Military Hearing Opens in Death at Marine Barracks

Pfc. Kevin Berrigan signed a statement March 20 agreeing to testify against Cpl. Richard L. Plummer in an alleged payroll fraud investigation at the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro. But Berrigan angered his military attorney when he said he had told Plummer of his plans the preceding day.

“He mentioned that he’d seen Plummer and told him he would cooperate with the government,” Capt. John Canham, the attorney, testified at a military hearing Wednesday. “I turned on him. I said, ‘I don’t want you talking with Cpl. Plummer.’ He said Cpl. Plummer was cool. He was cool about the whole thing.”

Less than nine hours after that conversation, Berrigan was discovered dead in his barracks, stabbed 72 times with a foot-long knife still embedded in his body. Plummer was arrested by military authorities the next day and later charged with premeditated murder.

Canham’s testimony Wednesday came on the first day of a hearing to determine whether Plummer should face murder charges at a court-martial. The proceeding, similar to a preliminary hearing in civilian courts, is expected to last about three days.

Plummer, dressed in camouflage military fatigues, sat with his two military attorneys in the base courtroom before Investigation Officer Maj. Robert Kaainoni. A middle-age couple who said they were Plummer’s parents also attended the hearing, although they declined to talk to reporters or give their names.

Naval Investigative Service officers assigned to the case allege that Plummer killed Berrigan to prevent him from incriminating Plummer in the payroll fraud case. Berrigan, a 21-year-old body-building enthusiast from Wells, Me., who worked in the base disbursing office, was himself involved in the alleged fraud and had agreed to testify against Plummer for a lesser sentence, Canham said.

Canham said Berrigan did not appear to be afraid that Plummer would harm him. “Not at all,” Canham testified. “I never got a hint that Pfc. Berrigan was scared of Plummer, or that he had been threatened at all.”

Payroll Form Forged

Pvt. C. A. Meace, also a former clerk in the disbursing office, testified that he helped Berrigan alter and forge payroll records in December, 1984, enabling Plummer to get an unauthorized, $1,197 allowance for off-base housing. Berrigan forged a payroll “code” form, and Meace entered it in the base computer as a “favor” to Plummer, Meace said.

Navy investigators say that the conspiracy unraveled the next month when military supervisors in the office uncovered the discrepancy in Plummer’s records, which showed he received nearly three times his monthly $535 check. Three officers working in the disbursing office testified that at least one of the forged names was that of a captain who was on leave when the document was submitted. Another testified that the signatures were dated Dec. 25, when the office was closed for the Christmas holiday.

Meace, who testified that he was a friend of Berrigan’s but knew Plummer “only loosely,” pleaded guilty in the conspiracy and was sentenced March 12 to a bad conduct discharge and one month’s hard labor at Camp Pendleton. He also had his rank reduced from private first class to private and was ordered to forfeit $200 per month for five months.

Meace testified that he, Berrigan and Plummer discussed the investigation “two, three times” from January to the day Berrigan was killed. Plummer and Berrigan had yet to be charged in the case and were concerned about the status of the investigation, he said.

“We just discussed what I said, what I did,” Meace said. “They both told me I should have gotten a lawyer. He (Berrigan) told me he thought about it all day, every day.”

Canham said Berrigan first approached him about the case March 1 but did not admit any wrongdoing until March 15. “At that meeting he told me he did, in fact, participate,” Canham testified.

Berrigan said March 19 that he “wanted to plead guilty and would cooperate” with the investigation, Canham said. Berrigan was charged with conspiracy, wrongful appropriation of government funds, forgery, wrongful use of a forged document and obstruction of justice, Canham said. The attorney said Berrigan agreed to plead guilty to four of the five charges, sign a statement implicating Plummer and testify at Plummer’s trial.

“The government pretty much wanted . . . was keying on Cpl. Plummer,” Canham said.

Discovered Stabbed

Berrigan signed the statement March 20 and told the attorney of his conversation with Plummer about 2:30 p.m., as they drove to Berrigan’s barracks, Canham said. Berrigan was discovered stabbed to death in his barracks about 11 p.m. that day, Navy investigators said.

Plummer’s girlfriend, Cynthia Nelson, testified that Plummer came to her Santa Ana apartment between midnight and 1 a.m. the night of Berrigan’s death. Although the two had previous conversations about the investigation, she said, she knew little about the case, except that it was “a conspiracy.” She said she did not know what the word meant.

Nelson said that when Plummer arrived at the apartment, he told her that “something had happened.” She said that Plummer used the phrase “Ol’ boy got stabbed” but that he denied slaying Berrigan.