Husband of slain soldier arrested in her death

He and another man are charged with first-degree murder

3 October 2008

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - The husband of a female soldier found stabbed to death near her home was arrested Friday and charged with murder along with a second man authorities say was hired to kill the woman.

The death of 29-year-old Sgt. Christina E. Smith was the third off-post killing of a Fort Bragg servicewoman in four months, stunning a tight military community that was still seeking to come to grips with the earlier deaths.

“For me, I was thinking, ‘No, gosh, not another one,”’ said Fayetteville police spokeswoman Theresa Chance.

Sgt. Richard Smith, 26, was charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, Chance said. Pfc. Mathew Kvapil, 18, faces the same charges, and Chance said he was hired by Smith to kill the wife as the couple walked together Tuesday evening.

An initial hearing was scheduled for Monday for both soldiers. Officials said they didn’t know if either man had been appointed an attorney yet.

Police divers were searching in a creek about a mile from the crime scene for the murder weapon.

The military said the Army Criminal Investigation Division at Fort Bragg also was investigating, but “no military actions have yet been determined.”

Smith, who was treated for minor injuries, initially reported that an attacker had stabbed his wife in the neck and fled as the soldier ran after him. Neighbors said they heard a woman screaming and saw Christina Smith in a pool of blood.

Fort Bragg officials said the Smiths were both assigned to an Army special operations unit. She was a graphics illustrator in Company A, 5th Battalion, 4th Psychological Operations Group. She is survived by her husband and her parents, Katherine and Steven Loehrke of Mount Orab, Ohio, the Army added.

Smith’s death follows the killings of Spc. Megan Touma, 23, and 2nd Lt. Holley Wimunc, 24. In the previous cases, the female soldiers were killed off post under different circumstances.

Touma, who was seven months pregnant, was found dead in June in a Fayetteville motel bathtub. Sgt. Edgar Patino, 27, the father of the unborn child, was charged with her death on July 29.

On July 10, Wimunc was reported missing from her apartment. The Army nurse’s body was found three days later by crews fighting a brush fire near North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base.

Wimunc’s estranged husband, Marine Cpl. John Wimunc of Camp Lejeune, was arrested July 14. Lance Cpl. Kyle Alden was charged with aiding John Wimunc by destroying evidence and providing a false alibi.

“We have domestic violence issues like every other city,” Chance said. “Obviously the military seems to be targeted lately.”

Commentary:
Seeing the above article brought something to mind and I am going to try relating a time situation dealing with war that was brought to my attention several years ago; by some veterans from WW2 and I was with my parents at the time, which was always the case in those days.

It makes me think of how children in these time’s can pick and choose where they wish to go with there parent’s, but with my imprisonment; I never had that option nor was I allowed to be usually out by myself.

Even if I went to the market to get something for my mother like a carton of milk, I had a time limit of when I should return and yes, I sweated out the long lines or slow clerk in those days because of the horrors that very often occurred when I was late and this could be as little as two minutes late.

Getting back to what I started to say, in those days, men returning from combat, I was told they use to be isolated for a time before being released back into American society because of the possible dangers from having been in a war, especially murder to domestic violence and even in those days, a few after this isolation still was a menace to society.

Furthermore, it makes me also think of some of the over zealous murder spree’s on civilians that have been documented; in the Vietnam war and in Iraq.