was raped by fellow marine, Cesar Laurean, when she went missing in 2007. Although it was never [...]

Christina Smith has made moves to leave her past and her former husband behind. Smith, who divorced Cesar Laurean in April, was remarried in July. The groom in that wedding paid $40 cash for a marriage license, according to the Marion, Ohio, Register of Deeds. Special thanks to Off the Cuff regular KH for pointing [...]

A former high-ranking Pender County Sheriff’s deputy who picked up a young man earlier this year in Wilmington and was arrested shortly thereafter on charges of crimes against nature and johning for a prostitute was found guilty in court Thursday of the former and walked on the latter count. Mark Sloan was sentenced to serve 18 months of unsupervised [...]

The Pentagon’s inspector general is criticizing Camp Lejeune officials for inadequate and incomplete handling of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach’s�rape complaint against Cpl. Cesar Laurean, who�later murdered her. Read the news. The report found that the details of Lauterbach’s rape complaint were not entered into a database maintained by the base’s Sexual Assault and Prevention Response [...]

George Hayden, convicted last year of the 1972 shooting death of Sgt. Bill Miller, was released by the N.C. Department of Correction shortly after the N.C. Supreme Court declined to hear the state’s argument against the Appeals Court overturning an Onslow County jury verdict. Hayden has been home for a few days. He has spent [...]

- A little girl, a friend of my own children, was struck and killed by a car�on Sand Ridge Road�early Monday morning while waiting for the school bus. Just like other recent situations, it sucks when I get a phone call and start running information down�to find out the persons involved are not strangers,�but�live down [...]

A lot, I mean a lot, has happened in the last several days. Here is a run down of several loose ends and updates to stories and cases I have covered in the newspaper or on the blog: -�A Sampson County man who killed his family will spend the rest�of his life in prison now [...]

A report that begin about a�former Marine accused of child abuse ballooned into a much bigger story as details emerged in the marriage of the defendant and his now-estranged wife. The resulting article is online. Ironic that this report – which was held for a few days due to spacing issues because of so many [...]

In the first appeal out of Onslow County to be heard in oral argument in years, lawyers made their points in the George Hayden case in Raleigh on Monday. Hayden was convicted last year of first-degree murder in the 1972 shooting death of Marine Sgt. Bill Miller. Read the entire 50-plus page defendant appeals brief. [...]

As y’all know,�Marines with the 26th MEU assigned to the USS�Kearsarge are currently involved in�operations in Libya. I have been thinking about a�report� I read a few weeks ago about one of�those many Marines. I get a lot of press releases from the military. Most times I just look at the photos�and delete the emails. [...]

Wednesday proved to be�a long, difficult day of testimony in the manslaughter trial of Robert Lewis. I wasn’t�surprised to learn�the 911 operator who took the call ended up leaving the job. This tragedy has affected everyone. When the 911 recording finished playing at 4 :30 p.m., the courtroom�was completely silent�with everyone from the jury to [...]

While down at the courthouse today rummaging through old search warrants looking for info on an upcoming murder trial, I found this: It seems that a young, strapping Camp Lejeune Marine lance corporal was enjoying a good time at O�Charley�s when a gunny and his foxy wife approached him and offered to buy him drinks. [...]

I’m baffled over this one. A Camp Lejeune Marine Colonel was charged over the weekend with stealing two printer cartridges and STP Gas Treatment from the Marine Boulevard Wal-Mart. Read military reporter Hope Hodge’s story. Col. Petit taking command of the 24th MEU back in September: Read that story here. I have a line on [...]

The girlfriend of Joshua Mathis, a Marine arrested last week on charges of motor vehicle theft and breaking and entering, has been arrested. Gasp! I’m so surprised! … like anyone didn’t see this coming when the police said the vehicles were found in Arkansas, where she lives.

We’ve had a lot of questions in the jdnews.com comments recently about why we include information about Marines that we don’t include about other people. The latest example is today’s story about the Marine who slashed his buddy’s wrist open at a party early Sunday morning.   Read the story here.   What I find [...]

Read the news here. The wife and her son from her MySpace page: Let the complaints role in as to why I said he was a former Marine…

A story I feel is just not getting enough attention in the news media is the recent re-conviction of a former Camp Lejeune Marine who set out with five others to commit a racial murder – and did so. If you have a mental image in your head of skin-headed white Marines in off-duty attire that [...]

NCIS and two local sheriff’s departments never stopped looking for Stan Bosley who disappeared almost five years ago. At times the case was extremely frustrating because they knew – or at least had a hunch – that his body was in the Hampstead woods just out of reach. After a centuries-old ceremony to talk with the Holy [...]

Former Camp Lejeune Marine Cody Brittingham threatened the president. No “allegedly” needed. He pleaded guilty in August. I dropped the ball and lost track of the case in the federal court system (i.e. I forgot). Sorry. But The New York Times picked up my slack and ran a really good article about early threats to [...]

An article from The Examiner sent to me by the National Association of Chiefs of Police: The Department of Defense’s Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services recently submitted its congressionally-mandated report to the secretary of defense.  The report — obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police’s Sex Crimes Committee – finds DoD [...]

Josh Hartzell was an avid fisherman and hunter. He loved the outdoors and he loved being in the Corps, according to family. The Marine accused of killing him has now been charged with murder and faces court marshal. Hartzell in better days: I spoke again to his Ohio girlfriend about him Monday. On Friday she [...]

As you all know, we have been working on a story about a Camp Lejeune Marine accused of killing another Marine. Read news article and watch press conference video here.  Base officials were pretty tight-lipped about the crime today. I am not knocking them; they were protecting the investigation and the family of the alleged [...]

Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows that I’ve been pretty much out of communication since 8 a.m. Wednesday due to court martial proceedings aboard Camp Lejeune. Yesterday a corpsman pleaded guilty to pointing a gun at a lance corporal’s chest. He didn’t pull the trigger. The lance corporal missed out on being a corporal [...]

A Camp Lejeune Marine pleaded guilty during a special court marshal hearing today to pointing a gun at comrades and shooting one of them during a game of “trust me.” Amanda’s story is here. And yesterday’s related story. This is sad. I know those guys are under a lot of pressure over there, but I [...]

When my brother became old enough to be interested in girls, he was explained the importance of not taking what the girl is not willing to give. A 20-year-old Jacksonville man obviously did not get that talk from his family… or maybe he had headphones on. Read news here. Theron Russell Inman joined the list [...]

For the record, you know it’s going to be a long day if in the morning while rifling through warrants, you hear someone go “I heard there was a shooting at (a local bar) last night.” Well, damn. Lance Cpl. Jarrell Wilson, 22, was charged with 2 open counts of murder in the deaths of [...]

A recent report from the Institute of Medicine says that the Department of Defense and VA should begin the process of making the U.S. military tobacco free. Read the news here. When I first saw this report, I about laughed. As far as I’m concerned, no one should be able to tell America’s military how [...]

Read news here. The Daily News does not usually identify the alleged victims of sexual assault (a long-standing policy I do not totally agree with). But in this case, the wife had an interview with a New Jersey newspaper which identified her as the wife and then had an interview with her father. The newspaper [...]

Weekend wrecks lead to a crazy Monday. An Onslow Sheriff’s Deputy was involved in a single-car wreck Sunday night, a 18-year-old Swansboro man allegedly crossed over the center line on NC 58 and hit a Suburban causing fatal injuries to a 62-year-old Wilson woman, and a 41-year-old Newport man flipped his Chevy multiple times and [...]

This is also posted on Lejeune Deployed Today I attended my first Purple Heart ceremony, and I’ve never had such an easy time writing a story. Asking questions, however, was an entirely different ball game. Read news here As I watched these Marines receive their Purple Hearts, two things occurred to me: They all look [...]

Some weekend shifts are pretty slow, but this weekend is not shaping up to be one of them. Today, Deanna Murphy and I headed towards the Vietnam Memorial dedication at about 10 a.m. to pull together a story about the dedication and Flag Day. From there, we went to the Jacksonville USO where the National [...]

A light armored vehicle from Camp Lejeune was involved in a wreck early this morning. WITN had the story first at 5:50 a.m. Unfortunately, when I got in the trooper had already gone home so we are waiting on the bulk of the information until 4 p.m. when he returns. Read news here

I was about ready to do a jig since there were no felonies by Marines this weekend, but then it got ruined by one that decided to try and strangle his wife. Read news here. Apparently I have the luck of the Irish this weekend since every time I’ve gone to the magistrate’s office,  there’s [...]

While I doubt y’all will like hearing from me more than Lindell, here I am. haha. I ask that for tonight you bear with me as it’s almost midnight, I worked 11 hours and then came home and updated the hell out of Lejeune Deployed. But first, I want to say thanks to Lindell for [...]