NC - Fort Bragg Spc. Enrique Roman-Martinez, 21, Cape Lookout, 23 May 2020 *severed head washed ashore*

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Soldiers who saw paratrooper alive last at Cape Lookout face courts-martial

April 12, 2022
Seven North Carolina-based soldiers who were camping with a Fort Bragg paratrooper whose partial remains were found along the coast in 2020 are facing courts-martial on conspiracy and other charges.

The Fayetteville Observer reports that court records state that seven soldiers who were the last to see Roman-Martinez alive are all charged with conspiracy and failure to obey a direct order or regulation related to travel during a travel ban.


All seven have all been arraigned and their trials are scheduled from May to September.
 

It was Memorial Day weekend 2 years ago.
Praying that Enrique’s family will get answers and find closure soon.

……

Court records state that seven soldiers who were the last to see Roman-Martinez alive are all charged with conspiracy and failure to obey a direct order or regulation related to travel during a travel ban, The Fayetteville Observer reported.

Citing court documents, the soldiers identified by the newspaper are: Specials Juan Avila, Alex R. Becerra, Joshua L. Curry and Benjamin E. Sibley, as well as Privates Annamarie L. Cochell, Private First Classes Samad A. Landrum and Sergeant Samuel O. Moore.

Becerra, Cochell and Landrum all told investigators that they left the island at 3 a.m. on May 22, 2020, to board a ferry in Davis, North Carolina, but omitted the presence of a fourth soldier, according to the charge sheets.

It is not clear if the fourth soldier was Roman-Martinez.

All seven have all been arraigned and their trials are scheduled from May to September.

Becerra, who made the 911 to report Roman-Martinez missing, is the only member of the accused seven to have been already arraigned after making a court appearance on January 13. His case is set to unfold between May 31 and June 3.
 


 
Nov 2022 rbbm
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''In the wake of an unsolved 2020 homicide, a lawmaker is pushing the Pentagon to overhaul how it handles cold cases.

One year after Spc. Enrique Roman-Martinez's death was deemed a cold case, Democratic Congresswoman Norma J. Torres introduced a bill that would require the military to take steps to ensure cases like his aren't improperly shelved by the services.

"The fact that Spc. Roman-Martinez's case remains unsolved is unacceptable, and I have previously demanded that the Pentagon's inspector general conduct a full, independent examination of what happened to this case," Torres told Military.com in a statement via email.''

''Spc. Enrique Roman-Martinez, 21, of Chino, California, was reported missing May 23, 2020, at Cape Lookout National Seashore in Carteret County. His severed head washed ashore six days later.

At the time of his death, Roman-Martinez was a human resource specialist assigned to Headquarters Company, 37th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.

“After exhausting hundreds of leads and thousands of hours of investigation, there are no more credible investigative leads remaining at this time, but the case itself is not ‘closed,’ it is in a cold case status,” Jeffrey Castro, an Army Criminal Investigation Division spokesman, said in an email this week. “As always, if new information pertinent to any of our investigations becomes available, CID can and often does reopen investigations if warranted.”
 
Griselda Martinez, the sister of cold case victim Spc. Enrique Roman-Martinez, told Military.com that the struggles her family has encountered in getting justice make her think about their mom, Maria -- and how her life was upended by her son's death.

"She suffered a lot, and all she wanted was a family and to have a nice peaceful life, and she couldn't get that," Martinez said. "She doesn't have that."

Martinez also expects more from the Army.

"I want the truth," she said. "I want to know what happened to my brother. I want more effort for my brother. I want justice for my family."

Last year, Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., who represents the district that includes Chino, California, where Roman-Martinez was from, introduced the Enrique Roman-Martinez Military Cold Case Justice Act of 2022. It's meant to not only change the way the military works to solve cold cases, but also how investigators communicate with each other and other law enforcement agencies.

Torres pointed to a lack of coordination between law enforcement agencies as troubling about the Roman-Martinez case, as well as the Army's investigatory efforts generally.
 

To this day no one knows who murdered Enrique or where the rest of his body is.
 

The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) continues to offer a reward of up to $50,000 for credible information concerning the circumstances surrounding his death.
 

This May marked four years since the mysterious death of Enrique Roman-Martinez.

In 2022, the Army created a centralized cold case unit, which it didn’t have when Roman-Martinez died.

And as Spectrum News reported last fall, Roman-Martinez’s death sparked legislation in Congress to help the Army improve communication around homicide cases.

This May, California Democratic Rep. Norma Torres, who helped pass that legislation, called on lawmakers to increase funding for the military’s criminal investigative units, including the Army’s.
 

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