When Ciara Durkin rang her brother, Pierce, to wish him a belated happy
birthday on September 28 last year, she only got his voicemail. For the
recorded message, Durkin sang a jaunty rendition of “happy birthday”, before
signing off breezily. “Talk to you soon,” she said. “I love you. Goodbye.”
Hours later the Irish-born American soldier was found dead at a US military
base in Afghanistan. She had a single gun shot to the head. Last week
Durkin's family, originally from Eanach Mheain island in west Galway,
revealed that a US Army investigation had concluded that the soldier, who
moved to Boston from Connemara in her mid-teens, had taken her own life.
“We are very upset and saddened by their conclusion,” the Durkins said. “We
have borne an extraordinary amount of pain over the past nine months,
compounded by a protracted and at times ambiguous investigation. We now need
time and privacy to grieve, and let our Ciara finally rest in peace.”
The only progress reports about the military investigation had been appearing
on a memorial website where friends and family posted video clips and audio
messages. It was difficult to match the perky, ebullient redhead beaming out
of every photograph on the family's tribute webpage with the suicidal
soldier of the army's nine-month investigation, who apparently shot herself
in the head using an army-issue M16 rifle.
The army claims that its conclusion is based on ballistics evidence,
psychiatric reports, phone records and witness statements. The Durkin family
attended a presentation of the findings earlier this month, and was told
that the bullet that killed Ciara was fired directly into her mouth.
One family friend said that while the inquiry was comprehensive, questions
remained. “They were satisfied up to a point,” he said. “The army's
conclusion is that Ciara died by suicide or accidental death. But they have
nagging doubts that haven't gone away.”
These doubts are strong enough for the family to want an independent inquiry.
Backed by local Massachusetts politicians, Senator John Kerry and
Congressman William Delahunt, the Durkins are pursuing their own
investigation and persuaded the army to allow them to carry out an
independent autopsy on Ciara's body last October. The results have not been
made public.
Much of the family's disquiet stems from cryptic comments Durkin made on leave
two weeks before her death. The soldier, who worked in the army's finance
unit, told friends in Massachusetts that she had uncovered “something” in
the course of her work that had made her “enemies”, but she never
elaborated.
She also told her family and a close friend, Dawn Hurley, that if something
happened to her, they should investigate. “I didn't know what she meant,”
Hurley said recently. “Maybe I didn't want to know.” So, have subsequent
events loaded a throwaway remark with inordinate significance?
In June 2007, Durkin wrote an e-mail from her computer at Bagram air base to a
friend in Massachusetts. “Ok. So today a crazy soldier pulled a 9mm on me,”
she said. “Don't go telling people ... he's in jail and I'm doing better.
TTYL.” Why Durkin was threatened remains a mystery, but when the assault is
combined with her enigmatic comments about making “enemies” in Afghanistan,
it is understandable that her family's suspicions have been aroused.
So, what really happened to Ciara Durkin?
In July 2004, a soldier who had joined the army as a reservist and worked in
the accounts department of Bagram air base was found dead in a shower block.
Juan Torres was killed by a single bullet to the head on July 12, the day
before his eight-year stint as a reservist was to end.
His father, also Juan, was immediately suspicious. Although his son's
regulation equipment included a .45-calibre handgun, the shot that killed
Torres was from a 9mm pistol fired at close range. His son had called him
days earlier to say that drug-taking on the base was rife. Torres Snr held
his own investigation, interviewing soldiers who had served with his son,
and remains convinced that the 25-year-old was murdered.
The temptation to see a conspiracy in the deaths of Durkin and Torres may be
influenced by other cases, such as that of Pat Tillman, the American
football player who became a poster-boy for the military until he was shot
in a “friendly fire” incident in Afghanistan in 2004.
After Tillman's death, the army said he had been killed in a battle with
Afghan militia after his unit was ambushed. It was initially claimed that an
Afghan fighter had also been killed. After a more thorough investigation,
the army concluded that no hostile forces were involved in the incident and
that allied groups had unsuspectingly fired on each other, confused by a
nearby explosion. Last August, the story of Tillman's death took another
twist when a copy of his autopsy, obtained by Associated Press through
freedom of information legislation, revealed that he had been shot three
times in the head with a sniper's rifle from 10 yards away. Now it sounded
like he had been murdered.
Durkin's death has been shrouded with similar inconsistencies. Her family was
initially told she had been killed in combat. It was almost a week before
they were informed that her death was non-combat related. Then the army
investigation took an inexplicable nine months, leaving a vacuum where
suspicion took root.
On the same day that Durkin died last September, a film called In the Valley
of Elah opened in American cinemas. Starring Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize
Theron, it depicts a father's struggle to establish how his soldier son was
killed after he returned from Iraq. Although fictional, the film is said to
be based on the story of Richard Davis, a veteran of the Iraqi war who was
murdered by fellow soldiers after returning to America in 2003. The
denouement of the film reveals how a fight between two soldiers on a night
out away from base results in one stabbing another more than 40 times. The
viewer is left in no doubt that the murderer's accomplice is a combination
of post-traumatic stress and the dehumanising effect war has on young men.
It isn't difficult to see how Bagram air base could brutalise a soldier. In
2005, The New York Times reported that two unarmed civilian Afghani
prisoners had been killed there three years earlier. They died from beatings
while chained to the ceiling of an interrogation room. Autopsies revealed
severe trauma to both prisoners' legs, describing the injuries as comparable
to being run over by a bus. Seven soldiers were later charged.
Because she worked in administration, Durkin may have been insulated from some
excesses at the base's prison. In many e-mails home to friends and family,
her tone is upbeat, even cheery. In one sent in April last year, she said
she liked her fellow soldiers. “I'm in a good mood, for the most part,” she
wrote.
In another e-mail in May, she wrote that she was close to her fellow troops
and getting closer. “I have the best boss in the world. We are the best of
friends and he watches out for me at every turn. Regarding the battlefield,
we are kicking butt. I am doing what I can to stay safe. 'Stay alert, stay
alive,' is my motto.”
Douglas Bailey, who is representing the family at the request of Senator
Kerry, said recently: “It just doesn't add up. Ciara was very happy when she
was home. She loved being in the military - it was really the right place
for her. The family absolutely does not believe it is suicide.”
Some have suggested that, if she was murdered, Durkin's sexual orientation
could have been a motive. Durkin was a lesbian and planned to get married to
her girlfriend, Haidée Loreto, after her tour of duty. But those close to
her suggest that she kept her sexuality private, adopting the army's
official policy, known as “Don't ask, Don't tell”. According to The Boston
Globe newspaper, after her death, her army comrades were as shocked by the
discovery that she was a lesbian as by her death.
For a period in her late twenties, friends said, Durkin was depressed. Jane
Greenspan, a clinical psychologist and neighbour, told The Boston Globe last
week that Durkin had taken medication for depression but had discontinued
the treatment. Another friend said this period coincided with the end of her
relationship with an ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Jensen, and lasted “a few
months”. Jensen doesn't believe Durkin would have contemplated suicide. “No.
She was a very strong woman. She had a lot to look forward to,” she said
last week.
The most likely motive for a “murder” would be that she discovered “something”
that endangered her life. It may have been in her role as an information
technology specialist working on the army payroll. Two months before her
death she was sent on a month-long tour of eastern Afghanistan, where she
set up systems to train soldiers on the Eagle Cash system, a type of
military credit card allowing soldiers to buy goods and credit their bank
accounts. “Educating troops about money is a great feeling because they feel
supported,” she wrote in an e-mail. She hoped her new skills would help her
get work when she left the army. She spent a day of her holidays training at
the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, which oversees the Eagle Cash system.
But whether she found something while working on payroll is speculation.
Durkin's ashes are buried with those of her father in Lettermore graveyard,
Co Galway, near where she attended primary and secondary schools. Her family
hope that the results of their inquiry into how Durkin died will prevent the
truth from being buried with her.
