Autopsy Report Calls Soldier’s Death a Suicide

A California National Guard soldier who was found dead last month in Germany and who became the center of an ongoing dispute between the Guard and the U.S. Army, killed himself, according to an autopsy report released Thursday.

A separate document indicated that a National Guard official has filed a complaint with the Department of Defense inspector general’s office, alleging that three Army officers conspired to wrongly accuse the man of being a deserter.

The mummified and decomposed body of Spec. Mason Karl Jacques O’Neal, who had been missing for 11 months, was discovered in June hanging from a tree less than a mile from the Army base where he had been stationed.

The autopsy report said O’Neal hanged himself. But it noted that an earlier diagnosis by an Army psychiatrist had found no evidence that he was suicidal. Still, the report, dated July 13, said O’Neal’s “unpredictable” mental condition at the time of his death could have caused him to kill himself.

Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Warren Alberts of the California National Guard stated, in documents obtained by The Times from military sources in Washington on Thursday, that a trio of officers conspired to ensure that O’Neal was classified a deserter “and have unlawfully influenced the resolution of this case.”

O’Neal’s disappearance on July 17, 1997 ignited a bitter disagreement between the Army and the National Guard. Army officials declared O’Neal a deserter 30 days after he disappeared and stopped all pay and benefits to his wife and children--ages 18 months, 2 and 5. The family was forced to obtain welfare assistance.

But National Guard officials argued that O’Neal was beset by psychological problems when he vanished and should have been considered disabled.

The Army reopened its investigation of O’Neal’s disappearance in April, when The Times reported discrepancies in the case. Army officials admitted then and again last week that mistakes were made during the first investigation.

Alberts, in a June 10 memorandum, stated that he might pursue court-martial charges against Patterson, who he said “is responsible for hiding factual information” that would have shown that “O’Neal did not voluntarily absent himself.”

Army spokeswoman Shari Lawrence said this week that none of the three Army officers would comment. She would not elaborate except to say that one of the three, Dupay, is on medical leave.

O’Neal’s widow, Fatima O’Neal, challenged the suicide finding, saying her husband’s demeanor and Muslim beliefs made it unlikely that he would kill himself.

In their last telephone conversation three days before his disappearance, she said, her husband told her he believed “he was in danger and that somebody was out to get him.” But he also talked about “coming home so he could see his kids,” she said. “In every one of our conversations he talked about how much he missed me and the kids. How can a man who would record himself reading a children’s book and then send the tape to his children kill himself?”

O’Neal, 32, of Sunnyvale, was among 125 soldiers with the 649th Military Police Company of the California National Guard sent to Germany in 1997 as part of the peacekeeping force for Bosnia. The unit returned home in September.