Re: Walters Widow Wants Justice

Date: May 28, 2004

"507th widow wants killers brought to justice
'This has changed everything'

Laura Cruz El Paso Times

When Sgt. Donald Walters' widow, Stacie Walters, was given her husband's Silver Star medal in April for his courage during the ambush of Fort Bliss' 507th Maintenance Company in Iraq, she believed she could finally find closure to her husband's death.

But Monday, Stacie Walters was told by two Pentagon officials at her home in Kansas City, Mo., that her husband, who was listed as killed in action, had actually been captured by fedayeen forces and later executed.

"This has changed everything," Stacie said during a telephone interview Friday with the El Paso Times. "Here I had always thought he was killed in a firefight, but he was executed. We want these guys to be brought to justice."

Arlene Walters, Donald Walters' mother, said the new details of her son's death are heartbreaking, but "I want to know every piece of information I can get."

"That's my son, and I want to get the people who did this so they can be charged for murder," she said. "I can't imagine the horrors that he went through."

According to an Associated Press report, Sgt. Donald Walters was separated from other members of the 507th during the attack March 23, 2003. Maj. Arnold Strong, an Oregon National Guard spokesman, told the Associated Press that empty gun magazines were found near where Walters was captured, suggesting that he fired until ammunition ran out.

Strong, citing a report by Department of Defense investigators, told the Associated Press that Walters was shot in the leg and stabbed three times in the abdomen with a bayonet. He was then captured and shot twice in the back from more than 20 feet away.

"He was brave," Arlene Walters said Friday during a telephone interview with the El Paso Times. "He fought to the end until he could not fight anymore."

According to a report by the Department of Defense Criminal Investigation Task Force and U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, given to the Walters family and obtained by the El Paso Times, special agents traveled to the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah in May 2003 to a building where Walters was thought to have been held captive.

The agents took photographs, prepared sketches, collected soil samples of what appeared to be blood stains and conducted interviews in the area. The soil samples were sent to the U.S. Army Crime Lab.

"In August 2003, special agents in Iraq received the crime lab report which confirmed the soil sample contained blood and that the DNA from the blood was a match to Sgt. Walters," the report said.

From September 2003 to February, defense investigators continued to collect information and witness accounts of Walters' death and six members of the fedayeen.

In March, the final autopsy report for Walters was received "indicating a manner of death as combat-related," but in April the Defense Department's Criminal Investigation Task Force, believing the death to be more than combat-related, met with the medical examiner with the additional information obtained by the Army's ongoing investigation.

The medical examiner completed an in-depth review this month of "all the new evidence and determined Sgt. Walters' manner of death as homicide," the military report said.

Stacie Walters said she is grateful for the military's investigators but still has several questions about her husband's death.

"The military doesn't know how long he was alive, if he was tortured or how long he was in the building," she said. "They don't know if they had every intention of killing him or if they killed him because he was trying to escape."

Defense investigators are now looking for the rebels thought to have executed the sergeant, Arlene Walters said.

"They have two suspects, but I don't think they have enough information to arrest them," she said. "The more I think about it the angrier I get, but I'm confident they're going to get them."

Laura Cruz may be reached at lcruz@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136.
© 2004 El Paso Times, a Gannett Co., Inc. newspaper"