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https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article247613170.html
21-year-old Fort Bragg soldier killed on Outer Banks was decapitated, autopsy says
BY MARK PRICE
DECEMBER 04, 2020 05:24 PM, UPDATED DECEMBER 05, 2020 05:38 AM
Fort Bragg soldier Enrique Roman-Martinez, 21, went missing from his campsite on the Outer Banks on May 22. CAPE LOOKOUT NATIONAL SEASHORE PHOTO
The 21-year-old Fort Bragg soldier found dead this summer on North Carolina’s Outer Banks was decapitated, an autopsy report says.
It was a homicide, but the cause of death for Spc. Enrique Roman-Martinez remains undetermined, because only a head was available for examination,
according to the Division of Forensic Pathology at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine.
“While decapitation is, in and of itself, universally fatal, the remainder of the body in this case was not available for examination, and therefore potential causes of death involving the torso and extremities cannot be excluded,” the report states. “A definitive cause of death cannot be determined, (but) the findings in this case are most consistent with death due to homicide.”
Among the findings:
“Evidence of multiple chop injuries of the head” and a jaw broken in at least two places, the report says.
A toxicology report was also done and detected no evidence of drug use in the soldier’s tissues, officials said.
Spc. Enrique Roman-Martinez entered the Army in September of 2016 and was assigned as a paratrooper at Fort Bragg in March 2017. US ARMY PHOTO
Roman-Martinez, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, was reported missing May 23, while on a Memorial Day weekend camping trip with friends at Cape Lookout National Seashore, according to the National Park Service.
A 10-day search was launched to find him, and during that period a human head washed up on a beach at the Shackleford Banks, NPS officials said. Dental records positively identified the remains as that of Roman-Martinez, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command says.
Roman-Martinez, a native of Chino, California, was last seen May 22 at a campsite on the park’s South Core Banks, the Army says. “His phone and wallet were found at the campsite,” Army investigators say.
A $25,000 reward has been offered for tips leading to an arrest and conviction in the case, the Army says. To date, no arrests have been announced.
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Roman-Martinez was “a three-time volunteer” starting in September 2016, according to the Army. He was assigned to Fort Bragg in March 2017 and served as a human resource specialist, officials said.
The mystery surrounding his death — and the grisly details — have earned the case heavy media attention in Roman-Martinez’s home state of California. A Change.org petition set up to raise awareness and “rally justice” (Justice For Enrique Roman Martinez) has gotten nearly 20,000 signatures.
“It was so cruel what they did to him,” Roman-Martinez’s sister, Griselda Martinez, said in a July interview with KABC. “Why did they have to do that to him? … Why did they have to go the extra step to do this to him?”
Ocean overwash at Cape Lookout National Seashore was severe
Video (in article) released by the National Park Service shows ocean overwash from weekend flooding was severe enough to create a raging river between cabins at a campground. BY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article247613170.html