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AP Photo/Mahmoud TawilTonya Papanikolas reporting
New York Times research shows more than 100 recent murder cases involve veterans of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. A large number of the cases seem tied into the trauma that service members experienced while they were deployed. Eyewitness News looked into the one Utah case and why post-traumatic stress disorder (P.T.S.D.) could be a factor in these crimes.
Walter Smith is in prison for drowning his girlfriend, Nicole Speirs, in a bathtub at her Tooele home. Before the killing, Smith was a Marine who served in Iraq. His attorney says that war background played a large role in the homicide.
"When a person has to take human life on sort of a consistent basis, I think it's traumatic for anybody. And then if you take somebody like Walter, that may have had a little bit of emotional instability going into that, I think it deadens them to experiencing causing the death of someone," explained defense attorney Matthew Jube.
Smith had been formally discharged from the military for P.T.S.D. Because of the diagnosis, his attorney was able to get the murder charge reduced to second-degree manslaughter, which the law allows for killings committed under severe emotional distress. "I feel pretty certain Walter would not have done this if he hadn't been through what he had in the war," Jube said.
According to the New York Times, Smith is one of at least 121 veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan who killed someone when they returned from war. The Times says in many of these cases, the traumas of combat and stress of deployment, along with other factors like alcohol abuse, appears to have set the stage for what followed.
"When you're talking percentages, it may not be huge. But when you're talking actual numbers of soldiers that deal with the problem, it's bigger than it should be," Jube said.
Psychologist Steven Allen, of the VA Medical Center, said, "War really affects people quite significantly."
Though Allen says P.T.S.D. can be a factor in some of this violence, he cautions people from thinking it is the lone cause, since most people with P.T.S.D. do not become violent. "It would be a mistake to think that veterans are particularly violent, because they're not," Allen said.
Allen says those suffering from P.T.S.D. often deal with anger and irritability, which can even make some think they're back in a war type of conflict. But these symptoms can be effectively treated. "As people get counseling, for instance, they do much better," he said.
Walter Smith was supposed to be receiving treatment for his P.T.S.D. But at the time of the killing, he was not in counseling or on any medicine.
The family of Nicole Speirs said last year that Smith's P.T.S.D. was no excuse for her murder. Smith is currently serving a sentence of up to 15 years in prison.
