Missing Guardsman Case Still Open

The U.S. Army said Friday that it is still investigating the disappearance of a National Guard soldier in Germany and would await the results of an autopsy before confirming whether a body found this week was that of a missing California guardsman.

German police tentatively identified the decomposed remains as Spec. Mason Jacques Karl O’Neal, one of 125 National Guard soldiers shipped to Germany from Los Alamitos last summer to be part of the U.S. peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

German authorities said O’Neal’s hands were bound in front of him and his tattered fatigue jacket was wrapped around his neck. But police investigator Ludwig Heindle, from Weiden, Germany said Friday that authorities have reason to believe O’Neal committed suicide after fleeing a military escort and apparently vanishing into a forest near an artillery firing range.

O’Neal was being escorted to a medical clinic on July 17, 1997, when he suddenly dashed into the woods near the Grafenwohr Training Area.

“The initial impression is that he may have hanged himself,” Christian Lucke, deputy chief of the Grafenwohr Federal Forestry Office, was quoted by European Stars and Stripes. “They found cloth and string around his neck and remnants of it hanging nearby.”

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The body was spotted by a forestry service contractor operating a harvesting machine in an area considered a danger zone near the firing range, “where nobody usually walks around,” according to Lucke.

The contractor alerted the forestry service, which called in Army officials. Advanced decomposition made it hard to determine how long the corpse had been at that spot.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Guy T. Shields said Friday that “we still have not got 100% positive identification.” He said dental records are being shipped to Germany, where Army pathologists will perform an autopsy.

Citing privacy, Shields said the Army could not comment further until the investigation is completed. He said he did not know how long the investigation would take.

The disappearance of O’Neal, a military policeman, touched off a rancorous dispute between the National Guard and the Army, because the Army labeled him a deserter, stripped his wife and three children of service benefits and demanded the return of about $20,000 in back pay.

The National Guard argued that O’Neal was disabled by psychological problems at the time he vanished and his family, which lives in Sunnyvale, still qualified for O’Neal’s service benefits.

Just days before running off, O’Neal expressed concerns to family members that his life might be in jeopardy.

A subsequent Army psychological profile concluded he suffered from paranoia, anxiety and fear of persecution. But a report by an Army investigator noted that O’Neal “showed no sign of being suicidal.”

Times staff writer David Haldane contributed to this report.