170. LaVena Lynn Johnson: The Soldier Who Never Came Home

Nineteen-year-old PFC LaVena Johnson was found dead on a military base in Iraq, with the Army ruling it a suicide. But the evidence—broken teeth, burns, a dislocated shoulder, and signs of sexual assault—tells a different story. Her father, a psychologist and military veteran, refused to accept the official explanation and uncovered disturbing details suggesting a cover-up. Was LaVena murdered? And if so, why has the truth been buried for nearly two decades? Let’s explore this case, the fight for justice, and the questions that still demand answers.



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Written by: Chelsea Perry
Intro and Outro by: Jahred Gomes


Resources:
Department of Defense. US Army FOIA Request. Requested 15 October, 2021.
Dowler, Lorraine, and Jenna Christian. “Landscapes of Impunity and the Deaths of
Americans LaVena Johnson and Sandra Bland.” 
Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, vol. 26, no. 6, June 2019, pp. 813–29. 
EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1553863.
Greenburg, Jennifer, and Mimi Healy. “Deserted: The U.S. Military’s Sexual Assault Crisis as a Cost of War.” 
Costs of War, Brown University, 14 Aug. 2024, watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2024/sexualassault.
The Silent Truth. Directed by Joan Brooker-Marks, Midtown Films, 2010. 
Fandango, https://athome.fandango.com/content/movies/play/811418/ADVERT_CONTENT?return
Url=%2Fcontent%2Fbrowse%2Fdetails%2FThe-Silent-Truth%2F811418.
Wright, Ann. “Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?”
Common Dreams, 21 Dec. 2022, www.commondreams.org/views/2008/04/28/there-army-cover-
Rape-and-murder-women-soldiers



Background Music: Documentary by Alexander Nakarada | https://creatorchords.com | Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

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