Lavena Johnson was a smart, witty woman, born and raised in Missouri. Her senior year of high school she decided she would join the Army in an effort to not burden her parents with out of state tuition for college. Although Dr. Johnson (Lavena’s dad), begged her not to join the Army – she did so anyway. She thought the Army was a good deal – you serve your country a few years and then you get 4 years of college paid! 

Recruiters promised her she would likely not deploy, even though in 2004 there was an uptick in deployed troops. 

Lavina kicked butt as a woman in the military – especially in bootcamp, serving as an example to men and women. She made her family so proud. She went on to her first duty assignment and within a few months she was notified she’d be deploying to Iraq. As a communications troop – it didn’t seem like a bad deal – she’d be staying inside the wire. 

But within 6 weeks of being in Iraq, her parents received the dreaded knock on the door – their daughter Lavena L. Johnson was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Say what now? Not Lavena! She would never kill herself! She had just spoken to her parents and was excited to be home for the holidays! She was a week shy of her 20th birthday – it just didn’t make sense. 

Lavena’s family would soon find out that things aren’t always what they seem, but once the Army said Lavena committed suicide, it would take an act of Congress to get any concrete evidence that might show Lavena was actually murdered. 

A review of the facts make you wonder, was Lavena’s death really a suicide or a military cover up? 

Dig in with Margot as she discusses the most requested Military Murder case to date. 

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