Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Reverie True Crime, your gateway to the
darkest corners of human nature, where we expose the hidden
truths of human depravity. These harrowing stories serve as a
sobering reminder to keep our senses keen and our awareness
sharp for predator's lurk in unexpected places, patiently waiting and observing.
(00:24):
Join us as we unravel mysteries, explore motives, and seek
justice for victims. As we bring awareness to these cases.
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Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hello, Hello, and welcome to Reverie True Crime. I'm your
host page. Today we're going to talk about the case
of Lavena Johnson, who was said to have taken her
own life in Iraq, but looking closer, that does not
seem to be the truth.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
The world was bright for Lavina Lynn Johnson, a recent
high school graduate. She had plans to work in the
film business, a close knit family of six who adored her,
and the promise.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Of the world at her feet just waiting.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
All of this ended in what the United States Army
ruled a suicide thousands of miles from her home in Missouri,
on the sands of the desert in Iraq. The verdict
that a woman standing at five point one shot herself
in the head with a weapon almost her height has
(01:40):
raised questions. It is a fact that sexual assaults occur
in the military. Roughly a fourth of women on active
duty and almost two percent of men reported it during
the Afghanistan War. Other studies have suggested one in three
women and are subjected to assault, but each common denominator
(02:04):
indicates that minorities and women of color are most often victimized.
As disturbing as these numbers are by themselves, it begs
the question how many of these atrocities go unreported. Many
do not report their assault to avoid retaliation, having their
(02:25):
personal information leap and further harassment. Of course, this causes
the true amount of assaults that occur in both the
military and civilian sectors to reflect lower than the actual number.
Lavina Lynn Johnson was born July twenty seventh, nineteen eighty five,
(02:47):
to her parents John and Linda Johnson.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
She was the.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Fourth child out of five and oldest of the two girls,
who grew up in Fluorescent, Missouri. Both of her parents
held civilian jobs in support of positions for the military,
presumably through the Department of Defense. John was a military
veteran himself and held a PhD in psychology. The Johnson
(03:15):
children had more than an example of hard work and determination.
They had the definition of the words through doctor Johnson alone.
Lavina was known in her school for years for her
athleticism and frequent appearances on the honor roll. According to
her family, her future was so bright and her determination
(03:40):
was endless, but she finally settled on a career in
the film industry. Knowing she would need to likely get
her education from a West Coast university, p f. C.
Johnson made her mind up to avoid putting her family into.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Debt to pay for her education.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
She would enlist in the US Army and after her service,
be able to take full advantage of the GI Bill
to pay for her schooling. Doctor Johnson swore to his
daughter that he would make it happen, but Lavina insisted
on providing for herself. Letters sent to her family detailed
(04:22):
the rigors of boot camp, softened by her reassurances to
her mother that she remained in good spirits. Nevertheless, she
persisted by rising and going through it all while coming
out better than.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
She was at the end.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
After being told there was a slim to no chance
that their child would be deployed to the desert soon.
The Johnson family was bidding their oldest girl farewell as
she was assigned to duty in Iraq.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Pfc.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Johnson was the first casualty from Missouri in the Iraq,
passing away eight days before her twentieth birthday. Instead of
celebrating the life of their vibrant young daughter, her family
spent their time sitting in a cold funeral home. The
(05:16):
body on display was nowhere near the person who shipped
out with the US Army. In fact, the military's Casualty
liaison recommended a closed casket service. It did not take
a professional to see that not only was Lavina's nose broken,
showing a bump that her family says was not there before,
(05:40):
and several of her teeth were knocked out, her shoulder
was dislocated, and her body was covered in abrasions that
were not explained in the initial reports at all.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Her dress uniforms.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
White gloves were also glued to her hands, perhaps to
prevent a thorough examiner from scraping under her fingernails for
DNA evidence and absolutely hiding third degree burns. Lavina's autopsy
took place three days after her death, but her father
(06:16):
did not receive any information about this, as he requested
for weeks after. In his call with the medical examiner
that performed the autopsy, John Johnson found out that no
rape test was done. Further, he was told that his
daughter committed suicide. As a five foot one woman, He
(06:40):
wondered how his daughter would be able to place a
forty inch weapon into her mouth and physically pull the trigger.
None of the explanations offered add it up. Yet, even
in his grief, this father's fire to find out the
truth was not dampened. The circumstances of her discovery in
(07:03):
the official report indicate that a staff sergeant was held
in the dining room by someone who heard a booming
sound and saw fire. Several other soldiers were alerted and
went running towards the sound. The body of a black
female in a T shirt, peetee pants, and sneakers was
(07:24):
found on the ground under a bench with.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
A weapon laid across her body.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
A witness statement said that parts of the body were smoking.
One person checked for signs of life to find none,
while others focused on putting out the fire. Someone noticed
a fluid on the floor somewhere during the fray. Medics
recalled and promptly arrived. They thought they were coming into
(07:51):
a scene with a victim of smoke inhalation. Little did
they know it was more like a bloodbath.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Vitals were not there, and when they.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Noticed her M sixteen, they moved it. The massive head
trauma meant that CPR or any further aid would have
been futile. From here, the military police took over with
an independent investigation. Doctor Johnson was provided black and white
copies of some of the photos taken at the scene,
(08:25):
which was said to be quote so messed up that
it was going to take a year to straighten.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Out end quote.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
This man fought tooth and nail for every single document
that he was given, never letting someone push him into
a corner. How could he accept the suicide of a
daughter who showed no signs of distress.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Why would a young person who.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Was so excited to come home for Christmas leave, ask
her family not to decorate without her, and then take
her own life. Official documents stated that she was quote
not mentally sound, but her father, again a trained psychologist,
did not find one shred of that evidence and asked
(09:15):
for a psychological profile. He questioned her being allowed to
carry a gun if they deemed her so mentally unstable.
The response to that was that she had begun eating
ice cream often. In Iraq, where temperatures soar to over
one hundred degrees fahrenheit on the regular, where a nineteen
(09:39):
year old woman is away from her family, this is
what was said to be unnatural, even suicidal behavior. The
army's report stated that Lavina recently started smoking. This does
not appear surprising, since cigarettes were sold at the base's store,
(10:00):
and that alone means that many other soldiers likely smoked.
Lavina was not even known to purchase her own cigarettes,
though she did bum a few from her colleagues. Surely
this did not make her appear to any sensible person
as one who would go so far as to shoot
(10:20):
herself in the head. Doctor Johnson bravely went through the
photographs of his daughter at the scene and thought it
was odd that she was lying with her right arm
covering her face. Reflecting on this, he wondered how it
was physically possible to fall from a gunshot wound in
(10:42):
such an unnatural manner. Would not one's limbs fall to
the ground and lie beside that body. Would the gun
used to be thrown about and not found parallel to
the body. Yet another piece of evidence that did not
fit the army's narrative of suicide was added to the
(11:04):
Johnson's arsenal. Through two and a half years of persistence,
doctor Johnson and several friends obtained information from the Army. Eventually,
all the information.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Put together a story of rape and cover up.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
One curious item that doctor Johnson received was a black
and white copy of a CD. After contacting their local congressman,
doctor Johnson and friends obtained a copy of the actual disc,
which revealed scenes of brutality that nobody could have ever predicted.
(11:45):
Department of Defense information mentioned that p. F. C. Johnson
was raped, resulting in a sexually transmitted disease she sought
treatment for at the on site clinic.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
This fact did not come out until after her death.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Photos from the aforementioned disc of Lavina's nude body showed
blunt force trauma to the face, bruises, scratches, and teeth
prints on the upper body. Some sort of accelerant had
been poured onto her back and right hand, explaining the
witness statements that said parts of her were smoking when
(12:26):
the scene was discovered. Most disturbing of all were the
injuries to her genitals. Like the rest of her body,
Lavina's genitalia was severely beaten, resulting in bruising and lacerations.
Some manner of caustic liquid was even poured on her vagina.
(12:48):
When we combine the evidence obtained by doctor Johnson with
the foia information from the US Army, we see that
a fully clothed woman was found in a contractor's tent.
Dirt and sand on the back of her uniform lined
up with the blood trail leading to the scene. This
(13:08):
is indicative that someone drug her body from the place
that she died and then set.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
The body on fire.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
This is the common sense conclusion Army officials imply that
Lavina left her barracks, strolled to the opposite end of
the camp, then sat down in a filthy contractor's tent
in the dark, started a fire, and shot herself. Okham's
razors suggest that when two situations may explain an outcome,
(13:40):
the least complicated is most likely what happened. The US
Army did not appear to understand that concept. The US
Army's ruling of suicide in the case of Lavina Johnson,
Tina Priest, and an untold amount of women's soldiers deaths
(14:00):
show quote. The strategy of state impunity through which the
militarized state controls information, dismisses the caring knowledge of family
members as witnesses, and mobilizes race and gender tropes in
order to avoid culpability for the death of those in
its care and control end quote. The Johnson family's fight
(14:25):
for information proves as much. The Johnsons, priests, and families
of the deceased women soldiers jump through hoops for every
page released. Often they don't know what they need to
ask for, further delaying the receipt of information. Women are
(14:46):
continuously blamed for their own rapes by men in power
who question what they were wearing. In the case of
Lavina Johnson, she was blamed for her own death based
on what she she was eating. Did this young woman
ask to be assaulted and murdered while wearing a uniform
(15:07):
for the organization tasked with protecting American citizens?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
She was wearing the.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Uniform of a protector, but not one soul protected her
from her fate. Again, piecing together all the evidence, what
likely happened was that Lavina Johnson was raped and then
murdered to cover up the evidence. If we are going
on assumptions, then the perpetrator was most likely a man
(15:37):
in power. The name quote command rape has been given
to situations where a superior ranking officer assaults someone under
his command, then uses intimidation tactics to silence the victim,
regardless of gender. The dubious suicide of Johnson has remained
(16:02):
a persistent topic in the discussions of deaths during the
Iraq War. She has been the topic of articles, other podcasts,
and scholarly papers for going on two decades. Even with
the mountain of evidence suggesting foul play, the US Army
(16:22):
maintains its original verdict of suicide. It has only been
recently that women who served have come out and spoken
about their own experiences. Lavina never had that chance. She
never got to go to college, have her own children,
and watch them grow. That is why we continue to
(16:45):
say her name. Thank you so much for listening to
this episode about Lavina Johnson. Until next time, stay safe
and take care.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Thank you for listening to this episode. As we close out,
let us not forget. Awareness is our greatest defense in
a world that can be dark and grim. Vigilance is
our beacon of hope when it comes to the cases
we have explored together that have remained unsolved. If you
happen to hold a piece of the puzzle, dare to
step forward. As Arthur Lois McMaster bouge Hold once said,
(17:24):
the dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a
duty of the living to do so for them until
we reconvene, my friends, stay vigilant and stay informed.