They Just Slip Away

Pvt. Caleb Smither

In November 2020, fresh on the heels of graduating from Basic Training and Airborne School,  Pvt. Smither reported to his first unit. The 37th Brigade Engineer Battalion on Fort Bragg. An esteemed unit in the 2nd Brigade Combat Team and located across the street from Towle Stadium, the battalion operates from the very center of the post.

Upon arrival, Smither fit the image of a paratrooper as if he were born to become one. He was tall, muscular and carried himself in a naturally clean-cut fashion. He thrived on competition and strenuous activity. He was the kind of young man Army recruiters dream of enlisting. According to his mother, Heather Baker, Smither had aspirations of becoming a soldier for as long as she can remember.

Baker remembers it being very difficult to see him leave home, but she was ultimately happy for him. She was proud that her son had grown into someone capable of living his dream.

Despite being away from home for the first time in his young life, 19-year-old Smither would regularly call his mom.

“I can remember him pulling that beret all the way down over his eye every time we Facetimed.” Heather Baker recalls.

The beret that Heather remembers her son pressing down onto his right cheek was the iconic maroon beret worn by all US Army Paratroopers. The members of the Airborne Corps have long upheld an unofficial rule that berets are to be worn tilted far to the right, with the draping portion being long enough to cover their right eye. Most members of the airborne community believe this look is only achieved by time spent in the beret. The appearance of a paratrooper in a well-fitted beret is the sign of one who has spent some significant time jumping out of airplanes and training for war- it is the look attributed to an experienced sky soldier.

Smither had only been in his unit for seven and a half weeks. His beret was not perfectly to his liking yet, but he thought he still had the time afforded by an entire enlistment to get that desired tilt and lean to it. He was still learning to adapt to his new lifestyle in the Army, but according to his leaders, he was doing so very well. According to one of his superior officers, “he was a bright, motivated young paratrooper.”  

Smither was a mechanic for his unit’s sustainment company. As a result, he spent the majority of his working hours at the motor pool.

The motor pool serves as a place for storage and maintenance of the many different vehicles that are used regularly used by the soldiers in the battalion. 

On Jan. 9, 2020, Caleb was working on a Deployable Universal Combat Earthmover (DUCE).

 

According to Pvt. Brandy Martinez, a friend and co-worker who would regularly perform vehicle maintenance with Smither, the two of them had been working on the DUCE and near the end of the day Smither struck the back of his head on the vehicle's radiator fan. Martinez claimed he was definitely in pain but that his head injury did not seem severe at the moment. But in the days following the incident, Smither started complaining about a worsening headache.

 At 2:52 a.m. on Jan. 14, Smither left the following voicemail for Martinez.

Martinez claims to have slept through the incoming call but went to check on Smither immediately after listening to the message. She found Smither in a great deal of pain. Unsure of what to do, she placed a cool rag on Smither’s head to help alleviate his intensifying headache.

She then texted a member of their leadership and told them that Smither needed to go to the Emergency Room. Martinez had done what she needed to as a private in her situation. She checked on Smither and reported his injury to someone higher in their chain of command. Smither's care was now in the hands of his leadership.

After Martinez checked on Smither on the morning of Jan. 14, he was taken to Womack Medical Center for examination. He was complaining of an intense migraine and an even more heightened sensitivity to light. After being seen by a healthcare professional, it was recommended that he be placed on quarters.

When a soldier is placed on quarters, they are to rest in their barracks (or living quarters) and should be checked on periodically by designated members of their leadership until they recover.

On Wednesday, Jan. 15, Smither was taken to Womack Medical Center once again. Smither had allegedly shown up to morning formation with tinted dust goggles on his eyes to shield them from any light. A specialist whose identity is redacted from the reports claims to have driven him to the medical center for his second visit. The specialist waited with Smither through his entire appointment, which included a CT scan. While waiting for his CT scan, the specialist recalls that Smither had now developed severe nausea and was vomiting in the sink. The scan determined that Smither was suffering from post-concussion disorder.

He was placed on quarters again and taken back to his barracks room after the appointment.

Keycard reports from the electronic lock on the outside of Smither’s room indicate that the last time his door was opened by his keycard was Jan. 15, 2020.

His phone records also indicate that all outgoing communication and answering any incoming efforts stopped on the night of Jan. 15.  

Thursday, Jan. 16 was the last day of the work week for the soldiers in the battalion. They would be afforded a four-day holiday weekend in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. However, two soldiers would not be entirely free of obligations over the weekend. According to reports, Smither’s roommate Spc. Chris Matson and a corporal whose identity is redacted had both been ordered to conduct wellness checks on Smither for the duration of the holiday weekend.

Although, only certain soldiers had been specifically instructed to perform checks on Smither, apparently, numerous members of his chain of command were aware of Smither’s injury and his placement on quarters.

On the afternoon of Tuesday Jan. 21, the unspecified corporal overheard Spc. Matson complaining that Smither's room started to “smell like shit” over the weekend. After hearing that statement, he realized he had not seen or heard from Smither at all that day. He left the motor pool to conduct what may very well be the first time he had made contact with Smither since the beginning of the long weekend.

The Fort Bragg Criminal Investigation Division (CID) Office was already dealing with a rising number of dead stateside soldiers when they received the news of Smither's passing. But the circumstance in which his body was discovered was troubling and unusual, even for a base that would accumulate over one hundred more corpses over the rest of the year.

Smither was found in a state of putrefaction. The third stage of human decomposition. He was bloated, purple, marbled, and beginning to liquefy into the tile on his barracks room floor. 

When investigators asked the corporal about his last check-in with Smither, he stated that he called Smither on Friday, Jan. 17. The investigators asked for for him to produce a call log to confirm this statement. The corporal allegedly could not find the call record on his phone during the time of questioning. He then claimed that he must have used one of his friend’s phones to call Smither, but he could not be sure because he went out drinking after he made the call. The investigators still wanted proof that a phone call was made. They asked the corporal which friends he went out with that evening so they could follow up on with them and have a glance at their call log. According to reports, the corporal became irritated with the questions at this point and said he could not remember anyone he was with that evening. He allegedly drank too much to recall any details of the evening aside from his undocumented assertion that he definitely called Smither.

 When Spc. Matson arrived at his room, on Jan. 21, EMS workers had beat him there. They were the first to tell him is roommate was dead. One of the EMS responders asked him when the last time was he had seen the deceased. Smither’s roommate told them he last saw him two days prior on Sunday the 19^th, and that he seemed “fine.”

When investigators questioned Spc. Matson, they had a difficult time believing Smither had both died and so heavily decomposed between when he claimed to have seen him on Jan. 19 and the discovery of his body on Jan. 21.

After some time in interrogation, Matson came forward with a different story. The actual last time he had seen Smither was on Jan. 16 in the shared area of their barracks. He recalls Smither being in a daze and still suffering from his head injury during the only period in which he briefly saw him outside of his room. For the rest of the weekend, Matson made no contact with him.

Matson revealed to investigators that over the weekend, he only left the barracks three times over the course of the weekend. He spent the majority of his time separated only by a few feet and a wall from a decomposing human body. He reiterated his earlier sentiment that Smither's room smelled horribly and he had tried to cover the scent with Febreze.

Based on Matson's truthful second testimony and without the evidence of a call being made from the corporal to Smither, it is likely that he was left completely unattended after the morning of Jan. 16.  and likely died sometime shortly thereafter.

The first and only time that Heather Baker ever visited Fort Bragg was to attend her son's memorial service. After the service concluded, Smither's former battalion commander, Lt. Col. Scott Autin, took her for a tour of Fort Bragg.

Autin told Baker all about the history of the installation and pointed out many of the memorialized achievements that were on public display. She recalls him telling her to rest assured that her son was under the best care possible at the time of his death. According to Baker, Autin told her Smither was among the elite of the elite.

Considering the condition in which her son was discovered, Baker found Autin’s message hard to believe. While still in the early stages of grief for her son, she remembers this type of sentiment to be reoccurring from Autin. He told her that he cared for his paratroopers as though they were members of his own family. She recalls thinking, "I appreciate your pride... but if that's how you treat your family, well then, I worry."

After the investigation into Smither's death was completed, a final statement of findings was released by members of Caleb's leadership. They concluded, based on the information available to them, that Smither died of bacterial meningitis. The report does acknowledge Smither's head injury sustained in the motor pool but does not believe it to be related to or the cause of his death. Further, the report notes that non-judicial punishment had been administered to a single soldier that had failed to check on him. Who those actions were taken against remain unclear. Even to Baker.

After her visit, Baker felt very uncertain about the handlings of her son's investigation. She felt as though she was given no clear answers as to what happened to Smither. She had a list of questions then that still reamin unanswered three years later.

Where did the bacterial meningitis come from all of a sudden? Why wasn't that noted at either of his visits to Womack Medical Center? Who was punished for not checking on her son? And why was it non-judicial? Her son lost his life largely in part of that individual's negligence.

She left Fort Bragg feeling like the only thing that was made clear to her was that her son had supposedly belonged to the greatest unit in the Army.

After Smither's passing, Baker found comfort in speaking with his peers from the battalion. She remembers Pvt. Martinez kindly. “I believe she was truly Caleb’s friend,” she recalls. She enjoyed speaking to someone that cared so much for her son.

At some point during their semi-regularly occuring chats, Martinez shared with Heather the recording of the voicemail Smither had left her a week before his death. Baker recalls Martinez doing this because she felt it was only right for her to at the very least have access to it.

Shortly after Martinez sent her the recording, Baker received another message from her. Martinez's chain of command ordered her to halt all further communication with her.

From that point forward, Baker says the battalion began treating her with complete silence. In their eyes, Smither's case was closed and there was nothing more to be discussed.

Whether or not the battalion wants to acknowledge her demands for justice, Baker has never stopped sharing Smither's story. She still regularly updates her social media pages with information about his case. She and her lawyer, Daniel Maharaj continue to compile evidence and make appeals. Recently, Sen. Ted Cruz and Congressman Jodey Arington have petitioned for the Office of the Inspector General to review the medical care and unit supervision Smither was provided leading up to his death.

Her efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Throughout this process of self-investigating her son's death, there have been periods brief periods of development and excitement for Baker, but the space between new information can be vast.

In that great space, she sometimes feels overwhelmed by the amount of effort she has put into keeping her son's legacy alive, considering he is but one of the hundreds of dead Fort Bragg soldiers slipping into obscurity behind the veil of a cherished history.

Spc. Enrique Roman-Martinez

Spc. Roman-Martinez did not want to be in the Army anymore. At least, that is what his sister remembers from a phone call she had with him about a year before his enlistment would have ended.

Roman would call home and chat with his big sister often. According to her, they were always close and never went long without speaking. But this particular phone call still resonates with Griselda.

It was not all that unusual to hear her brother complain about being in the Army or being so far away from home on Fort Bragg, what was unusual was the way her brother sounded on the other end of the phone. The gentle demeanor he always had about him was nowhere to be found. She claims he was yelling out "Fuck this! I'm done!" on the other end of the phone. He was three years into his time on Fort Bragg and had just reached a breaking point with what he could withstand from his battalion. He told his sister he wanted to leave Fort Bragg, permanently. He was contemplating going AWOL just to escape.

She tried her best to empathize with him but also reminded him of how terrible of an idea it would be for him actually to go AWOL. She knew very well the sacrifices her brother had made to be in the Army and did not want to see him forfeit all of the benefits he was in store to receive at the end of his enlistment.

As far as she was concerned, now was not the time for him to quit. She reassured him that he was in the home stretch. He had already completed well over half of his obligated time in the Army. She reminded her brother that he was working toward a better life than the one he left back home.

Roman and Griselda are the children of Mexican immigrants. Griselda recalls a difficult childhood for her and her brother including the deportation of their father when they were both very young.

After their family was broken apart, Roman and Griselda felt a need to help. That need to help his family is what Griselda claims to have attracted her brother to the Army.

Spc. Roman joined the Army in 2016 out of Chino, California when he was 17 years old. Shortly after, he was assigned to the 37^th Brigade Engineer Battalion. He signed up with the dreams of returning home after one enlistment and attending college with the financial assistance provided by the GI Bill.  

In stature, Roman did not fit the usual image people associate with paratroopers. He was short, small, and relatively quiet. He spent his spare time away from work watching anime and playing video games. By most accounts, he was calm and peaceful, both of which were rare traits to see among junior enlisted men in the 82^nd Airborne Division. “He was just one of those hippies” Griselda affectionately remembers her brother as someone more interested in talking about peace and spirituality than wars and weaponry.

According to the friends he made during his enlistment, he never wanted to be a soldier forever. He knew he did not necessarily fit in among the Airborne community, but that did not bother him, he was there for his future. The army was the stepping stone for him. It was a four-year sacrifice he was willing to make to pull his family out of poverty.

Even his decision to become a paratrooper was financially motivated. Roman had no fascination with the history of the Airborne Corps or ever dreamt of jumping from airplanes prior to doing so. According to Griselda, he volunteered for Airborne school after finding out that being on an active jump status meant he would make an additional $250 more a month than a non-airborne qualified soldier.

His sister remembers that he would send a sizable percentage of his bi-weekly checks back home to help out, even from a distance.

By the end of May 2020, Roman had listened to his sister's advice from that phone call roughly a year prior and kept chipping away at his enlistment. He was steadily approaching his last several months left on Fort Bragg before he could return to the civilian life he had left behind.

Fort Bragg, much like other posts around the world, was under strict COVID-19 lockdown procedures during this time frame. Soldiers were not to leave Fort Bragg unless the situation was warranted, vetted, and approved by leadership. 

Roman was known to be mainly reclusive by other soldiers. But in the midst of irregular amounts of seclusion, Roman decided to attend an off-post camping trip with seven other soldiers from his battalion.

The situation that Roman and the group found themselves in was neither vetted nor approved by leadership. On May 22, 2020, the group disobeyed their standing orders and left Fort Bragg, headed toward Cape Lookout National Seashore to briefly escape the monotony of military life during a pandemic.

After setting up camp, one of the soldiers, Pvt. Annamarie Cochell, recalls the group making lunch, listening to music, and playing football. Initially, the trip was everything the group needed. They were able to unwind and decompress for the first time in months.

According to testimonies, a few hours later, Roman began approaching the others and telling them he had something with him on the trip. Roman had brought several tabs of LSD.

Spc. Alex Becerra, Spc. Josh Curry, Pfc. Samad Landrum and Pvt. Annamarie Cochell admitted to taking acid with Roman that evening.

Allegedly, this was far from the first time Roman and these soldiers had taken drugs together. But, the effects that this particular dose had on Roman were more negative and much darker than they had been before.

The soldiers report everything being great for a couple of hours after they ingested the LSD. They hung out by the fire, continued to listen to music, and allowed their psychedelic experiences to begin.

But as quickly as a storm began to roll in from the shore, Roman’s behavior changed with it. According to another soldier on the trip, Roman kept walking around the beach, repeating the question, “Are we going to die here?”

Roman became more aggressive and increasingly paranoid as the storm worsened.  He accused the others of stealing his wallet and demanded they return it. Arguments concerning the whereabouts of his missing belongings became heated.

The wallet was quickly found in the center console of Becerra’s Jeep. The argument was over, but Roman was reportedly very embarrassed with himself.

Becerra, Curry, Landrum, Cochell and Roman took cover from the storm inside of Becerra's Jeep. Once inside the vehicle, Roman continued having what the others could only describe as a "bad trip.” Roman kept saying that he wanted to leave and be with his mother.

After the storm finally passed, all the soldiers, with the exception of Roman, got to work on re-establishing their tents that were blown over by the high winds. Roman, still experiencing the negative effects of his LSD dose, wanted to be left alone inside the vehicle to watch anime.

In the morning, the seven soldiers woke up and, one by one noticed Roman was nowhere to be found. The initial consensus among the group was that he had gotten up and wandered off in the middle of the night.

Many hours after Roman had disappeared from his campsite, on May 23, Becerra finally called 911 to report Roman missing.

“We are afraid that he may have hurt himself, but we’re really not sure. He wasn’t diagnosed, but he did have suicidal tendencies.” Becerra told the 911 dispatcher. He relayed this information after he and the other campers had allegedly spent nearly the entire day searching for Roman.

During the call, Becerra also claims that the reason they waited so long to let anyone know Roman had disappeared was because they could not locate a park ranger, despite making efforts to locate one.

After hearing the details of the 911 call, Nate Toering, a park ranger that worked on Cape Lookout National Seashore, came forward with contradicting information. Toering said he had interacted with the group of campers earlier that same morning when he asked them to move their vehicles away from the shore because the tide was coming in.

Roman was known to be missing by all members of the group at this point, and no one in the group mentioned anything about the disappearance of their allegedly suicidal friend. They moved their vehicles, and Toering continued on his way.    

The voicemail raised several concerns for Griselda. She found Becerra’s mention of her brother being suicidal and fearing he had harmed himself to be suspicious. She knew her brother to be happy and optimistic that his time in the Army was coming to an end. Also, her brother was still considered a missing person. She wondered why he was so intent on making it seem as though something fatal had already happened to him.

The lie about the park ranger interaction did not sit well with her either. In her mind, that was valuable time wasted. Time she believes could have been spent on a professional search effort. But even more than the bizarre statements and discrepancies provided by the 911 call, one of Roman’s retrieved items from the campsite was a major red flag for Griselda.

From the moment she heard that her brother’s glasses were still at the campsite after he had gone missing, she feared for the worst. There was something about the story of him allegedly wandering off in the middle of the night without his glasses that seemed totally impractical to her.

Her brother always wore his glasses. According to her, he had horrible eyesight and had worn a prescription for most of his life. She remembers his glasses as being a “part of him.” She equates the strangeness of her brother leaving in the middle of the night without his glasses to someone leaving their house without clothes on.  

Six days into Roman’s disappearance, investigators from the Fort Bragg CID office were conducting interviews with the seven soldiers after they had returned to Fort Bragg. Nearly a week had gone by, and there were still no answers or information as to where Roman had gone. He had seemingly vanished.

Later that afternoon, during the questioning of one soldier, a shocking discovery was announced at Cape Lookout National Seashore.

Around 3:30 pm on May 29, 2023, an unnamed civilian was riding an ATV across the shoreline and scanning the beach for turtle nests when they saw something unusual—a spherical object. At first glance, they thought a coconut had miraculously made it all the way up to North Carolina from the coast of Florida. But as they got closer to the object, they noticed human hair. What they had stumbled upon was the severed head of Enrique Roman-Martinez.

In real-time, the report notates the discovery, and CID investigators realized that they no longer had a missing persons case on their hands. Their efforts were now to be focused on solving Roman’s apparent homicide.

Five months and eight days after the discovery of Pvt. Smither’s putrefied body in the barracks, the 37^th Brigade Engineer Battalion had another dead stateside soldier on their hands.

After the discovery of his remains at Cape Lookout, two separate autopsies were performed on Roman’s head, and both of them reached the same conclusion. Roman’s dismemberment was assuredly the result of a homicide.

After the autopsy details were released by the media, CID Special Agent Steve Chancellor issued the following statement, "Please understand that homicide basically means that someone's death was caused by someone else. That means that the death could have been intentional, or it could have been unintentional -- for example in this case, someone running over someone with a boat while the person was in the water, etc."  

The coroners responded, saying that based on their observations, Roman was decapitated by an act of homicidal violence. This was not the result of a boating accident. This was done to him by someone.

Griselda’s mounting concerns about the job being done by CID were soon coupled with severe doubts toward her brother’s battalion.

After it was revealed to the media that Roman had been beheaded, Griselda claims his leadership was becoming increasingly difficult to reach and slow to respond to her requests for updates. Griselda said that it felt as though they were trying to “sweep her brother under the rug.”

Her speculations intensified after three months had passed and Roman’s remains had not yet been returned to his family. Due to the absence of what was left of him, his family had not been able to hold a proper funeral of their own.

In addition, the battalion had yet to hold a funeral service for Roman. They had lost a soldier and had done nothing to honor or commemorate his life in any way. The battalion leadership claimed they could not hold a gathering of any kind because of COVID-19 restrictions.

Soon after those claims were made, photos from the battalion's Facebook page surfaced of the organization holding promotion ceremonies. Ceremonies which would have violated the same restrictions.

“It is going to be three full months before Enrique receives a proper memorial ceremony. To date, Enrique’s remains, his severed head, has not been returned to his family. So, you think we are out of bounds for asking hard questions to LTC Scott Autin, and demanding answers from CID and the seven Paratroopers that have gone silent?”

The battalion’s former chaplain and close friend of Roman, Capt. Michael Coleman (ret.) posted the above comment on his Facebook page as part of a months-long criticism of the handling of Roman’s death and their treatment of his family. Many soldiers, current and former, voiced their concerns along with Capt. Coleman on social media.

After the outcry from those appalled by the lack of recognition he was receiving from his own leaders garnered enough attention, Roman’s funeral was finally held on Aug. 13, 2020. Three months after his death.

Allegedly, Capt. Coleman and his family were asked to leave the funeral ceremony by military police. It is believed that this request was completed on behalf of Lt. Col. Autin.

“The military justice system is a big joke. It’s hard to have respect for. It’s pitiful.” Griselda said in a recent interview as she revisited the many issues she has with her brother's investigation.

One of the most astounding issues she can recall was the attempt made to retrieve the rest of her brother's remains from the Atlantic Ocean. The only dive search performed at Cape Lookout took place seven months after Roman’s head was recovered from the shoreline. On Dec. 11, 2021, a dive team from the FBI spent their day dragging the waters only to come up empty-handed.  

It was now 2022. It had been two years since the murder and dismemberment of her little brother, and she felt as if knew as much then as she did in the summer of 2020.

No new leads had been uncovered, none of the people that last saw her brother had come forward with any new information, and as far as she was concerned, Fort Bragg and Roman’s battalion had forgotten all about him.

In May of the same year, Griselda felt a small chance of hope in a system she had all but given up on. Charges had been filed against all seven of the soldiers her brother had gone camping with before he was murdered. Each one of them was facing a court-martial.

The good news she received was quickly soured when she found out that none of the charges were related to her brother’s murder.

The charges included the use of illicit drugs, disobeying lawful orders, disobeying superior officers, and providing false statements. Between May and August of 2022, all seven of the soldiers were found guilty of all or some combination of their accused crimes in the process of court-martial.

The most severe penalty was a discharge from the Army and the potential to serve up to 90 days in jail. Whether any jail time was actually served or if those separated were given either honorable or dishonorable discharges remain unclear.

In November 2022, Roman’s case was considered cold due to lack of leads or new evidence.

One piece of testimonial evidence from the homicide report that never seemed to grab CID investigators' attention may be the information that could reignite this cold case.

After the group had left Roman in the Jeep to sleep off his bad trip, one person did in fact make contact with him.

According to Cochell's sworn statement, Becerra left the tent they were sharing and walked to the rear of his Jeep. He opened the rear of the vehicle and grabbed "something," Cochell recalls.

After removing an item from the Jeep, Cochell recalls hearing, but not seeing, Becerra opening a door on the side of the vehicle where Roman was placed earlier. She then claims to have not seen or heard anything else but adds that Becerra disappeared for a while.

When he returned, he immediately set up an outdoor camp shower to wash himself before returning to their tent.

Although, Cochell claims to have been unsure of what Becerra removed from the Jeep, pictures taken by CID when they seized Becerra's vehicle as part of their investigation show that there were three items in the Jeep's rear compartment: a Nerf football, an American flag, and a hatchet.

If Cochell's statement is true, Becerra was the last person to see Roman alive and has an unaccounted period of time that was never revisited by investigators.

Following his court martial and subsequent discharge from the Army, Becerra has disappeared and left behind no digital footprint.

Years later, Griselda still often revisits that phone call with Roman where he had contemplated going AWOL and returning home to Chino. Looking back through a lens of grief, she wishes she had known what the future had in store for her brother. She would have never encouraged him to stay on Fort Bragg. She would have told him to run as fast and as far away as he possibly could.