Pfc. LaVena Johnson's life ended but how? Murder or suicide?

U.S. Army says suicide; Parents seek investigation
By Ashahed M. Muhammad
Assistant Editor
Updated Aug 18, 2008, 12:37 am

(FinalCall.com) - The U.S. Army says it was a suicide resulting from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head from an M-16. The parents say it was murder.

Three years later, instead of celebrating their daughter’s birthday, the parents of Pfc. LaVena Johnson are continuing their investigation into what they believe is a cover-up of the suspicious circumstances surrounding their daughter’s death.

U.S. Army Private First Class LaVena Johnson was found dead on a military base in Balad, Iraq on July 18, 2005 just a few days before her 20th birthday.

LaVena’s mother Linda said she was always against her daughter going to the military, but since she was in charge of telecommunications for her unit in Iraq, LaVena was able to call her parents just about every day and that would ease her mind, hearing her daughter’s voice.


“It was a pain that hit my heart that has not gone away,” Mrs. Johnson told The Final Call as she described the scene at 7:30 a.m. on July 19, 2005 when she first heard that her daughter was dead. Mrs. Johnson does not believe her daughter committed suicide.

“There’s no way that my daughter would have done that to herself, she loved life, she had dreams and hopes and plans, she loved her family.”

The details of her daughter’s death have been gradually told to Mrs. Johnson by her husband John Johnson in order to ease the pain. She was just recently told one of the most graphic details in the case—that her daughter was set on fire.

“It was like her death all over again to know that my sweet baby was laying somewhere with no one to help her. Being murdered and then set on fire—it was the worst most horrific thing I have ever heard,” said Mrs. Johnson fighting back tears. “We were making plans to be together, and she was making plans to do things with her family.”

On July 27, 2005, when LaVena was to turn 20 years old, they were instead at her wake.

“On her 20th birthday, I was looking at my daughter in a box,” said Mrs. Johnson. “We should have been celebrating her life, but it was stolen from her.”

Mr. Johnson, LaVena’s father, who holds a Ph.D. in psychology and has 25 years of experience as an administrator working for the Army in a civilian administrative capacity, said every time his daughter called, he would speak to her first so that he could check out her state of mind. In his years working with the military, he is trained to identify soldiers with suicidal thoughts, and he said his daughter did not display any of the symptoms typical of one preparing to take their own life.
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