Murder for hire "once great soldier" faces death penalty

What happened to turn a man from "great soldier" into what Sher is accused of becoming? Did combat change him that much or was this part of his character all along?

There are criminals who never once cared about someone else. We are never shocked when they murder someone. Read any newspaper and you'll find a lot more stories about civilians committing murder than you do about veterans. These men and yes, even some female veterans, were willing to die for the sake of someone else so when one of them takes a life back home, it leaves us all wondering what happened to change them that much.

There have been a lot of reports tying PTSD to crimes, which could have had something to do with the way this man thinks but the fact is, with hundreds of thousands of veterans with PTSD, you don't read about them simply because they never cause any trouble at all.

Murder-For-Hire Suspect Faces Death Penalty

Josiah Sher Accused Of Killing Robert Rafferty, Amara Wells

Written By Kim Ngan Nguyen, Web Editor
January 31, 2012

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. -- Prosecutors will be pursuing the death penalty against an Army veteran accused of killing two people in a Douglas County home last February, the district attorney announced Tuesday.

The case against Josiah Sher will be among the state's few death penalty cases.

Sher, 26, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges. However, in videotaped testimony played in a Douglas County District courtroom in August, Sher admitted he killed Robert Rafferty and Amara Wells for $15,000.

Christopher Wells, Amara Wells' estranged husband, is accused of hiring three of his former coworkers -- Sher, Matthew Plake and Micah Woody -- to kill the pair.

Sher Once Called 'Great Soldier' In Army Reserves

Sher said on the videotape that he was high on cocaine at the time of the killings and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in the military.

Sher was called a "great soldier" who served in Iraq and Afghanistan during eight years with the U.S. Army Reserve, a military official told 7NEWS last March.

Sher earned high marks as an "aircraft structural repairer" working on military helicopters, said Capt. Malisa Hamper, spokeswoman for the Army Reserve's 11th Aviation Command, a helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft unit based at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

"He's been a great soldier," Hamper said of Sher last spring. "He's done great things for the Reserves."

"He was just really great in his performance (reviews)," she said, referring to Sher's extensive skill on repairing and maintaining aircraft. "He's constantly strived to learn more about his job and learn other duties."
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