Court Martial For Wife Murder

This grisly embarassment to the army almost sliped under the newswire of public conciousness.

The Associated Press

FORT LEWIS — Army officials have recommended a court martial for a Purple Heart recipient accused of killing his young wife, stabbing her more than 70 times.

Spc. Brandon Bare, 19, of Wilkesboro, N.C., was charged with one count of premeditated murder and two counts of indecent acts related to mutilation of Nabila Bare's remains.

On Wednesday, Fort Lewis officials said post commander Lt. Gen. James Dubik agreed with an investigating officer and had referred Bare's case to a general court-martial, meaning he is moving closer to facing the charges in a military court.

Bare remains held in the post's Regional Corrections Facility. No trial date has been set.

If found guilty, Bare faces a maximum of life in prison.

Bare is a machine-gunner with the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division. He was sent home to recuperate after suffering cuts and internal ear injuries in a March 24 grenade attack on his Stryker brigade unit in Mosul.

The July 12 killing happened after he returned from the war to this Army post south of Tacoma and received a Purple Heart for being wounded.

Nabila Bare, 18, was stabbed at least 71 times with knives and a meat cleaver. About three dozen of the wounds were on her head and neck.

"The murder was premeditated, deliberate and savage," prosecutor Capt. Scott DiRocco said in January during Bare's Article 32 hearing, similar to a preliminary hearing in civilian court. "He did not stop after he killed her."

Bare's lawyer, while admitting the soldier killed his wife, said it wasn't planned.

"What this looks like ... is an act of rage, or some sort of other unexplainable act," defense attorney Capt. Patrick O'Brien said. "There's nothing to show it was premeditated."

Witnesses testified that Bare had enrolled in treatment programs after his return from Iraq in early April 2005.

Bare had said he was having trouble controlling his anger and that he didn't like his wife going out and partying, said Michael Collins, a nurse and case manager at Madigan Army Medical Center.

The soldier was enrolled in an "intensive outpatient" therapy program to deal with his anger-management and combat stress issues, Collins said.

A day before Nabila Bare was found dead in the couple's kitchen, Bare told his rear detachment commander Capt. Mickey Traugutt that he was taking a new prescription that made it hard to get up, and that he'd missed a treatment.

Bare wasn't made to make up the meeting because a doctor felt he was making progress.

Nabila plans to complete her senior year of high school died with her last July blasting any dreams the young woman and her young husband may have had as violently as the IED explosion in Mosul that surely caused the combat stress and anger he succumbed to.

Bare’s squad leader, Staff Sgt. Everett Clark, said the soldier performed well in Iraq. They fought together at the November 2004 siege of Fallujah and then in Mosul.

The day they were hit, they were riding in their Stryker about 5 mph along a street in Mosul’s Palestine neighborhood.

“A bunch of kids came running out. I was down inside the Stryker and they were like ‘Mister! Mister! Mister!’ and then all of a sudden I hear this” -- Clark made a loud snap of his fingers -- “and then I was out.”

Clark regained consciousness to find a soldier lying across him. “His jugular vein had been ripped out,” the sergeant said.

He paused several times during the testimony to maintain his composure.

He recalled wadding up his glove and shoving it into the soldier’s wound to stop the bleeding, then looking to see another soldier whose head was on fire. He looked at Bare, who had a foot-long piece of wooden ladder sticking into the side of his head.

“I said ‘Don’t pull it out, Bare!’” Clark recalled. “And he says, ‘OK!’ and then he pulls it out.”

Then Bare got up into the rear hatch with his machine gun and started shooting to suppress whatever insurgents were out there.

His combat experience shook him, Bare’s lawyer said.

“He saw some very serious, some very nasty things,” O’Brien said. “He went through some very intense times.”

Bare is at least the third service member to kill a loved one after returning from Iraq.

Thanks to United for Peace of Pierce County Washington for the stories they reprinted under the fair use doctrine as they don't stick around on the original websites very long. The first story here was also published under the fair use doctrine for the same reason.