Fort Bragg soldier found dead ‘was decapitated’

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A 21-year-old Fort Bragg soilder found dead on North Carolina’s Outer Banks in May had been decapitated, according to an autopsy report.

The News & Observer reported that the death of Enrique Roman-Martinez was ruled a homicide, but that the cause of death of the young man remains unknown as only a head was recovered.

Roman-Martinez, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division from Chino, California was reported missing on 23 May by friends while on a Memorial Day weekend camping trip, reports said.

Following a ten-day-long search to find the young man, a human head washed up on a beach at the Shackleford Banks which was later positively identified as the remains of Roman-Martinez.

According to the report by the Division of Forensic Pathology at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine, there was “evidence of multiple chop injuries of the head.”

The newspaper also reported that the jaw had been broken in at least two places.

“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 said, according to The News & Observer.

“A definitive cause of death cannot be determined, (but) the findings in this case are most consistent with death due to homicide.”

Roman-Martinez, who was described as a “happy kid” by family during a memorial service in August, was assigned to Fort Bragg in March 2017, the newspaper reported.

“It was so cruel what they did to him,” Roman-Martinez’s sister, Griselda Martinez told KABC in July.

“Why did they have to do that to him? ... Why did they have to go the extra step to do this to him?”

A $25,000 reward has been offered for tips leading to an arrest and conviction in the case according to the Army. No arrests have yet been announced.