However, no one connected with the group has been charged with committing or plotting acts of terrorism.ONEIDA – Nathan J. They say Aguigui used the $500,000 in insurance money to buy guns and bomb-making components for the group. Civilian prosecutors used Burnett's testimony to expose what they contend were homegrown terrorist plots stretching from Georgia to Washington state. short for Forever Enduring Always Ready. In a plea deal with civilian prosecutors, he testified in 2012 that Aguigui recruited disgruntled soldiers to form an anti-government militia group called F.E.A.R. Salmon and Peden, who prosecutors say fired the killing shots, are still awaiting trial.īurnett turned on the others. Michael Burnett - and charged them with the deaths about a week after the bodies were found. Investigators arrested Aguigui and three other soldiers - Sgt. Both had been shot in the head just two days after Roark was discharged from the Army. Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany York, in the woods of rural Long County near Fort Stewart. 5, 2011, fishermen found the bodies of former Army Pvt. While military authorities lacked evidence to charge Aguigui in the months following his wife's death, he ended up jailed eight months later for a different crime. She became pregnant after returning from a deployment to Iraq. Isaac Aguigui worked as an intelligence analyst in the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, while his wife was an Army linguist. By November 2010, both of them were stationed at Fort Stewart. Military Academy Prep School that prepares cadets for admission to West Point. He met his wife, according to her obituary, at the U.S. Military courts allow either option in most cases. He chose to have a military judge decide his guilt or innocence rather than a jury of fellow soldiers. Isaac Aguigui has pleaded not guilty in his wife's death. All I need is your body whenever I want it." An old girlfriend confirmed he sent her a text message hours before his wife died that said: "We'll have plenty of money. Witnesses have testified the couple had been fighting and considering divorce. Isaac Aguigui told investigators his wife liked to be restrained with handcuffs and they had sex a few hours before he found her dead.īut prosecutors say Aguigui had reason to want his wife dead. When military police found the pregnant soldier dead on a couch after her husband called them to her apartment, they found a pair of handcuffs on a bed scattered with an array of sex toys. Cmdr Lisa Rivera insisted, "There were other possibilities." While the body had bruises and other injuries, none were damaging enough to have killed her. Downs testified at a two-day hearing in July that persuaded commanders to send the case to a court-martial.Īt the same hearing, the military doctor who performed the autopsy on Deirdre Aguigui stood by her conclusion that medical evidence failed to point to asphyxiation or any other single cause of death. That was enough for military police to charge Isaac Aguigui last April in his wife's murder. Marks on her wrists, he said, indicated she struggled violently with her hands cuffed behind her back. By ruling out other possible causes, Downs concluded the woman was suffocated or choked to death. James Downs, a Georgia state medical examiner who agreed to review the autopsy file on Deirdre Aguigui and give a second opinion after the military failed to determine what killed her. The one man the defense attorney referred to is Dr. Noto declined to comment further on the case when reached by phone last week. Scott Noto, one of Isaac Aguigui's Army defense lawyers, said at a hearing last July. "All we have is a possibility - one man's theory," Capt. Or the judge could side with defense attorneys who have said the cause of her death remains a mystery. A military judge will have to decide if there's enough evidence to support prosecutors' theory that her husband killed her using a lethal chokehold that left no telltale marks. But military prosecutors will try to settle questions that have troubled Deirdre Aguigui's family and friends since she died July 17, 2011. Civilian prosecutors say Aguigui orchestrated the slayings of a former soldier and his girlfriend to protect an anti-government militia group that Aguigui funded with $500,000 in life insurance and benefit payments he received from his wife's death.Īguigui's court-martial will likely steer clear of testimony related to the militia case that's played out in civilian court. Isaac Aguigui is already serving a life sentence at a Georgia prison with no chance of parole after he pleaded guilty last summer to civilian murder charges in two other killings that occurred eight months after his wife died. Conviction or acquittal won't make much difference for the 22-year-old defendant from Cashmere, Wash.
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