Ship Blast Probe Shifts to Possibility of Murder, Suicide

Naval investigators probing the April 19 explosion of a 16-inch gun turret aboard the battleship Iowa are focusing on the possibility that a deteriorating relationship between two sailors may have led one of them to ponder murder or suicide, Navy sources said Wednesday.

Almost five weeks after a team of Navy gunnery experts began their inquiry, Defense Department sources said that investigators have been unable to find any clear evidence that the explosion, which killed 47 sailors, was an accident.

Instead, the investigation took an unexpected turn when the Navy learned that one of the survivors of the explosion was the beneficiary of a $100,000 life insurance policy purchased by Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Clayton Michael Hartwig, 24, who perished in the blast.

Listed as Beneficiary

Navy sources said that Hartwig, one of the last sailors to handle the 550-pound bag of gunpowder that exploded, had purchased the accidental death benefit more than a year ago and made Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Kendall L. Truitt, 21, the beneficiary.

The sources said that a “special relationship” had developed between Truitt and Hartwig, but had deteriorated, leaving Hartwig distraught.

Truitt was one of only 11 sailors in the turret who survived the blast. While Hartwig worked close to the gun where the explosion actually took place, Truitt was the senior enlisted man overseeing a crew of seven ammunition handlers in the bowels of the seven-story-high turret. He was shielded from the blast by a thick steel plate that separates the ammunition stores from the firing compartments.

(In another development, the New York newspaper Newsday reported in today’s editions that federal agents investigating the blast have discovered a crude detonating device and a book, “How to Get Even Without Going to Jail,” in Hartwig’s abandoned car.

(The car reportedly was found by federal agents Monday in the parking lot of a McDonald’s restaurant near the Norfolk Naval Base. The book found in the car was described as a volume detailing methods of constructing booby-traps and other deadly devices.

Searched for Car

(The agents had been searching for Hartwig’s car since the blast, and were led to its location by Hartwig’s relatives, who said that they had learned of its location from Truitt when they visited Norfolk for a memorial service.

(The sources said the evidence found in Hartwig’s car does not necessarily make him the more likely suspect in the blast because comparable evidence was also found in a search of Truitt’s apartment and because Truitt was the only one who apparently knew the location of Hartwig’s car.)

According to an NBC News report aired Wednesday, Hartwig had threatened suicide at age 17, when a similar relationship had foundered. More recently, investigators found that the sailor had hinted at thoughts of suicide in letters to his family, the report added.

Truitt, like Hartwig, was first reported by the Norfolk Ledger-Star last week to have purchased an accidental death policy, which initially listed Hartwig as the beneficiary. But Navy officials said that Hartwig was no longer listed on the forms when the Iowa steamed into the Atlantic in mid-April.

Hartwig’s family is contesting Truitt’s claim to the insurance money, according to a Navy official. The family has cooperated with Navy investigators who are trying to piece together the details of the Hartwig-Truitt relationship and determine whether it played any role in the fateful events.

Speaking to reporters in Norfolk, Va., three days after the blast, a clearly shaken Truitt said that he had first thought the explosion above him was the sound of the gun firing. But when he and his fellow ammunition handlers failed to reach the sailors above on sound-activated telephone, he said, “we knew something was drastically wrong,” and they escaped from the turret through emergency hatches.

Truitt added that some of his shipmates “are not over it yet. I’m working on it. But I’ll be back in the turret.”

Truitt could not be reached for comment on reports about his relationship with Hartwig. But he was quoted by the Newport News (Va.) Daily Press and Times-Herald Sunday as saying of the investigators: “In my opinion, they have no idea what’s going on, what caused it. I think they’re trying to find an easy way out.”

He said that he is used to being a scapegoat and that he and Hartwig had often been harassed by fellow sailors “because neither one of us drinks.”

A Navy official confirmed that Truitt has asked to be reassigned from duty on the Iowa, which is scheduled to leave Norfolk early in June for a six-month deployment to the Mediterranean. Hartwig was from Cleveland and Truitt’s hometown is Tampa, Fla.

One Navy officer familiar with the investigation vigorously denied any link between the ship’s imminent deployment and the emergence of a central focus on the part of investigators. Navy experts have consistently speculated that the cause of the blast may never be known, because all direct eyewitnesses have been killed and so much physical evidence was obliterated in the powerful blast.

Pentagon officials said that investigators have ruled out other factors earlier suspected to have contributed to the blast. The Navy, for instance, has conducted quality control checks on each of the bags of explosive powder taken from the affected turret after the blast and failed to find anything suspicious, Navy sources said.

Pentagon officials stressed, however, that the investigation, led by Rear Adm. Richard D. Milligan, has not been completed. That process could take several weeks more and may still be inconclusive, said a Navy source.