Incident on Hill 192

Last updated

The incident on Hill 192 refers to the kidnapping, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman, [1] on November 19, 1966 [2] by an American squad during the Vietnam War. [1] Although news of the incident reached the U.S. shortly after the soldiers' trials, [3] the story gained widespread notoriety through Daniel Lang's 1969 article for The New Yorker [4] and his subsequent book. [5] In 1970 Michael Verhoeven made the film o.k. , based on the incident. The Visitors is a 1972 American drama film directed by Elia Kazan also based on the incident. In 1989 Brian De Palma directed the film Casualties of War , which was based on Lang's book. [1]

Contents

Incident

On November 17, 1966, Sergeant David Edward Gervase (aged 20) and Private First Class Steven Cabbot Thomas (21)—both members of C Company, 2nd Battalion (Airmobile), 8th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division—talked to three other squad members (Privates First Class Robert M. Storeby, 22; cousins Cipriano S. Garcia, 21, and Joseph C. Garcia, 20) [3] about plans to kidnap a "pretty girl" during their reconnaissance mission planned for the next day, [6] and "at the end of five days we would kill her." Storeby also recalled that Gervase claimed it would be "good for the morale of the squad." [7]

At approximately 05:00 on the morning of 18 November, the squad entered the tiny village of Cat Tuong, in the Phu My District, looking for a woman. [8] After finding Phan Thi Mao (21), they bound her wrists with rope, gagged her, and took her on the mission. Later, after setting up camp in an abandoned hooch, four of the soldiers (excluding Storeby) took turns raping Mao. The following day, in the midst of a firefight with the Viet Cong, Thomas and Gervase became worried that the woman would be seen with the squad. Thomas took Mao into a brushy area, and although he stabbed her three times with his hunting knife, he failed to kill her. When she tried to flee, three of the soldiers chased after her. Thomas caught her and shot her in the head with his M16 rifle. [6]

Aftermath

Storeby initially reported the crime. At first, the chain of command, including the company commander, took no action. Despite threats against his life by the soldiers who took part in the rape and murder, Storeby was determined to see the soldiers punished. His persistence in reporting the crime to higher authorities eventually resulted in general courts-martial against his four fellow squad mates. [6] It was during those proceedings that the victim was identified by her sister as Phan Thi Mao. [9]

Thomas, Cipriano Garcia, and Joseph Garcia were each convicted of unpremeditated murder in March and April 1967. Gervase was found guilty on the count of premeditated murder. [10] At the trial of Thomas, who committed the actual stabbing and shooting, the prosecutor asked the jury to impose a death sentence. [6] The court, however, sentenced Thomas to life imprisonment with hard labor. This sentence was first commuted to 20 years, then reduced to eight, which made him eligible for parole after half that time. He was paroled on June 18, 1970. [11]

Likewise, Gervase's initial sentence of ten years with hard labor was reduced to eight. [12] He was paroled on August 9, 1969. [11] In 1968, Joseph Garcia was acquitted on the appeal of his initial 15-year sentence and his dishonorable discharge was reversed after it was determined that his Fifth Amendment rights were violated, and his confession was ruled as inadmissible. Cipriano Garcia's 4-year sentence was shortened to 22 months. All soldiers (excluding Storeby) were dishonorably discharged from the Army. [12] [13]

Gervase died on March 23, 1981. He was 44 years old.

In 1992, former PFC Thomas gained further notoriety when he was charged with being an accessory after the fact in the murder trial of George Loeb, who was charged with the 17 May 1991 shooting death of an African-American USS Saratoga sailor named Harold J. Mansfield. Both Thomas and Loeb were leaders of the white supremacist World Church of the Creator. Thomas remained free on bond during the trial, and court records showed that in exchange for his testimony he would only serve one year's probation. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eddie Slovik</span> Executed US Army serviceman (1920–1945)

Edward Donald Slovik was a United States Army soldier during World War II and the only American soldier to be court-martialled and executed for desertion since the American Civil War. Although over 21,000 American soldiers were given varying sentences for desertion during World War II, including 49 death sentences, Slovik's death sentence was the only one that was carried out.

<i>Casualties of War</i> 1989 film directed by Brian De Palma

Casualties of War is a 1989 American war drama film directed by Brian De Palma and written by David Rabe, based primarily on an article written by Daniel Lang for The New Yorker in 1969, which was later published as a book. The film stars Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn and is based on the events of the 1966 incident on Hill 192 during the Vietnam War, in which a Vietnamese woman was kidnapped from her village by a squad of American soldiers, who raped and murdered her. For the film, all names and some details of the true story were altered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Disciplinary Barracks</span> Military correction facility in Fort Leavenworth, KS

The United States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB), colloquially known as Leavenworth, is a military correctional facility located on Fort Leavenworth, a United States Army post in Kansas. It is one of two major prisons built on Fort Leavenworth property, the other is the military Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility, which opened on 5 October 2010. It reports to the United States Army Corrections Command and its commandant usually holds the rank of colonel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matricide</span> Act of killing ones own mother

Matricide is the act of killing one's own mother.

Muhamad Husain Kadir was an Iraqi prisoner killed in 2004. Private First Class Edward L. Richmond, a U.S. Army soldier, was convicted of manslaughter in relation to his death. Richmond was sentenced to three years in prison and a dishonorable discharge, as well as pay forfeiture and a reduction in rank.

Thuy Thu Le is known for her appearance in the 1989 movie Casualties of War by Brian De Palma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Erskine</span> American serial killer

Scott Thomas Erskine was an American serial killer on California's death row, convicted in 2003 for the 1993 murder of two California boys. He was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.

The Mahmudiyah rape and killings were a series of war crimes committed by five U.S. Army soldiers during the U.S. occupation of Iraq, involving the gang-rape and murder of 14-year-old Iraqi girl Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the murder of her family on March 12, 2006. It occurred in the family's house to the southwest of Yusufiyah, a village to the west of the town of Al-Mahmudiyah, Iraq. Other members of al-Janabi's family murdered by American soldiers included her 34-year-old mother Fakhriyah Taha Muhasen, 45-year-old father Qassim Hamza Raheem, and 6-year-old sister Hadeel Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. The two remaining survivors of the family, 9-year-old brother Ahmed and 11-year-old brother Mohammed, were at school during the massacre and orphaned by the event.

This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom</span> 2007 carjacking, rape, and murder of a couple in Knoxville, Tennessee

Channon Gail Christian, aged 21, and Hugh Christopher Newsom Jr., aged 23, were from Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. They were kidnapped on the evening of January 6, 2007, when Christian's vehicle was carjacked. The couple were taken to a rental house. Both of them were raped, tortured, and murdered. Four males and one female were arrested, charged, and convicted in the case. In 2007, a grand jury indicted Letalvis Darnell Cobbins, Lemaricus Devall Davidson, George Geovonni Thomas, and Vanessa Lynn Coleman on counts of kidnapping, robbery, rape, and murder. Also in 2007, Eric DeWayne Boyd was indicted by a federal grand jury of being an accessory to a carjacking, resulting in serious bodily injury to another person and misprision of a felony. In 2018, Boyd was indicted on state-level charges of kidnapping, robbery, rape, and murder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ripper Crew</span> American cult and organized crime group

The Ripper Crew or the Chicago Rippers was an organized crime group of serial killers, cannibals, rapists, and necrophiles. The group composed of Robin Gecht and three associates: Edward Spreitzer, and brothers Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis. They were suspected in the murders of 17 women in Illinois in 1981 and 1982, as well as the unrelated fatal shooting of a man in a random drive-by shooting. According to one of the detectives who investigated the case, Gecht "made Manson look like a Boy Scout."

In the United States, life imprisonment is the most severe punishment provided by law in states with no valid capital punishment statute, and second-most in those with a valid statute. According to a 2013 study, 1 of every 2 000 inhabitants of the U.S. were imprisoned for life as of 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John E. Hatley</span> Former U.S. Army First Sergeant

John E. Hatley is a former first sergeant who was prosecuted by the United States Army in 2008 for murdering four Iraqi detainees near Baghdad, Iraq in 2006. He was convicted in 2009 and sentenced to life in prison at the Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks. He was released on parole in October 2020. Hatley is colloquially associated with a group of US military personnel convicted of war crimes known as the Leavenworth 10.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Floyd Thomas Jr.</span> Convicted American serial killer

John Floyd Thomas Jr. is an American serial killer, serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murders of seven women in the Los Angeles area during the 1970s and 1980s. Police suspect Thomas committed 10 to 15 more murders.

In France, life imprisonment is a punishment of indeterminate length and may last for the remainder of the convict's life. The sentence is the most severe punishment given under French law and it can be imposed by the courts for aggravated murder, treason, terrorism, drug kingpin and other serious felonies resulting in death or involving torture. There is an average of 25 sentences of life imprisonment per year and there are 550 inmates currently jailed for life. Life sentences for crimes other than aggravated murder are rare.

Capital punishment in Peru was last used in 1979. In the same year, the death penalty was abolished for ordinary crimes. Peru is one of seven countries that has abolished capital punishment for "ordinary crimes only." Peru voted in favor of the United Nations moratorium on the death penalty in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020. Peru is not a signatory to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Ben Rhoades</span> American serial killer and rapist

Robert Benjamin Rhoades, also known as The Truck Stop Killer, is an American serial killer and rapist. He is confirmed to have tortured and killed at least two couples in Illinois and Texas in 1989 and 1990, and is additionally suspected of torturing, raping, and killing more than fifty women between 1975 and 1990, based on data about his truck routes and women who went missing during those years and who met the profile of his preferred victims. At the time he was caught, Rhoades claimed to have engaged in these activities for fifteen years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Ray Cable</span> American serial killer

James Ray Cable was an American serial killer. Originally convicted in 1990 for kidnapping and torturing a teenage girl, he was later linked via DNA to the murders of three women in across Kentucky between 1982 and 1989. He was subsequently charged with these crimes, but died while awaiting trial in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rape during the Vietnam War</span>

Rape, among other acts of wartime sexual violence, was frequently committed against female Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War. It was an aspect of the various human rights abuses perpetrated by the United States and South Korea, as well as by local Vietnamese combatants. According to American political scientist Elisabeth Jean Wood, the sexual violation of women by American military personnel was tolerated by their commanders. American professor Gina Marie Weaver stated that not only were documented crimes against Vietnamese women by American soldiers ignored during the international legal discourse that occurred immediately after the conflict, but modern feminists and other anti-war rape campaigners, as well as historians, have continued to dismiss them.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Fitzpatrick (1989), p.1.
  2. ↑ Fitzpatrick (1989), p.2.
  3. 1 2 "GIs Convicted of Rape-Slaying" (1967), p.18.
  4. ↑ Lang (1969a)
  5. ↑ Fitzpatrick (1989), p.4.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Borch, p.71.
  7. ↑ Lang (1969b), pp.26.
  8. ↑ Lang (1969b), pp.28.
  9. ↑ Lang (1969b), pp.13.
  10. ↑ Lang (1969b), pp.101.
  11. 1 2 "Three Episodes in Military History".
  12. 1 2 Fitzpatrick (1989), p.3.
  13. ↑ Lang (1969b), pp.110-119.
  14. ↑ "Report:Sailor-trial witness was in Vietnam rape-murder", The Gainesville Sun , July 24, 1992

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.