Attorney: Death row inmate missing part of brain
BRETT BARROUQUERE
Associated Press
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kevin Wayne Dunlap's decision to plead guilty to killing three children and attacking a woman in her home near Fort Campbell caught his attorneys by surprise. Now, they think they understand why.
Defense attorneys say the former special operations soldier is missing the frontal lobe in his brain that controls impulses and decision making. The damage rendered Dunlap incompetent to plead guilty to a capital offense, defense attorney Kathleen Schmidt wrote in a brief to the Kentucky Supreme Court, which will hear arguments in Dunlap's case Aug. 16 in Frankfort.
Schmidt raised the issue of Dunlap's competency in a brief and also wrote that the motivations behind Dunlap's decision to plead guilty "are murky at best, unfathomable at their heart."
"Dunlap's behavior was perplexing from the start," Schmidt said. "In short, he was willing to plead guilty even though he did not even know for certain what he was pleading to at the time the judge conducted the plea colloquy and he admitted guilt.
What could be more impulsive?"
The judge who sentenced Dunlap to death, as well as prosecutors, say he's been examined and they found no basis for a claim of mental incompetence.
Dunlap, 40, was sentenced to death March 19, 2010. He pleaded guilty to stabbing and killing 5-year-old Ethan Frensley, 17-year-old Kayla Williams and 14-year-old Kortney Frensley when they returned home from school on Oct. 15, 2008, in Roaring Springs, near the sprawling Fort Campbell military installation on the Kentucky-Tennessee state line. Dunlap remains on Kentucky's death row at the state penitentiary in Eddyville.
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Wednesday, August 1, 2012
DoD outlines impact of ‘irrational’ budget cuts
DoD outlines impact of ‘irrational’ budget cuts
By Rick Maze
Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Aug 1, 2012
An Obama administration decision to exempt military personnel programs from potential across-the-board budget cuts in January does not mean troops and their families would feel no impact from the budget process known as sequestration.
Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter warned of potential widespread effects.
For service members, retirees and families, Carter warned, reductions in health care funding would result in “delays in payments to service providers and, potentially, some denial of service” under the Tricare health care program.
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By Rick Maze
Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Aug 1, 2012
An Obama administration decision to exempt military personnel programs from potential across-the-board budget cuts in January does not mean troops and their families would feel no impact from the budget process known as sequestration.
Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter warned of potential widespread effects.
For service members, retirees and families, Carter warned, reductions in health care funding would result in “delays in payments to service providers and, potentially, some denial of service” under the Tricare health care program.
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An Anniversary of Anguish
In August of 2007 one of the first post I put up on this blog was Why Isn't the Press on a Suicide Watch? because of a report written by Greg Mitchell. The link must have been broken since then but the truth of his report shows that the link between service and suicide has not been broken.
I did what I usually do with a suicide report. I made it personal. We can look at a number and then move on but a name, a story about the person or the voice of a family left behind to grieve makes that "number" matter.
There is a very long list on that post and that's why I am so depressed today.
Wounded Times Blog is 5 years old this month and I am still having to post about military suicides along side of claims the DOD and the VA are doing something about all of this. They also claim what they are doing will work. Nothing has worked.
So I sit here reading more emails and comments from families after they had to bury their sons and daughters, wondering why they came home from combat but didn't want to live anymore. Wondering what they could have done. Wondering why no one told them about what they are painfully discovering now.
This is not an anniversary to celebrate. It is one of anguish because of how little has been actually achieved.
Why Isn't the Press on a Suicide Watch?
You'd never know that at least 3% of all American deaths in Iraq are due to self-inflicted wounds. And that doesn't include the many vets who have killed themselves after returning home.
By Greg Mitchell
NEW YORK (August 13, 2007) -- Would it surprise you to learn that according to official Pentagon figures, at least 118 U.S. military personnel in Iraq have committed suicide since April 2003? That number does not include many unconfirmed reports, or those who served in the war and then killed themselves at home (a sizable, if uncharted, number).
While troops who have died in "hostile action" -- and those gravely injured and rehabbing at Walter Reed and other hospitals -- have gained much wider media attention in recent years, the suicides (about 3% of our overall Iraq death toll) remain in the shadows.
I did what I usually do with a suicide report. I made it personal. We can look at a number and then move on but a name, a story about the person or the voice of a family left behind to grieve makes that "number" matter.
There is a very long list on that post and that's why I am so depressed today.
Wounded Times Blog is 5 years old this month and I am still having to post about military suicides along side of claims the DOD and the VA are doing something about all of this. They also claim what they are doing will work. Nothing has worked.
So I sit here reading more emails and comments from families after they had to bury their sons and daughters, wondering why they came home from combat but didn't want to live anymore. Wondering what they could have done. Wondering why no one told them about what they are painfully discovering now.
This is not an anniversary to celebrate. It is one of anguish because of how little has been actually achieved.
Soldier with PTSD sues D.A. for lack of care
Veteran with PTSD, jailed on attempted murder charges, sues D.A.
By David Zucchino
July 31, 2012
WILMINGTON, N.C. -- A North Carolina soldier diagnosed with combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder has filed a civil lawsuit against a local district attorney for allegedly failing to allow access to specialized PTSD treatment while the soldier is imprisoned on attempted-murder charges.
Staff Sgt. Joshua Eisenhauer, 30, has asked that his case be transferred from civilian courts to the military justice system so that he can receive specialized PTSD treatment mandated by the military. The soldier's civil suit, filed last week, alleges that his right to comprehensive mental health treatment has been violated by the Cumberland County, N.C., district attorney's refusal to transfer jurisdiction.
Eisenhauer was charged in January with 15 counts of attempted murder and assault for firing on firefighters and police responding to a minor fire in Eisenhauer’s apartment complex in Fayetteville. Eisenhauer and his attorney say the soldier was experiencing PTSD-related flashbacks and believed that police were Afghan insurgents attacking his position.
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Parents say Fort Bragg soldier charged with shooting at firefighters has PTSD
By David Zucchino
July 31, 2012
Staff Sgt. Joshua Eisenhauer, with his mother Dawn Erickson, was diagnosed with severe PTSD from two combat tours in Afghanistan. Charged with attempted murder after opening fire on emergency workers, he said he believed police and firemen were insurgents attacking his position. (Courtesy of Dawn Erickson)
WILMINGTON, N.C. -- A North Carolina soldier diagnosed with combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder has filed a civil lawsuit against a local district attorney for allegedly failing to allow access to specialized PTSD treatment while the soldier is imprisoned on attempted-murder charges.
Staff Sgt. Joshua Eisenhauer, 30, has asked that his case be transferred from civilian courts to the military justice system so that he can receive specialized PTSD treatment mandated by the military. The soldier's civil suit, filed last week, alleges that his right to comprehensive mental health treatment has been violated by the Cumberland County, N.C., district attorney's refusal to transfer jurisdiction.
Eisenhauer was charged in January with 15 counts of attempted murder and assault for firing on firefighters and police responding to a minor fire in Eisenhauer’s apartment complex in Fayetteville. Eisenhauer and his attorney say the soldier was experiencing PTSD-related flashbacks and believed that police were Afghan insurgents attacking his position.
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Parents say Fort Bragg soldier charged with shooting at firefighters has PTSD
Four people charged with kidnapping and torturing soldier
Four charged with kidnapping JBLM soldier for “snitch” money
STACIA GLENN
Staff writer
Published July 31, 2012
A Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier was kidnapped and tortured last week by four people who sold him drugs and then demanded money because they thought he was a snitch, Pierce County prosecutors allege.
The 23-year-old soldier was tied up with electrical cord, Tased, shot with a pellet gun more than 100 times and repeatedly punched while being held in a mobile home in the 14600 block of Union Avenue Southwest, prosecutors said.
On Monday, prosecutors charged Frederick Clifford, 34; Melissa Parr, 33; Krista James, 30; and Jacques Gerber, 33, with first-degree kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment.
Gerber and Parr also face charges of unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and unlawful use of a building for drug purposes.
A bench warrant has been issued for Jacques Gerber’s arrest. The other defendants are in custody and pleaded not guilty at their arraignments Monday.
The victim reported the incident July 25 after persuading Clifford to take him to the JBLM gate so he could get cash from a bank on post, prosecutors said. Instead, he asked a clerk at the gate to call Lakewood police. Clifford was arrested and the others later taken into custody.
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STACIA GLENN
Staff writer
Published July 31, 2012
A Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier was kidnapped and tortured last week by four people who sold him drugs and then demanded money because they thought he was a snitch, Pierce County prosecutors allege.
The 23-year-old soldier was tied up with electrical cord, Tased, shot with a pellet gun more than 100 times and repeatedly punched while being held in a mobile home in the 14600 block of Union Avenue Southwest, prosecutors said.
On Monday, prosecutors charged Frederick Clifford, 34; Melissa Parr, 33; Krista James, 30; and Jacques Gerber, 33, with first-degree kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment.
Gerber and Parr also face charges of unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and unlawful use of a building for drug purposes.
A bench warrant has been issued for Jacques Gerber’s arrest. The other defendants are in custody and pleaded not guilty at their arraignments Monday.
The victim reported the incident July 25 after persuading Clifford to take him to the JBLM gate so he could get cash from a bank on post, prosecutors said. Instead, he asked a clerk at the gate to call Lakewood police. Clifford was arrested and the others later taken into custody.
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