Army Sgt. Ronald Evans Taylor, killed on U.S. soil leaves his family in shock

Soldier killed on U.S. soil leaves his family in shock
By Carrie Napoleon
Post-Tribune correspondent
October 18, 2011

Army Sgt. Ronald Evans Taylor, 28, was supposed to be coming home to his native Wheatfield soon.

Taylor, who was stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., had served two tours of duty in Iraq as a combat medic and X-ray technician since he enlisted in January 2007, and he was in the process of a medical discharge that his family said would have brought him home to Wheatfield in about a month.

That all changed when the soldier was murdered Friday night, about two blocks from his off-base home in Ogden, Kan.

“You don’t expect these things to happen. When he’s been overseas, to know he got killed here at home it’s real hard on my family,” said his younger brother Alex Taylor, of Farmington Hills, Mich., Monday.

Taylor said Riley County police are tracking down leads in the murder. Witnesses in the area reported hearing two shots before the soldier crashed his vehicle into a home at 7th and Walnut streets in Odgen. He was taken to Irwin Army Community Hospital on Fort Riley where he was pronounced dead.

“It looks like he was trying to get away from whoever was trying to hurt him and passed out in his car from his wounds,” Alex Taylor said.

Taylor said his brother, who graduated from Kankakee Valley High School in 2001, was a combat medic just outside of Baghdad.
read more here