Four Navy SEALs, Marine Raiders charged with killing Green Beret in Mali strangling
Green Beret Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar
Laura Widener
The U.S. Navy has charged four service members for the 2017 killing of Green Beret Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar.
Felony murder charges against two Navy SEALs and two Marine Raiders were announced Thursday, in addition to conspiracy, obstruction of justice, hazing and burglary charges, NBC News reported.
The four were accused of killing Melgar “while perpetrating a burglary,” according to the documents. They traveled to Marine quarters in June 2017 where they broke into Melgar’s room, awoke him from his sleep to restrain with him duct tape before holding him in a chokehold and strangling him.
A Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigation probed the death for more than a year, concluding just last week.
An Article 32 hearing will be held Dec. 10 in Norfolk, Virginia, before deciding to move the case to court-martial, CNN reported.
Melgar was found dead in shared Embassy housing on June 4, 2017. An autopsy revealed that he died by strangulation, a cause of death that was ruled a homicide.
The two SEALs charged with his murder were members of the elite SEAL Team Six.
The SEALs initially reported that they found Melgar “unresponsive” in their shared room, but later changed the story to say the three were wrestling.
They alleged to investigators that they fell down during the horseplay, and when they stood back up, they realized Melgar was no longer breathing. Then the two SEALs performed CPR and attempted to open an airway in Melgar’s throat, but could not get him to breathe again.
Investigators later found that the two SEALs were stealing money intended for informants, a crime that Melgar may have learned of. Two sources alleged that the SEALs offered to let Melgar join in on the scheme, but he refused.
For those unfamiliar with the term, an Article 32 hearing is similar to a Grand Jury or a preliminary hearing in civilian law. The hearing establishes if there is sufficient evidence to proceed with a prosecution, and if so at what level.
The entire story may be viewed at American Military News
Category: Crime
The Amount Of Cash that is funneled into these shit-holes is crazy.
Not defending the assholes who murdered this Soldier but the temptation has to be there.
One thing I learned today was that when the SEALS offed the Somali Pirates who Captured The Maersk Alabama there was $30,000 in cash on the lifeboat that went missing. Two SEALS were questioned about it but no one was charged.
How would the SEALs have access? I thought all they was snipe the pirates. I would think a boarding party from the ship would have been the ones to have removed the bodies and searched the lifeboat.
Not to mention the amount of cash you find in these shit-holes. A couple of different times in Iraq while searching a house after a raid we found stacks of $100 bills. It took some willpower and a self integrity check to keep from pocketing a couple of bills. I could never live with myself if I became a thief.
I hear you, the taking of money instead of enriching shitheads who will try to kill you later in the week I can almost understand….almost…
But murdering one of your own because he’s not on board with the thievery? the public will take this as just another example of what it means to be a veteran as it fits right in with the popular Hollywood memes….crazy, murderous, thieving bastards….
Bingo VOV, just add in some abused drugs and a few raped babies and you got the profile of every vet to have ever served, in their opinion. If guilty, these men are, I can come up with appropriate punishments and it won’t be an honorable firing squad.
An Article 32 is an investigation by the assigned officer to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to refer the case for formal specifications of charges for a court martial. It is a prerequisite for any general court martial.
There are two things I am certain of in this case. The first is that the SEALs did not intend to kill the victim. The second thing is that they did kill him.
2/17 Air Cav, so what did the two SEALs and two MarSOF plan to do to SFC Melgar when they broke in to his room and duck taped his feet? Just beat the crap out of him and hope that would keep him from revealing their embezzlement of the informant funds? That always ends well! “He wouldn’t join us when we offered him a cut, so now we are going to intimidate him to keep him quite… what do we do if he just goes and tells the boss that we beat him up and we are stealing money? I guess we have to kill him.”
The Marines may or may not have been complicit in the theft, and plan to kill him, but the two SEALs should get everything and anything they can charge them with for disrespecting the oath they took to the service, their country, and the Army SOF that work with them… and they wonder why we don’t like playing with them.
I would surmise that somewhere along the line, they made the decision to kill him. It sounds kind of like being around meth heads.
Innocent until proven guilty, however….
If they did this crime, this murder of one of their own, to cover their stealing all four should be hung by the neck until dead like the common shitbag murdering thieves they would be after being convicted.
No mercy for murdering thieves should ever be allowed or considered.
Fuck those guys.
My guess is that they were acting out, trying to put the fear of God into him and they ended up killing him. Had they planned to kill him, from the information that I read months ago, they didn’t do anything right in terms of shielding themselves from suspicion. No, I do not believe they meant to take his life, but they did.
VOV, 2/17, I think you two pretty much covered it. Accident or intentional, he’s just as dead and they’re still killers. Let ’em swing.
Have to wonder whether the UCMJ includes a charge which is the equivalent of the felony murder rule. It would make their conduct felony murder in most civilian jurisdictions even though they didn’t intend to kill him.
Article 134 of the UCMJ covers everything and anything that isn’t covered by the first 13 articles. Article 134 is also known as “the catch all” article.
The prisons are full of men who couldn’t do a decent coverup. Evidently it’s harder than it looks.
I have to agree. A trident is not a license to murder.
Mercy me, this just raised more questions than it answered. rgr769 and I kinda talked about this yesterday. More so on the fact no one was in “pretrial confinement” than anything else. Still curious about that aspect. Where do the Marines come into this story? Administrative leave? Is that like a house arrest? Not at work/training but still getting paid? Any time a Service Member kills a Brother-in-Arms is a tragedy. Were these fellows lead into too much temptation with all the $ around? Most wars/fights are rooted in money,power, real estate, or sex. Maybe they were doing that whole erotic ‘rassling thing and it got out of hand. /s/ On going investigation for awhile now. Gibbs and Pride must be on vacation. Or since Abby retired/left there is no one to call the LA group to examine all of the empirical evidence. Keep up posted. Enquiring minds want to know “the rest of the story.”
5th/77th FA your ideas remind me of that Jeremy Renner movie Wind River. “We didn’t mean to kill him, we just wanted to rape his girlfriend, and he fought back…” The MarSOF guys might have just been duped in to thinking this was just a blanket party to get a wayward team mate to work with them, not knowing the two shitheads they were following were the real problem.
The administrative leave was likely a result of no evidence at the time, indicating fowl play. The family of Melgar was the ones that tipped CID investigation which found the rotting pile of maggots waiting to be exposed.
The two if guilty need a good drumming out, before they swing from the yardarm!
If guilty whether by intent or unintentional, still a heinous incident (shakes head….heavy sigh).
They are a disgrace to their profession.
^THIS^
Chip – as far as the theft of money is concerned, I do not believe this is the first time they took money that didn’t belong to them, rather it was just the first time they had been caught.
They are being charged with felony murder which means the murder wasn’t premeditated, rather manslaughter which gets bumped up due to occurring while committing a felony of burglary.
What is disturbing to me is that this happened with SEALs from DEVGRU A/K/A Seal Team Six, supposedly the “elite of the elite.”
These are supposed to be selected from the best parts of the “conventional” SEAL teams in the same way that CAG A/K/A SFOD-D is supposed to be selected from the best the military has to offer (my understanding is that unlike DEVGRU, which draws exclusively from the ranks of current SEAL team members, DEVGRU/SFOD-D is actually open to all branches of the military.)
In either case, while I realize that everybody is human and that sometimes people get tempted to do greedy or foolish things, it seems to show that the vetting and selecting of DEVGRU members might not be as rigorous as it needs to be if not one but TWO members of the group can be tempted like this.
Well this is just the final nail in the coffin for my love of humanity. Forget the nails, I’m just going to give it a viking funeral.
This suggests that there is a significant hole in the ethical environment of the units in question.
A very, very dangerous one.
Kratman warns that one should choose enemies carefully, because one will certainly come to resemble them. Have we corrupted ourselves in this long and seemingly goal-free conflict we have fought?
Amen. I see things daily that make me contemplate Kratman’s admonishment.
For the curious, there’s a more detailed report of Logan Melgar’s killing at The Daily Beast which includes some heavily-redacted charge sheets. Usually, I don’t trust TDB but their version of events is worth reading:
What apparently happened is that there had been bad blood between Army Special Forces SSgt Melgar, and PO Anthony E. DeDolph and CPO Adam C. Matthews who were both Navy SEALS. Melgar had objected to the SEALs lack of operational security, and for stealing money from a fund to pay intel informants in the fight against al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
At least some of the cash likely went to pay for booze and hookers.
On the night of June 4, 2017, Melgar was invited to a Mali Embassy party which pissed off DeDolph and the others because they hadn’t been invited. That same night, the two SEALS and the two unidentified Marines got drunk, and decided to give Melgar a payback which is what they did at 5 a.m. on the following morning.
And then the four lied about almost everthing involved in the so-called “horseplay” which resulted in Melgar’s strangulation by DeDolph. Their mutually-agreed stories then apparently fell apart during the NCIS investigation.
Thanks Perry, saved me a little digging. My ‘putor don’t like TDB, something there triggers my firewalls. Sounds like a need for some rope, scaffolding, dirtbags, and assembly. Sad that elite units are having these kind of problems.
Everyone here seems pretty quick here to convict these guys even before an Art 32!. Why not let the system you swore to protect and defend with your life work as it’s supposed to. Jeez!
“You’re tire is flat.”
“Thanks. I was pretty certain that it was, but I wanted to be sure, Mr. Goodwrench. You’re the pro!”
The facts reported tell a reasonable person that Melgar was murdered and that two Navy SEALs are directly responsible for the killing. Which one of them actually strangled Melgar is irrelevant. As for your invoking “the system,” you may not believe this but we are all for the accused having extended to them all of the substantive and procedural safeguards to which they are entitled. And, if, violations of those safeguards result, somehow, in dismissal of the case, the SEALs will still be guilty. Why? Because the court of informed opinion is not a court of law. Just ask OJ Simpson.
BUD/S weeds out a lot but not everything…