LaVena Johnson

The LaVena Johnson Story: Rape and Murder in the U.S. Military

by Don Fitz

LaVena Johnson may be only one of over a dozen women to die under extremely suspicious circumstances while in Iraq and Afghanistan . A black woman from Florissant, Missouri (just north of St. Louis), she played the violin and had been an honor roll student at her high school.

LaVena Johnson reportedly died in Iraq on July 19, 2005, days shy of her 20th birthday. The Army called it suicide. From the very beginning her family did not buy that story and new evidence suggests their suspicions could be well-founded.

The increase in violence against women in the military is so sharp that Dr. John Johnson, LaVena’s father, is working with U.S. Representatives Ike Skelton and Lacy Clay (both from Missouri) to have a Congressional hearing that could request a reopening of the Army’s investigation of her death.

The Army did not want to release a CD ROM with color photos of LaVena’s body after her death to her family. But with prodding from Congressman Clay they received photos in April. Close study by Joseph Johnson, an uncle of LaVena who has a degree in criminal science, lead him to conclude that the evidence was incompatible with a suicide.

“There’s more and more evidence that LaVena was murdered and the Army tried to cover it up,” says Dr. John Johnson. “The Army said she put an M-16 rifle to her mouth and squeezed the trigger. That would have left a gaping wound in the back of her head that did not appear in the photos. The photos showed that someone broke her nose and split her lip. That’s not suicide.”

“The evidence points to her being raped, murdered, and her body burned” Johnson added. “And then there’s the thumb impression. A 5’1” woman who did not handle rifles would have to put tremendous pressure on the trigger, which would leave a death impression crossing the thumb. The impression was on the finger, as if someone who didn’t know anything about forensic investigations made a bad attempt at trying to make it look like suicide.”

LaVena Johnson’s death does not seem to be a fluke incident. It clearly looks like part of a trend of violence against women in the military. According to retired US Army Colonel Ann Wright, one in every three women in the U.S. military today is sexually assaulted. LaVena Johnson’s family feel that she could have been murdered to prevent her from revealing the person or persons who attacked her.

Dr. John Johnson, Michael McPhearson & Lionel Nixon at June 3, 2008 press conference. Photo by Don Fitz.

Lionel Nixon, a member of the Green Party of St. Louis, writes for the African Newsworld newspaper. He has worked with LaVena Johnson’s family for over a year to help bring publicity to the case. On June 3, he coordinated a press conference with John Johnson which attracted the major TV, radio and print media.

The next day, the Green Party of St. Louis and Universal African Peoples Organization hosted a panel discussion of the LaVena Johnson case which Mr. Nixon moderated. Michael McPhearson, Executive Director of Veterans For Peace, described the sharp increase in violence and sexual assaults in the US military. Redditt Hudson, of the American Civil Liberties Union, addressed the deprivation of rights which confronts military personnel. Dr. Johnson passionately detailed the heartbreak of his family, the runaround the military has given them, and the cover-up of what really happened to LaVena. He vowed that his family will not stop until the truth of his daughter’s death is revealed.

Part of the reason that they are so threatening to the government is that the Johnson family does not see their plight as isolated. They are working with families across the country who see the military covering up rape and murder. More and more of these families are coming to agree with the sentiment expressed at the June 4 forum in St. Louis: The war in Iraq never had anything to so with “weapons of mass destruction.” The war is purely to grab that country’s oil to swell the profits of US corporations. And Greens point out that in order to protect ourselves from toxic pollution, to stop climate change, and to avoid collapse from peak oil, the U.S. needs to dramatically reduce its consumption of energy – not murder Iraqis to steal oil.