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Missing U.S. Army soldier located by civilians
http://www.indianz.com
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2002
The body of an Army officer was positively identified on Monday by military
officials who failed to recover the Sioux tribal member despite an exhaustive
search and an ongoing investigation into the circumstances of his death.
After being reported missing more than two months ago, Sergeant Alan Two Crow
was located by civilian volunteers who went to the West Point Military
Academy in New York at the urging of a Ponca elder. Eric Milland and Charlie
Hetman found the decomposed body on Saturday in a rocky and steep area after
a two-hour search.
That was where Two Crow, 27, apparently fell to his death, according to the
military. The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and the Criminal
Investigative Division confirmed his identity on Sunday.
"Preliminary reports indicate that Two Crow's death was accidental due to a
broken neck from a fall," West Point said in a statement yesterday.
Two Crow, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, was
last seen on July 13. His family reported him missing soon after but the
military, in conjunction with the state police, couldn't find him.
"We searched the probable areas given to us by the State Police and we even
searched outside of those boundaries," said Lt. Col. James Whaley, West
Point's spokesman, in an official military publication.
The failure drew scorn from Carter Camp, a Ponca tribal member and Indian
activist who accused the military of racism. "This has been an outrageous
case from the beginning," he said in an e-mail sent to an American Indian
Movement-related mailing list.
"The Army completely failed to investigate and was perfectly willing to just
forget a soldier was missing," he wrote. "I believe their lack of interest
was because he was Indian and I think we can prove it."
In other published reports, Two Crow's family believed their son was being
ignored. "[T]he Army is just giving us a run-around, not enough information,"
brother Jaime told the Associated Press.
Two Crow had been recently named "Soldier of the Month" at West Point. He was
on a four-day pass when he went missing on the grounds of the academy.
He was found about a half-mile from a housing area. The military believes he
fell to his death early July 14 while trying to walk back from the area to
his barracks.
An investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is urged to call (845)
938-3333.
Milland, is a member of Montana's Crow Tribe who lives in New York City.
Hetman is a civilian worker at West Point.
According to Nativenewsonline.org, an online site which helped arrange the
search, state police arrived on the scene of Saturday's discovery faster than
the military police.
Relevant Links:
Missing: Sgt. Alan Two-Crow - http://www.troopers.state.ny.us/WntdMiss/
Poster/Missing/two-crow.html
U.S. Military Academy at West Point - http://www.usma.edu
Related Stories:
NNN: Army officer, tribal member, missing
Missing West Point
sarge's body found
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/21341p-20247c.html
By DEREK ROSE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sgt. Alan Two Crow
The body of a West Point police sergeant the military had been searching for
for months was found by three civilians in just two hours Saturday.Sgt. Alan
Two Crow apparently died in a fall while cutting across rough terrain late at
night on West Point grounds, authorities said. His family blasted the Army
academy yesterday for not finding the respected miliary police officer's body
sooner and demanded a full investigation."It's just a hard thing to believe,
that they could have conducted a thorough search and not found him," said
Eric Milland, a kitchen and bath contractor from the Bronx, who did.Two Crow,
a Dakota Sioux Indian who was West Point's "Soldier of the Month" for July,
apparently fell and broke his neck in a steep wooded area, authorities
said.He apparently took a shortcut back to his barracks between 2:45 a.m. and
5 a.m. July14 after leaving a party at a friend's flat in a remote section of
the military academy, said West Point spokesman Lt. Col. James
Whaley.Milland, who is part Crow Indian, mounted his own search with his
girlfriend and a West Point mechanic Saturday after being dissatisfied with
the military's efforts."I got to tell you, it was really too easy, that's the
only way I could put it," said Milland, who spotted Two Crow's white Reeboks.
The remains were in plain view in the woods, about 600 feet from a
playground, said Milland, 43.Whaley said the military searched the area for
seven days, using upward of 40 soldiers, 20 search dogs and a helicopter."I
can tell you that Sgt. Two Crow is a military police sergeant," Whaley said.
"I can guarantee you those MPs looked pretty hard to find one of their
own."Two Crow, 27, was from the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation in South
Dakota and served in the Army for 12 years, including two in Kosovo,
Yugoslavia. He recently reenlisted.Don Two Crow said his son Alan was an
inspiration to his six younger siblings and the rest of the reservation. "We
were hoping he was still alive all this time," he said. "We had a feeling he
was either kidnapped or was being held someplace. All this time he was laying
right there on West Point academy grounds, just 600 feet away."The military
sent a letter in August to Two Crow's ex-wife, accusing him of going AWOL and
threatening a court-martial, said Don Two Crow.
West Point Death Furor
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/57739.htm
By GILL SMITH
September 24, 2002 -- Military bigs came under fire yesterday for their
"botched" handling of the search for missing West Point Sgt. Alan Two-Crow,
whose body was finally found Saturday by three civilians. Friends and family
of the Native American soldier ripped into West Point officials for their
failure to find the 27-year-old MP, who vanished two months ago. "The
military have botched this investigation so bad," Two-Crow's ex-wife, Toni,
said. "They've [wrongly] considered it an AWOL situation from Day One." The
Army just yesterday said that Two-Crow - who was recently named the military
academy's "Soldier of the Month" - died after falling down a steep slope and
breaking his neck. They called his death a tragic accident, but said an
investigation is continuing. But his 34-year-old ex-wife believes her former
husband was murdered because he may have been having an affair with the wife
of another soldier. "I don't think he was pushed. Alan is a big man. He
wouldn't have accidentally fallen anywhere," said Toni, who has a 2-year-old
son with Two-Crow. "There has been some speculation that he was having an
affair. This was no accident." Two-Crow, from the Cheyenne River Sioux
Reservation in South Dakota, vanished July 14 after spending the night at a
friend's quarters in the academy's Stony One housing section. West Point
officials say they carried out extensive searches around the academy over
that next week and a half, but turned up nothing. On Saturday, three
civilians found his body after just two hours of searching. Eric Milland, his
girlfriend, Laurie Hogan, and West Point civilian defense worker Charlie
Hetman launched the search after Two-Crow's family complained to politicians
and Army officials that their probe was too lax. The trio had Milland's dog,
Orea, with them at the time. The group, scouring steep woods, spotted the
body off a trail that Two-Crow would have taken to get back to his barracks
from the housing complex where his friend stayed. "I spotted his white Reebok
sneakers. His body was out in the open, and there was a partial decomposition
of it," said Milland, 43, a Crow Indian from The Bronx. "I just can't see how
the military couldn't find his body or how they couldn't smell it. I saw it
from 50 feet away. How could they have missed it?" West Point spokesman Lt.
Col. James Whaley said 20 different dog teams, 50 to 60 soldiers and dozens
of police officers were used in the military's search, which took in the area
where Two-Crow's body was found. "We used every asset available to us to find
Sgt. Two-Crow," Whaley said.
ID confirms Two-Crow's body found
September 24, 2002
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2002/09/24/whtwocro.htm
By Wayne A. Hall
The Times Herald-Record
waynehall@th-record.com
West Point -- The body of Sgt. Alan Two-Crow was positively identified
yesterday and preliminary findings suggest he broke his neck in an accidental
fall.
Family members, angry over what they said was the Army's botched attempts
to locate the Military Police officer, demanded a special investigation.
He had been missing for more than two months. Two-Crow's body was found
off a path 200 to 300 feet from a playground outside a West Point housing
complex used by regular Army personnel. The path ran through rugged,
boulder-strewn woods, connecting Two-Crow's barracks with the Stony Lonesome
housing complex, where he was visiting. The distance between the barracks and
housing complex is approximately a half-mile.
A search involving what West Point said were hundreds of military and
state police officers began July 17, shortly after Two-Crow's weekend pass
was up and he didn't report for duty. Two civilians found him in two hours of
searching at about 6 p.m. Saturday.
The men said they were inspired to search for him by pleas from Two-Crow's
family, who live on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. One
searcher called the family's wait "frustrating" and said that the family
needed closure.
Lt. Col. James Whaley, a West Point spokesman, said the original Army
search included 20 dog teams. Two-Crow's fellow MPs scoured the steep
woodlands, looking for their buddy.
How Two-Crow came to fall about 15 feet from a rocky ledge is being
investigated. A toxicology report is due in 10 days. Two-Crow may have been
drinking Doc's Hard Lemonade with a buddy MP while watching the film
"Platoon" the night he disappeared, according to information family friends
got from an Army sergeant.
There were no clues to Two-Crow's disappearance. He was to pick someone up
at the airport the next day. He had fresh groceries in his room. He had
completed a leadership course and was a recent "Soldier of the Month."
Whaley said "the West Point community is saddened by this loss and our
thoughts are with and hearts go out to the Two-Crow family and friends. We
lost one of our own." A memorial is planned for later this week.
Photographer Jeff Goulding contributed to this report.
E-mails outline Army's investigation
West Point -- E-mails between an Army investigator and a member of Alan
Two-Crow's family obtained by the Times Herald-Record give a snapshot of how
the Army went about its investigation.
For example, an Army investigator e-mailed a family member on Aug. 27: "I
am sorry I still have no news. But no news does not necessarily mean bad
news. I am baffled as to how someone just vanishes. But I am confident we
will come across something soon. Like I said, I will let you know."
The e-mails say the Army subpoenaed Hotmail accounts.
They questioned why Two-Crow had left his silver wedding ring in his room,
the ring adorned with a buffalo pierced by a lightning bolt.
The Army called in a seasoned missing-persons state police investigator to
review the case file to make sure the Army hadn't missed something.
"It's always good to have a fresh eye look at something," Army
investigator Lorrie Dinsmore wrote to Two-Crow's family.
While the Army investigated, questions never stopped from the family.
"We were bombarded from the start with numerous calls from everyone in the
family," Dinsmore wrote.
-- Wayne A. Hall
Civilians find missing MP's body
September 23, 2002
By Wayne A. Hall
Times Herald-Record
waynehall@th-record.com
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2002/09/23/whbodyfo.htm
West Point -- Anxious to solve the riddle of missing Military Police
officer Sgt. Alan Two-Crow, Eric Milland, a Crow Indian from the Bronx, and
Charlie Hetman, a civilian defense worker at West Point, scoured some steep
woods for two hours Saturday. They found his body at about 6 p.m.
"I'd say I saw his white Reeboks," said Milland, accompanied by a
15-year-old spaniel-type dog named Orea. The clothes fit the description of
the missing soldier.
Military officials have been searching for Two-Crow for two months. The
two civilians said they found his body off a trail he would have taken to get
to the MP barracks from the sprawling Stony Lonesome housing complex where
Two-Crow was visiting when he went missing.
It wasn't clear yesterday how far the body lay from the housing complexes.
But both the military and the civilian discoverers said it was either less
than a half-mile or a quarter-mile. West Point officials called it a remote
part of the academy.
Why didn't the military find Two-Crow?
"Great question," said post provost marshal, Col. Harry Rosenthal. "How
come civilians can find a body and search parties cannot? We conducted a
thorough search of the area for several days with dogs in difficult terrain
where we were guessing where the body was. We're grateful someone found the
body." But as for why the military or police missed him, "that's complete
conjecture," said Rosenthal.
Post officials yesterday said they found Two-Crow's wallet with his
identification on the body, but they won't say if the body is Two-Crow's
until the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and Army Criminal
Investigations Division make a positive identification and possibly find the
manner and cause of death. How long that could take wasn't clear.
No signs of foul play were evident, but South Dakota state Rep. Thomas
Van Norman, a lawyer and American Indian, said, "Things I've heard strongly
suggest foul play."
West Point never ruled out foul play. Two-Crow just vanished. Fresh
groceries were in his room. He was to wake up the next day and pick someone
up at an airport. He was just about to be reassigned to Colorado, had
completed a leadership course, had re-enlisted and was a recent "Soldier of
the Month."
Hetman, an auto mechanic and former MP, and Milland, a contractor,
searched for Two-Crow after family members at Two-Crow's home on the Cheyenne
River Sioux Reservation complained to politicians and Army officials that the
search for the missing MP was lax.
"This was very frustrating for the people involved," said Milland. "The
family needs closure."
"It's just horrible that they couldn't find him. His wife was hysterical
today on the phone," said Maureen La Burt, a senior staffer of
Nativenewsonline.org., a Web site devoted to news and information concerning
American Indians "He was right under their noses." La Burt helped put
together the Hetman and Milland search team. The men gave lengthy statements
to Army investigators.
Carter Camp, former chairman of the American Indian Movement who went to
federal prison for his leadership in the 1973, 69-day standoff at Wounded
Knee, S.D., said yesterday he had encouraged the civilians to find Two-Crow
on their own.
"This really p.o. s me," he said. "I want an investigation into why the
military investigation didn't find him," said Camp. "Indian people don't want
this investigation to end here. There are a lot of Native Americans in
service because there are no jobs on the reservations and we have a right to
know they are going to be treated like any other American."
In fact, West Point, which has American Indian cadets, conducted an
intensive investigation and will investigate Two-Crow's death fully, said
post spokesman Lt. Col. James Whaley. He said he couldn't talk about ongoing
probes.
The discovery of the body brought flashing police lights to the tightly
knit Stony Lonesome housing area, where people often flip cookout burgers on
a delightful summery fall football game day like Saturday. They "wondered
what the heck was going on," said one resident's relative.
Anyone with information about the investigation is asked to call the U.S.
Army Criminal Investigation Command at 845-938-3333.
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