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Peyton Moreland
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. AI had the time of my life a I never felt this way before. From building timelines to assigning the right people and even spotting risks across dozens of projects, Monday Sidekick knows your business, thinks ahead and takes action. One click on the star and consider it done. And I owe it all to you. Try Monday Sidekick AI you'll love to use on Monday.com. you're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey everyone and welcome back to the into the Dark podcast. I'm your host Peyton Moreland. I'm so glad you are here listening again. If you are watching on YouTube, please do all the things. If you are listening on audio, please please do all the things. And please share this episode with someone in your life so we can get the show spread. That's all. That's what we need to do. Jumping into my 10 seconds before we get into the case, I actually have been on a huge tinfoil tell binge lately. I have just been all over YouTube just diving deep into these theories and like it is mind blowing and so I think I want to cover more of them on the channel. The issue is, is every single time I do venture into that area I get, I can't say the word but like not making money from the episode, from the platform. They don't like it. They don't like it. Okay. And it's not just this show. We covered a case on my other show, Murder with My Husband that like we kind of alluded to a government agent. Boom. Episode tanked. Like they literally don't like it. And so I don't know how the videos I'm watching that are like so obvious and say every word are have these views and are doing good. But that's the issue I run into in this channel. And I'm not saying that there's some huge tinfoil tell around that in and of itself I think that there's a an urge to not spread misinformation. But I also think that these theories can be fun to look into and also just like mind boggling and understanding people's explanations that they have come up with for the weird and odd things that have happened in humanity and in our earth's existence that we know about. So please, in the comments. Let me know if you want me to cover these, but please try to avoid using the actual words. I think we could go about it in a way that maybe it doesn't get, like, so x nade. But I just need to know if it's worth the risk for you guys, because I've really just been like, diving into these holes. And it's not that I'm trying to convince anyone. I don't know, I don't even convince half the time. I just find it so fascinating to learn about these things. And honestly, they blow your mind. Like, you don't necessarily have to believe them, but you're like, well, that is a little weird. So I understand how we got here. I don't know. Let me know if it's something you're interested in. In comments. But yeah, that's kind of what I've been doing lately. Just this week, I've been diving into all that. So I've just been contemplating the world. That being said, let's get into today's episode. Let's jump right into my 10 seconds today. Honestly, this is the first time I've gotten ready in like a week. I mean, like, showered, put makeup on, did my hair, and sometimes you just got to force it, you know, just to feel good. And it does it. I feel a little bit better. I hope you are all doing good, but I don't really have a lot for the 10 seconds. So let's get into today's episode. Trigger warning. This episode includes discussions of sexual assault and suicide, so please listen with care. Whenever someone dies, it's natural to feel upset, hurt, or confused. If you were close to the deceased, you missed them, and you might grieve about all of the things you never got to do and the plans you made that you weren't able to follow through on. And these feelings can be intense and difficult to deal with. But it may be even worse when someone dies with secrets. Because in addition to your feelings of grief and trauma, you might also find yourself wondering if you ever really even knew that loved one, or if you'll ever understand the truth about them as a person. So keep that in mind as I get into today's case. Now, I'll kick things off by saying that if I had to choose one word to describe Lavena Johnson, it would be independent. Lavena grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, as part of a big family. She had four siblings, but she never let any of them tell her what to do. Lavena had a strong sense of who she was as a person and what she wanted out of life, she was also willing and able to go out and make her dreams come true. Lavena was a very good student, and she graduated from high school with honors in 2004. And in another show of her independence, she announced that she was going to pay her own way through college. There was almost no question of whether she would go or not. She was smart enough to get accepted at plenty of places. The problem for her was the tuition. Now, her parents had the money. They could afford it, no problem. But Lavina, like I said, wanted to make it on her own, and she knew she could afford a good college if she enlisted in the Army. So that was the plan, to join, serve a few years, then come back to finish her education. But that's not the only reason that she wanted to join the armed forces. Lavena also wanted to follow in her father's footsteps. So her dad, John, had also grown up in St. Louis, and he had served with the army for three years. Obviously, by now he was no longer enlisted, but he worked in a civilian field with close ties to the military. So the army had kind of always been a big part of Lavina's life, and. And it only made sense that she would want to join in as an adult. So on top of all of that, Lavena was also very patriotic. She believed that she had a civic duty to be part of the armed forces. All to say that she had a lot of reasons in her mind to choose this path. So one day, around the time of her high school graduation, Lavena went to her father, John. She told him, hey, I'm going to join the Army. And the first words out of her father John's mouth were, absolutely not. Even though John had been in the army, he did not think it was the right fit for his daughter, especially because in 2004, the war in Iraq was raging. He feared that Lavena would be putting her life in danger because she could have been dispatched to a violent war zone. And in John's mind, Lavena shouldn't have needed to join the Army. She was a good student. She should have been able to get into great colleges, even qualify for scholarships, if she was really insistent on paying for it herself. Basically, he could think of a lot of reasons for Lavena not to enlist. But like I said before, Lavena was very independent. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, no matter what anyone else said. She told her dad, I don't need your permission or approval. I'm joining the army, and that was that. Sure enough, she enlisted right after this conversation. And then once she completed basic training, Lavena got sent to Iraq. Life overseas at this time was tough, of course, but overall, Lavena seemed happy and excited. Whenever she wrote to her family or spoke to them on the phone, it came across like she was exactly where she wanted to be. At this point. She celebrated her 19th birthday abroad. And then on Father's Day, she sent her dad a card, and it said, like father, like daughter. So it's pretty obvious that she was still proud to be following in her father's footsteps. Now, not long afterward, she got new deployment orders. Lavina called her parents in mid July of 2005 to tell them about it. She said she was thrilled because she had just heard she was being brought back to the United States and she would be working on a base in the country, which meant it would be much easier for her to come home and visit her family more often. She also said that she would be able to spend Christmas with them, which was a big deal because every year Lavena loved to decorate the tree. It was a family tradition she never wanted to miss. And this year she was going to keep the trend going. So all in all, this was really good news, and Lavena seemed so thrilled to share it. But a few days later, on the morning of Tuesday, July 19th, after this excited phone call home, everything changed. At 7:30 in the morning that day, her parents and siblings were all asleep in their beds when someone knocked on their front door. They were loud enough to actually wake Lavena's mother, Linda. She went to the window to try and see who could be visiting this early in the morning, and she saw a soldier in uniform standing on their front porch. Right away, Linda knew what that meant. She also knew that she couldn't hear the news for herself. She felt sick to her stomach. So she goes and wakes her husband, John. He goes to the door and learns their daughter Lavina, they had just talked to, had died. She had passed just eight days before her 20th birthday. As soon as the soldier finished speaking, Linda and John both began screaming and crying. They were loud enough to obviously wake the other kids up, and before you knew it, Lavena's entire family in the household is shocked and stunned and grieving. Understandably, the soldier at the door didn't want to say anything more than he already had. It was already such a big shock that Lavena was dead and her family didn't seem like they were up for hearing any more. Information. So at this time, nobody informs the family, Lavena's cause of death or anything else. Instead, over the next few days, they actually work with multiple army representatives to get the full story. And this is what her family learns. Lavena had not died in combat. Instead, she had been shot in the barracks where she lived and slept. And the investigators believed her gunshot wound was self inflicted and her death had been ruled a suicide. Now John and Linda are stunned. They couldn't believe that Lavena would take her own life. They had never seen any warning signs. She seemed so happy and excited about the future. She was talking about Christmas. And I have to acknowledge, sometimes when someone is contemplating self harm, the signs are not easy to spot. But there were other red flags. Telling her family that maybe they just weren't getting the entire story first. John still had a lot of friends and connections in the army, so he reached out to someone who could speak to him more frankly than her official representatives had. John wanted to get a clearer sense of what had happened to Lavena. Like when, how, why, why did she do this? And John's friend was able to pull some records. And then he said that the official story wasn't true. The statements that the officials had made to the Johnson family were wrong. Lavena hadn't been found dead in her barracks. She had been in someone else's tent. Specifically, it was a large tent that was shared by a number of military contractors. There was no reason for Lavena to ever even be in that tent. It would have been a strange place for her to go and then take her own life in. Now already the pieces aren't adding up and John and Linda couldn't understand why the army would have even given them false information about their daughter's death. And so this just comes as such a huge shock and disappointment. Alright you guys. Between busy schedules and plans, sometimes all I have is a couple minutes and factor helps me eat smart with tasty chef prepped meals that are dietitian approved and delivered right to my door. And now with more than 65 weekly meals made for how I live and what I like to eat, I've got even more ways to fit in a real meal. Well, wherever the day takes me, there's more variety and more meals. You can choose from a wider selection of weekly meal options including premium seafood choices like salmon and shrimp at no extra cost. And enjoy even more GLP1 friendly meals and new Mediterranean diet options packed with protein and good for you fats for the first time. 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Go to quince.comdark for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Quince Q-U-I-N-C-E.comdark to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comdark and then right before Lavena's funeral, the evidence became even more alarming. Her body was shipped back to St. Louis for burial and this was the first time her parents got to look at her after her death. As soon as John saw his daughter's remains, he knew something Wasn't adding up. Remember, John had served in the army before. He knew what firearm injuries looked like. But when he saw Lavena's body, he couldn't help but notice that her gunshot wound was on the left side of her head. But Lavena was right handed. If she had taken her own life, she most likely would have shot herself with her right hand. So we asked one of his army contacts how this is possible, and they said, oh, the wound on the left side of her head is an exit wound. Their argument was it was smaller. It was harder to see an entry wound on the right versus the left. The problem is, though John knows what exit wounds looked like, he does not believe this story that this is the exit wound. He also felt suspicious when the army representatives told him that they thought Lavena had shot herself using an M16 rifle. First of all, John didn't think her wound was consistent with that kind of gun. Again, he would know. Plus, M16s are really long. Lavena was a pretty small girl with short arms. She was only 5ft, 1 inch tall. There was no possible way that she could have reached the trigger and pulled it if she was aiming an M16 at her own head. So once again, John is like, they are not telling us the truth. I don't know what's going on here. This is not true. And I don't think Lavina did this herself. Especially because her gunshot wound wasn't the only injury on her body. She had a mark that kind of looked like a black eye. It. It was hard to say, because by the time John saw Lavina's remains, they had been prepared for burial. So she was wearing makeup. But whatever the eye injury was, it was serious enough that John could still see it through her makeup. She also had a split lip. So in John's mind, these were signs that someone had beaten his daughter up. Clearly, Lavena had not done this to herself. So basically, all of the evidence to her family seemed to suggest that Lavena had actually been murdered while deployed. So her family reached out to military representatives, asking them to just take a closer look at the evidence. But no matter how many times they called or sent emails, the army refused to launch a new investigation. They were sticking to their story that Lavena had taken her own life, and there was nothing more to investigate. But they did offer one thing to John and Linda. All of their files on the investigation. They included statements from Lavena's friends, witnesses who had found her body, and even photos from the tent and her Autopsy. Now, it's possible that the army thought this would be enough to kind of satisfy Lavena's family, that they would review all of the evidence and decide to agree with the official story. But instead, her family found even more inconsistencies in the official records they were given. For example, her autopsy report showed burn marks on Lavena's genitals, as though someone had poured acid on them right before or after she was killed. The coroner wasn't able to identify the exact kind of acid, but clearly, if this had happened to Lavena before her death, it would have been extremely painful. There was no reason for her to do that to herself. In fact, John and Linda could only come up with one explanation for why someone would even do this to a body. If Lavena had been sexually assaulted, her rapist might have tried to destroy the evidence. The acid could have burned away any DNA that was on her genitals. There was just one problem with this theory, though. John and Linda didn't know if Lavena had been assaulted because the coroner hadn't given her a rape test. Still, those autopsy photos showed lots of tears and injuries around her genitals. In John and Linda's mind, this was all the proof they needed. They figured that Lavena had been raped, then murdered to cover up the crime. Especially once they saw another detail from the coroner's report. They had tested her hands for gunshot residue and found only trace amounts of it. There was far less than you would expect to find if she had fired a gun. But the army actually gives a lot of reasons to explain this away. One was that she had shot herself, but somehow managed to wash her hands before dying of her injury, because. Yeah, that's exactly what you think to do. They also suggested that maybe the gun had somehow fired without releasing residue. Or that maybe before her death, Lavina had contaminated her hands with something else that prevented the residue from sticking to her. Or maybe it was the same. Same acid that had burned her genitals. Now, the report doesn't specify which scenario, but number one, how devastating that parents are having to look at these pictures because the people who are supposed to be investigating it won't take them seriously. And number two. What? Like I said before, this army report included statements from Lavina's friends and fellow soldiers. Apparently, army officials had interviewed them to determine a motive for Lavena's supposed suicide. They said at some point after she enlisted, but before her death, Lavena had been dating someone. Apparently, she had told all of her friends how excited she was about her new boyfriend. But this is a little weird because she didn't tell anyone her boyfriend's name. Nobody but her closest friends knew who he was, and almost none of them had ever met him. Plus, when investigators reached out to the man, he denied that they were ever dating. He said, no, me and Lavena were just friends. I will also note that Lavena never said a word about this guy to her own family, so they had no idea she had been seeing anyone. This was in spite of the fact that, according to investigators, this was a very serious relationship. Lavena fully expected this guy to propose to her, and she was ready to say yes and marry him. But then one day, according to their investigation, he stopped answering the phone when she called. And when she wrote him letters or sent him snail mail, he didn't respond. They hadn't had a fight or broken up, but without any notice or any clear reason, he had ghosted her. Now, not long afterward, Lavina learned that her now ex boyfriend was dating someone else. And according to their investigation, she is devastated by this. It sounds like he broke up with her without even bothering to tell her that he was ending things. But in her mind, they were technically still together, so he was cheating on her. Now, according to Lavena's friends and fellow soldiers, she was very upset about the situation. Of course, she was stressed out enough that her behavior changed. Lavena had never used tobacco, but she started smoking sometime in mid July of 2005. This would be just a few days before her death. Except, I want to be clear, as near as anyone could tell, she had only smoked cigarettes on two occasions. It's not like she was just suddenly doing it all of the time. In fact, she didn't even own any cigarettes the two times she had tried them. She got them from other people on the base. One friend also noted that Lavina was eating a lot more ice cream than usual. But I have to know, eating ice cream and smoking a cigarette or two are fairly normal responses to stressful situations. Person can indulge in tobacco and sweets without necessarily being suicidal. In fact, a lot of Lavena's friends gave contradictory statements. Some people said they were worried about her and these new weird habits. But others said that Lavena came across as perfectly healthy and generally okay. Like she was upset she had been dumped, but overall, she was taking it well.
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Advertiser/Commercial Voice
She.
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Peyton Moreland
And here's the thing. Lavena's dad, John, decides to call some of her friends and ask if they thought that Lavena had been struggling emotionally, basically doing his own interviews. And all of them said the same thing? No, she was just fine. In spite of that, the official report said that clearly, after investigation, they learned Lavina was spiraling mentally. Their ruling was that she took her own life because she couldn't deal with the stress of her breakup. And her story becomes even more confusing and mysterious when you look at how she spent her final hours, according to what we know. So the day before her death, she was on duty until 4pm and then she went somewhere, but nobody's entirely sure where. The other people in her barracks agreed that she never came back to her bunk or went to sleep that night. And she was usually in bed by midnight. But no one spotted her that evening. I'll also note that nobody saw her go into the contractor's tent, where she was later found dead. And it is impossible to say if she went alone or if there was someone with her. All I do know is that shortly after 2am on the morning of the 19th, many soldiers on the base heard a loud bang coming from the tent she was found dead in. Most of them recognized it as a gunshot, but they didn't realize it was an emergency situation. Some enlistees figured it was just someone out there doing target practice. Still, quite a few people actually went towards the sound and into the tent. And that was when they found Lavena's body. Even though someone got a medic right away, it was clear there was nothing to be done. She was already dead. The gun was lying next to her as though it had been in her hands when she'd pulled the trigger. And there was something else near her body. A pack of Marlboro Lights. Except, like I said before, Lavena had never owned any cigarettes before her death. There was no record of her buying these, so nobody knew where the pack had come from. It kind of feels like one more piece of evidence that there was someone else there at the time of the death. One more reason to believe that there's foul play involved. But even when her family points out all of these inconsistencies, they go, they pledge their case. Please open her investigation. The army doesn't listen. All right, you guys, fall is here, kids are back in school, vacations are over, and it is officially the start of cozy season, which means it's time to slide into some bombas. You know Bombas? The most comfortable socks, slippers, tees, and underwear out there, made from premium materials that actually make sense for this time of year. This is what I love about bombas. They have the season's softest materials. Think merino wool that keeps you warm when it's chilly but cool when it's hot. Cotton that is softer, stronger and more breathable than regular cotton. And even rag wool. The thick, durable, classic cozy sock you'll want all fall. And they have footwear. 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You're crying. This is what I said during my first appointment with my physician at Mochi because I didn't have to convince him I needed a GLP one. He understood and I felt supported, not judged. I came for the weight loss and stayed for the empathy. Thanks, Sadie. I'm Mayra Amit, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com Sadie is a Mochi member, compensated for her story so finally, John and Linda get frustrated with all of the roadblocks that they're hitting. They realized that they were not going to be able to get results on their own. So they needed to apply more pressure, which meant going to the press and telling Lavena's story. The hope was that if her name and her picture was in the news, her death would become famous. And then maybe enough people would be angry that they could shame the army into taking her case seriously. But instead, when the media told Lavena's story, they highlighted how it was part of a pattern. Sadly, there was a long history of female soldiers suffering violence while they were serving in the army, and that problem still exists. Today, as of this recording, one recent study showed that about 20,500 women in the military have been sexually assaulted during their service. For context, that works out to be a bit more than one out of every 20 female enlistees. The vast majority of the time, the rapist is another service member, not a civilian or an enemy. There are also cases where individuals simply attack their female colleagues because they think they can get away with it. There's cases where they attack them because they're new. Sexual assault is a huge problem in the military, and sometimes those attacks culminate in more, more serious crimes like murder. The rapists might kill their victims to stop them from reporting the crime, or again, just because they believe they can get away with it. In fact, Lavena wasn't the only female soldier to die under mysterious circumstances that seemed to be related to rape. There were a lot of stories exactly like hers. Take what happened to a woman named Tina Priest. Now, like Lavena, Tina was dispatched to Iraq when she was just 19 years old. But during her deployment, Tina was sexually assaulted. And afterward, she did all of the things that they say you are supposed to do. She reported the crime and worked with the bases police department in Iraq to try and bring her rapist to justice. Now, on top of that, Tina also called her parents every day to explain what was going on and keep them updated. Of course, Tina was angry about what had been done to her, and she wanted to make it right. She wasn't depressed, at least not so far as anyone could tell. But 10 days after the assault and after she reported it, Tina was found dead in her barracks of a gunshot wound. Her death was ruled a suicide by the army, but Tina's parents didn't believe it. And just like Lavena, her injuries were not consistent with a self inflicted gunshot wound. It was another case where the angle wasn't right. The gun was too big for her to hold it and aim it at herself. Tina's parents thought that the army was covering up her murder, maybe even to protect the killer. And these sorts of things continued to happen even after Lavena's death. Like in the case of Kamisha block. On August 16, 2007, Kamisha was serving in Iraq as an army specialist. But that night, a fellow soldier shot her five times, killing her and then taking his own life. And after she died, the army covered up her real cause of death, telling her, the family, that she had died in combat. It took almost a year of campaigning and advocacy before the military changed the official position. Finally, in early 2008, they admitted that they had lied and the truth about Kamisha came out. And you have to wonder, how many other times has this happened? The point is, the media was right. This is a pattern. It happens a lot of times. But sadly, even with all of this evidence and all of the press attention, Lavena's death never received a new investigation. Her case is still formally classified as a suicide to this day. And her family is still fighting for justice that they believe she has not received. In 2007, they arranged for a second autopsy for Lavena. Their hope was that an impartial coroner might discover something that the Army's medical examiner had missed. But unfortunately, the second post mortem exam was inconclusive. The doctor couldn't prove that Lavena had been murdered. They couldn't disprove it either. And they also couldn't rule out the Army's conclusion that she had died of suicide. So that exam didn't solve the mystery and it didn't bring justice to Lavena. There are still a lot of questions about her real cause of death to this day. And it is still deeply painful for her loved ones, even after all these years. In fact, at one point, her mother, Linda, decided that she couldn't bear to look at photos of her daughter anymore, because every time she saw her smiling face, the grief became unbearable. So she tried to remove pictures of her from the home, which is obviously very difficult for Lavina's father, John, who is grieving in a different way. He didn't want to hide photos or get rid of them. He wanted to remember his daughter and keep all of these mementos around. So he gathered all of the pictures and put them in the basement. That way he could look at them when he wanted to without his wife needing to see them. These days, John still advocates for Lavena by giving media interviews. He handles a lot of the press so his wife doesn't have to do it. But both of them are anxious for Lavina to get justice. It has been 20 years and they are both still waiting. Now, I can't cover this case without telling you an alternative narrative. Some legal experts and military spokespeople suggested that there is an alternate explanation, another way to explain all of the misinformation and confusion around Lavina's case. They didn't believe that anyone was hiding anything or protecting her murderer. Instead, they say this might have all been a huge miscommunication. See, in 2005, some army officials still weren't used to digital records, meaning that when they investigated Lavena's death. They didn't put all of the information into their computers correctly. It wasn't that they wanted to mislead anyone or hide anything. They were just still learning the system and they made honest mistakes. So that could explain, for example, why the army originally told John and Linda that Lavena had died in her own barracks and then had changed the story that she died in someone else's tent. They may not have been intentionally lying. They just might not have had all the correct information. I also have to note that some impartial third party groups have looked into Lavina's case and they have concluded that they agree with the Army. They don't think there was a cover up. Their ruling is that Lavina's injuries and behavior are consistent with a suicide. So it's one of those cases where it really just comes down to what you believe. There's a lot of gray area and a lot of room for people to disagree, even when they have all the same facts. Now, there is one final piece of this story that I have to discuss. When Lavena first started getting media coverage, her story took off online. People wrote about her case on message boards and social media and shared the evidence that was public. And some individuals speculated about who might have murdered her and why. Of course, anytime you're speculating or guessing, there's a chance you're going to be wrong. Plus, in a few cases, people even exaggerate or spread misinformation on purpose to promote certain theories or ideas. We certainly see that happen today. So there's a lot of bad information about Lavena out there. Actually, there are websites full of claims that just aren't true or at the very least haven't been confirmed. It is possible that some of those claims are true, but from the outside it is impossible to say for sure. Now I understand people want answers. It's very natural thing. This case is so strange and so mind boggling. It's natural to latch on any explanation that could help it make sense. But today I chose not to share those theories or repeat any of the rumors involved in this case. As much as possible, I stuck to the facts that were verified. Because after everything that's happened, if there is one thing that Lavena and her family deserve, it's the truth. It's what we can verify. And whether or not you look into Lavina's case and think that the army was right or her family was right, it doesn't take away from the fact that there is still an epidemic going on in our military services when it comes to violence against women. Like I said, Lavina is one of many. We need to make it a safe place for women to serve their country. And I hope, hope, hope that we are slowly getting there. All right, you guys, that was our episode and I will see you next time as we dive further into another one. Goodbye.
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Advertiser/Commercial Voice
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