Killing Mapepe: Sex and Death in Cold War Vieques

Key Question Being Explored in This Insight:

Katherine T. McCaffrey and Bonnie Donohue explore the killing of an elderly civilian by U.S. servicemen on leave in Vieques Island, Puerto Rico in the 1950s, the subsequent general courts-martial of two marines who were charged with his killing, and the men’s acquittal.

View the page of: Bonnie Donohue

View the page of: Katherine McCaffrey

Institution: Montclair State University

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Images Link

All portraits of witnesses and participants are 13” x 19” archival digital prints.

The first group consists of images of the Puerto Rican marines who were present the night of Mapepe’s death:

001_Domingo Barriera-Vasquez

002_Ramon Montalvo-Custodia

003_Aristides Rodriguez_Perez

The second group consists of images of the white North American marines who were present the night of Mapepe’s death:

004_Thomas_Westenberger

005_Stanley_Bunker

006_Robert Nesbitt Clark Jr.

007_Merl F Bennett

008_Homer-Chinn

009_Edward G. Whitbeck

010_Harley_Nosler

This is an image of Julian Felipe Francis, aka Mapepe, suspended between life and death at midnight on April 6, 1953. This image is 30” x 40”:

011_Mapepe (Julian Felipe Francis)

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 20, 2024

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This video video is a detailed narrative by cultural anthropologists discussing their research on a murder that occurred in 1953 on Vieques, an island municipality of Puerto Rico, during a time when the U.S. military controlled two-thirds of the island. The military had been conducting extensive training exercises on Vieques, which included the presence of a large number of troops. The story centers around the murder of a local bar owner named Pepe during a bar fight involving U.S. Marines and sailors, which was fueled by themes of race, sex, and military occupation.

The researchers initially found scant information about the murder and the subsequent court martial of the involved Marines, who were acquitted despite witness accounts pointing to their culpability. They uncovered an investigative report that revealed significant details about the events leading to the murder, including tensions arising from interactions between Puerto Rican sex workers and the North American soldiers.

The narrative discusses the integration of Puerto Rican servicemen into the U.S. military, the dynamics of race, and the broader implications of colonialism and military presence on the island. Through interviews with witnesses and familial connections, the researchers sought to piece together a more nuanced understanding of the events that culminated in the violent confrontation.

Ultimately, the anthropologists organized an exhibition based on their findings, aiming to shed light on the complexities of the murder case and foster a dialogue about the historical context of the interactions between U.S. military personnel and the civilian population of Vieques. They highlighted the need to address issues of justice and representation for the local community and the lasting impact of military occupation.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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I'm a, a cultural anthropologist that've done work

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for a long time in Vieques.

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And I was, interested in the island

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because of the military presence.

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Um, the, the US military took over two thirds of the island

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during World War, two,

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and at the moment of our, study,

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they had consolidated their control,

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and had intensified military maneuvers.

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So you have an island that's about twice the size of

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Manhattan, and the military controls at that 0.3 quarters

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of the island with a small civilian population of,

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of approximately 10,000 people.

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Um, it is the, by 1948, the,

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the military had decided to use Vieques,

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which is an island municipality of Puerto Rico, as a,

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a fire range, a live fire range.

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And so they were conducting maneuvers with hun up

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to a hundred thousand troops at a time.

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And our con our story begins,

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during Holy Week of 19, 53.

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Uh, it's the middle of the Korean War,

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which is not going well.

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And the Navy has sent,

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troops on maneuver to Vieques.

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There's 60,000, sailors

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and marines who are arriving on this little island with the

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very small population of 10,000 people in the middle.

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And they are coming in by, by the dozens on r and r.

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And some of these troops have been in combat.

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Most of them have been on the ship for a very long time.

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They descend upon the island,

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and that is when our murder takes place.

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Um, so, I, we, I will talk about, this murder as,

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as Kate, mentioned, there were many,

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there was always a limited number of men who were allowed

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to go onto, recreational leave

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during these very intense, training sessions

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where they were using live fire all day long

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for days and days at a time.

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And, during this time of Holy Week, it was holy Week.

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It was a big couple of days before Easter,

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and it was also the middle of Passover.

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So it seems we are, we're con, we are speculating

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that the men were pretty lonely

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and missing home being on this, island where, you know,

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people don't speak English.

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And, they were, camped up.

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So, we read about this murder on the island

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during this night, and found very scant information.

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We found that these, marines

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and sailors had murdered a proprietor

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of a bar called El Basque Bar

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that was right near the camp in, Vieques,

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and that they had been court marshaled for this murder,

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but were never convicted.

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So we began to, try to unearth what happened

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and to figure out why these folks were not convicted under

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the court martial.

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Maybe Kate, you would like to say something about the,

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uniform code of,

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So, there's two things.

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One is that, this was a murder

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that was very well known in on the island.

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Um, and there wasn't very much,

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written information about it.

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So what we learned was

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that most people on the island understood

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that this was a miscarriage of justice.

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There had been a murder of a prominent member

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of the community, and that there was,

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there were no convictions.

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So, we came to understand

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that this was not the case.

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And, that was

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because, Bonnie was able to under,

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to reveal the, the investigative report.

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Um, so the way that it works is that when, when a mil,

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when the military has a court martial,

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if there's an acquittal in the case,

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the written record is destroyed after 25 years.

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Um, but before the, court martial,

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there is actually an investigation into the crime that is

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probably a much richer document than the court martial

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itself, because in the days following the crime,

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what happens is that the military sends out

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a crew of investigators.

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And this is, this happened in Vieques three

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days after the crime.

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They were on the scene.

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They were looking at the, at the remains

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that the crime scene interviewing witnesses,

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and that, that report is,

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is a very rich document.

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And the, the exciting part of this research was the fact

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that Bonnie was able to uncover that.

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I'll let her describe that.

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Right? So I went looking for the court-martial records,

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which were non-existent, but I didn't know that.

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I mean, they were nonexistent because they'd been destroyed.

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And I tried for five years.

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I went to National archives,

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and I, I contacted every branch of the National Archives

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and, the Jag, the Navy, lawyers

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and could not come up with this torts Marshall.

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And I was getting ready to give up

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'cause it had been five years when I got a call from a,

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an archivist, it's Suitland, Maryland, branch

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of the National Archives.

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And she said, I found the investigative report

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for your, for this murder.

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And I couldn't believe it, you know,

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I was just like, over the moon.

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So she sent it to me,

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and it was a hundred, about 120 pages long.

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And attached to that report were photographs of,

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the bar after they were crime

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scene investigation photographs.

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There was a photograph of the man who had been murdered,

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Pepe, but he was suspended between life and death.

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He had been beaten and he was dying,

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but he was not dead yet.

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So, and, I subsequently found that it was the only,

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it's the only picture that is known to exist of him

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in these last moments of his life.

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Um, it had pictures of the bar

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after the fight, you know, with overturned chairs

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and you, you know, all kinds of, stuff

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that was going on in the bar.

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And it had the names

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and the serial numbers of all of the people

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who were in the bar that night, including the people

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who committed the murder

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and the people who were bystanders or witnesses.

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So that's that.

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Um, sent me to the National Personnel Records,

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archive, which is in St.

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Louis, Missouri. I wrote to them,

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I named every guy who was in there.

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It was all men, and their serial numbers.

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And I was sent there, their service records.

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And, when I got those, I decided to try

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to make portraits of these men.

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The, the photographs were induction photographs, meaning

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that those are the photographs taken the day.

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The man and, joined the Marines or joined the Navy.

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And so it was like a, they were like a blank slate.

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They hadn't been trained in the arts of, military arts

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of like how to kill.

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And, they were just beginning their military careers.

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So I decided to take their military service records

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and this, these very small little portraits that had come

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with the records, very minimal rec,

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portraits that came with the records.

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And I wove them together in Photoshop.

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I actually have, this is the,

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these are the way these images look, these portraits look.

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So, I was able to weave these very faint,

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you know, blurry photographs and service records,

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and the redactions that the military had given

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to the service records and create these portraits.

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So conceptually, I, we put together a, a,

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an exhibition first that was visual unpacking

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of what happened that night using these portraits,

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the portrait of, eppe, who is also,

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I have him also, but it's, this is the photo of

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Eppe on his, on his deathbed.

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Um, which I, it was blown up very large through the,

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in for the exhibition.

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Um, let me go back to

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When we found the investigative report.

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We, we discovered that the,

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the story was much more complicated than

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what people had told us.

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Uh, what we knew, up until that point was

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what had been in the newspaper, again, the, the,

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the court martial record was destroyed.

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And what Bonnie uncovered was this rich document

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that read like a novel that unfolded that

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in this story, it unfolded, multiple, multiple layers

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of, of conflict, that came together that night.

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And so, we decided that I'll,

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I'll say a couple things about those, those issues.

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But what we decided was to bring that story back to VCA

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because, that we wanted people to know

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what we had found to see the document to.

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And there were people that were still alive,

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which Bonnie can speak to in a few minutes.

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But, so rather than write,

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we eventually wrote a scholarly, essay.

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But our, but first we created an exhibition

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where we pulled together the photographs.

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We pulled together excerpts from the report

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and video interviews with, with several key key players,

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and we brought that to Vieques.

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Um, so the first, the first issue that became very clear

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in the, in the investigative report that was very exciting

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to us was that it foregrounded sex work as the,

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as a, as a crucial element of the story,

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around most military bases.

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Um, there's prostitution, massage parlors.

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Um, sex work is a key aspect of how military bases operate.

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Um, people mention that to us.

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And Vieques, nobody wanted to talk about it,

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and there was no written record.

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There's very, very little information, except that we knew

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that it was substantial.

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And we also knew that there were up

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to a hundred thousand troops descending upon the island,

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and certainly they were looking for sex there.

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We found there was one magazine article

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that talked about plane loads

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of sex workers coming in from the main island

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to, to service the men.

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But there had never been any kind of documentation.

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What we, what we discovered in,

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in the investigative report was that the, the, the bar,

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bar fight broke out over a woman.

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And the, the bar, the bartender was actually

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the owner of a, of a bar slash brothel.

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In the investigative report, we found a map of the,

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of the bar, and it showed that the bedroom in the back

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of the bar was actually larger than the bar itself.

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Which sort of suggests to you that, you know, what,

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what the real estate priorities were, that the, that the,

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that the bedroom was much larger.

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Um, so on the night of the, of the murder,

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a a group of drunken, marines

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and another group of soldiers apparently had gone to the bar

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and propositioned this wo this young woman.

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But because they were so drunk, she rejected them.

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So they poured into the bar and they were drinking,

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and they were, cl you know, clearly frustrated

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because they were not able to,

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to hire this, this young woman.

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And then I'll let Bonnie pick it up from there.

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Yeah, okay. Thank you, Kate. Um, yes.

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And so, right

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after they were rejected

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by this young woman whose name was also in the investigative

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report, so I was able to track her down as well.

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We found her in, New Jersey.

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Uh, she was 19 years old at the time of the murder,

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but she was, close

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to 80 when we interviewed her in New Jersey.

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Um, her name was Kaan.

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Um, and she, was 19 years old at that time.

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And the three men, or several men had propositioned her.

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And then some Puerto Rican marines came into the bar,

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and they,

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they actually negotiated their way into the bar.

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They sent a, a young boy in to check with the owner

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to see if it was okay for them to come

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and proposition this young woman.

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And so it was a little more decorous than the, the,

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north American Marines.

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And so they came in, they propositioned her,

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and she agreed to go with one of those men into

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that bedroom behind the bar.

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And when the white North American, Marines saw

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that happening, they were enraged, and they went back to,

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and they tried to break the door down.

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So while they were breaking the door down, Katan

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and the, man she was with jumped out the window.

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And Ma Pepe, the bartender came over to try

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to stop them from breaking down the door.

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They, I mean, he was apparently afraid, you know,

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they were gonna kill her and the young man she was with,

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but they turned on him and they beat him to death.

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Um, one of the Marines went outside to his patio

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and broke branches off of his mango tree,

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and they used them as clubs to bl bludgeon him to death.

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Um, and, Kate, shall we go next

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to the, to the district attorney or

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So, there were, there the fact

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that there was this clash between the, the white,

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north American sailors

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and the Puerto Rican sailors,

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where they were Marines, I can't remember.

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Marines, really stood out to us

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because there were a couple of things going on.

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First of all, the, and, and you can,

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and you can see in the, in the transcript that the,

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the North American, servicemen had been drinking heavily

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there, there were lots of contradictions

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and outright lies in their testimony,

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and they, it was sort of a muddled mess when they,

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when the Puerto Rican Marines

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or interviewed their very clear,

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direct answer the questions.

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And in fact, because they were the only reason why there was

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any, any truth came out of the evening

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because it became very clear that people were trying

15:19.085 --> 15:21.605
to cover up this, this event.

15:22.145 --> 15:25.045
Um, the Marines were, coherent in part

15:25.045 --> 15:27.525
because they weren't drinking, which told us

15:27.755 --> 15:30.085
that they weren't socializing together.

15:30.785 --> 15:32.725
Um, and this was very interesting too,

15:32.725 --> 15:36.845
because this was a period, shortly after, shortly

15:36.845 --> 15:39.605
after Truman had desegregated the us,

15:40.125 --> 15:42.885
military in 1948, I believe.

15:43.625 --> 15:45.645
And, pre,

15:46.295 --> 15:49.485
there hasn't really been much attention paid to the role

15:49.745 --> 15:52.405
of Latinos in the, in the US military.

15:52.985 --> 15:57.045
Um, we know that Mexicans served in the us military

15:57.045 --> 15:58.165
during World War ii,

15:58.585 --> 16:00.445
but Puerto Ricans up, up until

16:00.445 --> 16:01.765
that point, had been segregated.

16:01.765 --> 16:04.805
They had separate units that they served in,

16:04.825 --> 16:07.205
and they were not integrated into the,

16:07.475 --> 16:08.645
into the US military.

16:09.345 --> 16:12.885
But in, at, at this moment, in 1953, they are serving

16:12.945 --> 16:16.365
for the first time in the US Navy, which had been a really

16:16.505 --> 16:19.285
of the whitest branch of the, of the US armed forces.

16:20.105 --> 16:23.085
And it was very clear that that integration was imperfect,

16:23.595 --> 16:25.645
that they were not socializing together.

16:26.025 --> 16:30.005
And the, the, the white North Americans,

16:30.145 --> 16:32.205
in the transcript clearly expressed anger

16:32.205 --> 16:34.845
that it was the Puerto Ricans that had gotten the girl,

16:35.305 --> 16:37.885
and they were, they were, they were livid at that,

16:39.355 --> 16:42.085
violation and their, their own sense of entitlement to,

16:42.105 --> 16:43.885
to the woman and that the Puerto Rican,

16:44.555 --> 16:46.925
that the girl was really, really enraged them.

16:47.825 --> 16:50.205
Um, so then, then the other thing

16:50.205 --> 16:54.425
that became apparent in the, in the, document was

16:54.455 --> 16:59.145
that there was, a lack of, compliance,

16:59.565 --> 17:01.585
and an effort to sort of cover up details

17:01.605 --> 17:04.225
of the case on the behalf of the Puerto Rican authorities.

17:04.255 --> 17:05.705
I'll let Bonnie speak to that.

17:07.605 --> 17:11.415
Yeah. There, so when the, investigation began,

17:11.645 --> 17:15.855
they were looking, so the, the people who were sent

17:15.875 --> 17:20.455
to, investigate the scene, the crime scene where,

17:20.595 --> 17:23.015
you know, we have these photographs of the crime scene.

17:23.685 --> 17:26.775
They found the, the mango branches were gone.

17:27.005 --> 17:29.975
They had been destroyed, taken away and destroyed.

17:30.595 --> 17:33.695
And, there's no real explanation for that,

17:34.235 --> 17:38.135
but it seems, one of the relatives of Eppe said

17:38.135 --> 17:42.935
that they, the district attorney in which is the,

17:43.115 --> 17:46.455
province that que belongs to,

17:46.955 --> 17:48.495
had had them destroyed.

17:49.185 --> 17:52.565
And we were trying to figure out why they wouldn't have,

17:52.705 --> 17:57.085
car have cooperated with that investigation, why they,

17:57.585 --> 18:00.525
the district attorney would have tried to sort

18:00.525 --> 18:03.725
of thwart the investigation by hiding those,

18:04.105 --> 18:05.565
that evidence.

18:06.385 --> 18:11.205
And Kate had come up with a few, theories about why

18:11.205 --> 18:14.525
that might've been, one of which was

18:14.555 --> 18:16.325
that Puerto Rico had, just,

18:16.335 --> 18:18.325
after a half a century

18:18.665 --> 18:21.605
of being essentially a colonial possession

18:21.605 --> 18:24.525
of the US has had just obtained

18:24.675 --> 18:26.645
what they call commonwealth status.

18:26.945 --> 18:30.005
It still, to me, is kind of a colonial relationship,

18:30.145 --> 18:34.525
but, it was something that was a step up where they got

18:34.525 --> 18:35.725
to get their own government

18:35.785 --> 18:39.285
and their own, their own, governor

18:39.345 --> 18:40.565
and things like that.

18:41.345 --> 18:44.085
But Kate, do you wanna say something about the,

18:44.865 --> 18:46.605
the other issues around that?

18:47.115 --> 18:50.405
Sure. So, so in the, in the post-war period,

18:50.825 --> 18:53.405
the United States is trying to establish itself as a beacon

18:53.465 --> 18:57.725
of democracy and con in, in comparison to the Soviet Union.

18:58.225 --> 19:01.045
And Puerto Rico, which gets its commonwealth status in 51,

19:01.065 --> 19:04.125
is heralded as this shining beacon of, of democracy.

19:04.945 --> 19:08.365
And so then this story certainly does not,

19:08.435 --> 19:09.925
does not mesh with that vision.

19:10.745 --> 19:14.845
And, and it's also coming on, coming on the heels of a,

19:15.125 --> 19:19.125
a, a huge scandal in, Puerto Rican US relations,

19:19.125 --> 19:23.725
which has to do with the court martialing of the, 60,

19:23.985 --> 19:25.565
no, I'm just forgetting blanking on the name,

19:25.705 --> 19:29.645
the 69th, 67th.

19:32.305 --> 19:35.325
Anyway, there was a port, the Puerto Rican, the, the,

19:35.325 --> 19:38.205
there was a Puerto Rican infantry that was sent to the cor,

19:38.265 --> 19:42.085
the Korean War, were very, very, successful

19:42.385 --> 19:45.645
and very, esteemed.

19:46.025 --> 19:49.205
And there was a scandal where they were assigned a new,

19:49.345 --> 19:50.685
a new commander.

19:51.185 --> 19:53.925
And, he didn't speak Spanish,

19:54.425 --> 19:57.605
and he sent the, he sent the troops out on a, a,

19:57.605 --> 19:59.165
basically a suicide mission,

19:59.265 --> 20:01.685
and they refused, they refused to serve

20:02.265 --> 20:04.045
and were all court marshaled.

20:04.345 --> 20:08.725
And this was, grabbing the, the attention of the,

20:08.725 --> 20:09.885
of the public at the time.

20:09.905 --> 20:12.765
And there were high, profile,

20:13.125 --> 20:16.245
negotiations going over the, the fate of the,

20:16.385 --> 20:17.605
of the servicemen.

20:18.025 --> 20:21.565
And so one of our theories was, was that perhaps,

20:21.565 --> 20:24.285
because of this other high profile case,

20:24.345 --> 20:26.365
the military wanted this to, or,

20:26.385 --> 20:27.925
or the military wanted to go away,

20:27.945 --> 20:29.965
the Puerto Rican government wanted it to go away.

20:30.625 --> 20:35.005
Um, and, for whatever reason, we saw that there was a,

20:35.305 --> 20:40.165
a lack of political will on the behalf

20:40.165 --> 20:41.685
of the Puerto Rican authorities.

20:42.425 --> 20:46.405
And the other thing that we wanted to sort of emphasize was

20:46.405 --> 20:49.485
that, the,

20:50.355 --> 20:55.165
when the military brought the court martial, it was,

20:55.375 --> 20:58.125
there was a perception in VCAs that it was just sort

20:58.125 --> 20:59.165
of a kangaroo court.

20:59.785 --> 21:04.125
Um, but in fact, what we discovered was that,

21:06.005 --> 21:09.005
evidence would suggest that if they brought the,

21:09.025 --> 21:12.165
the court martial, it was because they intended to win it.

21:12.785 --> 21:16.285
Um, that in, in 1951, they,

21:16.415 --> 21:20.605
there was a new uniform, you know, here it is,

21:20.605 --> 21:24.565
uniform Code of Military Justice, that cl

21:24.715 --> 21:27.405
that cleaned up the military system that had come,

21:27.405 --> 21:29.725
under a lot of scrutiny in World War ii.

21:30.785 --> 21:34.085
And one of the things that happened was that,

21:34.135 --> 21:36.565
there were many, many fewer cases that were brought,

21:36.945 --> 21:39.605
and a majority of them, that were brought,

21:39.915 --> 21:41.445
were ended in a conviction.

21:41.905 --> 21:45.685
So, for example, of the, the lesser court martials,

21:46.745 --> 21:48.325
it had a, had a,

21:48.665 --> 21:51.365
an 80% conviction rate in the general court martial,

21:51.455 --> 21:53.605
which was what, what was happening in this case.

21:53.745 --> 21:55.845
Two, two Marines were sent to general court martial,

21:55.845 --> 21:59.565
which was the most serious form of, court martial.

22:00.305 --> 22:04.125
Um, those cases had a, a 95% conviction rate.

22:05.385 --> 22:09.565
So what that told us was that, the military

22:10.225 --> 22:13.645
had every intention of taking this case quite seriously.

22:13.825 --> 22:18.485
In fact, within three days of the crime, it had,

22:18.865 --> 22:21.685
gotten the attention of the military,

22:21.815 --> 22:23.085
brass in, in the us.

22:23.265 --> 22:25.565
It was not some like sleepy outpost.

22:25.715 --> 22:27.605
This, this got on the radar screen

22:28.385 --> 22:31.525
and was taken very seriously by the US military authorities

22:31.525 --> 22:35.485
who set, sent this team out to BCAs Island, which again,

22:35.485 --> 22:37.045
is a separate island from Puerto Rico.

22:37.065 --> 22:38.805
So it's, you know, it's far out.

22:39.035 --> 22:42.285
They sent the team, they did the, they did the interviews.

22:42.865 --> 22:45.285
Um, district Attorney destroyed evidence

22:45.795 --> 22:47.805
that people lied on the witness stand,

22:48.185 --> 22:49.485
key witnesses disappeared.

22:50.105 --> 22:54.125
And eventually the case, the case ended in a,

22:55.825 --> 22:58.405
in an acquittal for the two, two Marines.

22:59.195 --> 23:01.965
Okay. So I, I was just mentioning that when we went,

23:01.995 --> 23:05.285
when we had the, the exhibition for the was shown

23:05.305 --> 23:09.245
for the first time, I think it was 2011,

23:09.465 --> 23:12.565
in Vike in the historical museum there.

23:13.185 --> 23:17.965
And it was just packed with, with local people

23:18.545 --> 23:23.125
who were wanting to understand the details

23:23.465 --> 23:26.325
of this, of this situation,

23:26.325 --> 23:27.925
of this murder that had happened.

23:28.075 --> 23:29.725
Many of them knew Eppe.

23:30.265 --> 23:34.725
Um, since then, a lot of the people that we've spoken

23:34.795 --> 23:36.525
with have passed on.

23:36.675 --> 23:40.485
Like we spoke with, as I said, the young sex worker, Katan,

23:40.505 --> 23:42.805
we found her in New Jersey, we interviewed her.

23:43.625 --> 23:46.765
Um, and a few years later she did pass.

23:47.345 --> 23:51.645
And then we also found, Emiliano Christian, who was a,

23:51.845 --> 23:56.405
a 96-year-old man who had been raised by Ma Peppi

23:56.405 --> 23:57.565
as his own son.

23:58.345 --> 24:01.765
And he gave a very emotional interview, you know,

24:02.365 --> 24:06.205
questioning why it took so long for anybody to look at this

24:06.965 --> 24:08.925
situation and try to figure out what had happened.

24:09.625 --> 24:12.765
Um, and he passed just a few months after we spoke with him.

24:13.185 --> 24:15.685
And there's only one person left who's

24:15.685 --> 24:16.765
still living that I know of.

24:16.765 --> 24:19.805
And that is one of the Marines who was prob know,

24:19.805 --> 24:22.325
was responsible for m Pepe's death.

24:22.345 --> 24:24.405
And he's probably about 92 now.

24:25.185 --> 24:27.765
Um, and he won't talk to me.

24:27.835 --> 24:30.325
I've tried to several times to,

24:30.325 --> 24:32.765
contact him both back then 10 years ago.

24:32.865 --> 24:35.965
And then, very recently, a couple of weeks ago, I tried

24:35.965 --> 24:37.205
to contact him

24:37.205 --> 24:39.605
because I would love to have him

24:40.145 --> 24:42.485
as a final piece of this story.

24:42.505 --> 24:47.045
You know, the last surviving person who was in that, bar

24:47.045 --> 24:51.365
that night, the concept in the exhibition was to

24:52.205 --> 24:55.325
structure it like a truth and reconciliation situation.

24:55.385 --> 24:57.765
So we have the Puerto Rican, the portraits

24:57.765 --> 25:00.605
of the Puerto Rican men are facing the portraits

25:00.605 --> 25:02.365
of the North American white men,

25:02.985 --> 25:05.925
and both of them are kind of, in view

25:06.145 --> 25:08.965
of the dying eppe portraits.

25:08.985 --> 25:12.085
So it was, it was meant to be kind of, you know,

25:12.085 --> 25:14.365
almost like an altarpiece, you know, to, to kind

25:14.365 --> 25:15.885
of bring all the, the people together

25:15.985 --> 25:17.005
who had been there that

25:18.735 --> 25:19.735
Night. So

25:19.735 --> 25:20.605
both Bonnie

25:20.705 --> 25:25.165
and I, have a background, studying colonialism.

25:25.865 --> 25:29.045
And this case was fundamentally about colonialism.

25:29.045 --> 25:30.925
And, and we knew that going into the story,

25:31.465 --> 25:36.245
but what this, investigative report revealed to us

25:36.905 --> 25:41.565
was that this case was about, it was about colonialism,

25:41.585 --> 25:43.365
but it was also about race.

25:44.185 --> 25:45.765
It was about sex,

25:46.145 --> 25:49.245
and it was about, military occupation.

25:50.025 --> 25:54.645
Um, race was crucial in terms of the, the divisions

25:54.885 --> 25:59.205
between the Marines, their sense

25:59.205 --> 26:03.285
of entitlement on, on, on the island to the,

26:03.585 --> 26:07.965
to being there, to having, unbridled access

26:08.025 --> 26:09.805
to its resources, including its people.

26:10.625 --> 26:13.605
Um, there was a, there was a form of, of racial arrogance

26:13.635 --> 26:17.805
that, that informed their, their behavior and their words.

26:18.545 --> 26:23.325
Sex was clearly, the, the catalyst to, to the conflict

26:23.755 --> 26:26.165
that the, the men wanted, wanted sex

26:26.185 --> 26:29.685
and their inability to, to, the white Marines' inability

26:29.825 --> 26:32.845
to, to secure it fostered a sense of rage

26:32.865 --> 26:34.485
and again, a sense of entitlement.

26:34.945 --> 26:38.645
And then the military occupation is also cr crucial

26:38.675 --> 26:42.015
because, to,

26:42.755 --> 26:46.365
to give these, these, marines,

26:47.175 --> 26:51.925
these killers, a sense of humanity is also

26:51.925 --> 26:54.005
to recognize that they were young men.

26:54.075 --> 26:57.245
They were taken out, taken out of rural areas in the us,

26:57.355 --> 27:01.285
they were sent to Korea, they were coming out of combat.

27:01.985 --> 27:04.845
We have no idea what they saw, what their experience was.

27:05.305 --> 27:06.965
We know that a number, that one

27:06.965 --> 27:09.925
of the key key perpetrators had extensive combat

27:10.255 --> 27:11.805
experience in, in Korea.

27:11.985 --> 27:13.325
The war was not going well.

27:14.225 --> 27:19.045
Um, and that the military created this situation

27:19.045 --> 27:23.725
where you would have trained warriors,

27:23.735 --> 27:28.125
stuck on stuck coming outta combat, stuck on a ship for,

27:28.265 --> 27:31.885
for months, and then unleashed on this island, told

27:31.885 --> 27:34.405
that the island is theirs for recreation

27:34.825 --> 27:36.125
to drink, to take women.

27:36.475 --> 27:38.885
That, that this was a, this was a situation

27:38.885 --> 27:40.925
that was inevitably going, going to lead to,

27:41.585 --> 27:43.205
to conflict and, and violence.

27:43.665 --> 27:47.405
And, and so it was, it was bound to happen.

27:47.585 --> 27:50.605
And in fact, it happened in, in several other instances.

27:50.865 --> 27:54.365
But we, this particular case allowed us

27:54.365 --> 27:59.125
to have a written record taken, taken in real time about

27:59.125 --> 28:00.685
what un what unfolded that evening.

28:02.695 --> 28:05.555
Yes, I'll just tag onto that, that there were many,

28:06.345 --> 28:09.875
many instances of violence that happened on the,

28:10.015 --> 28:11.235
on the island.

28:11.495 --> 28:12.515
And in fact, two weeks

28:12.515 --> 28:15.715
before the murder of me, Pepe, there was a young boy,

28:15.915 --> 28:16.915
a 12-year-old boy

28:17.495 --> 28:21.115
who was collecting scrap metal from the firing range,

28:21.115 --> 28:25.755
getting, you know, spent bullets to make money to,

28:25.815 --> 28:27.715
you know, to recycle the, the metals.

28:27.715 --> 28:30.915
And he hit a live, bomb and was blown up.

28:31.575 --> 28:32.915
So the,

28:33.065 --> 28:37.595
islanders were already in a very heightened state of anxiety

28:38.245 --> 28:41.555
about this young boy who was, who was killed.

28:42.255 --> 28:45.275
Um, and this did not, you know, this just put more

28:45.815 --> 28:50.035
stress on the already beleaguered ci citizens of the island.

Quick Answers

Military Violence and Colonialism in Vieques

00:00:00 - I'm a, a cultural anthropologist that've done work for a long time in Vieques. And I was, interested in the island because of the military presence. the, the US military took over two thirds of the island during World War, two, and at the moment of our, study, they had consolidated their control, and had intensified military maneuvers. So you have an island that's about twice the size of
00:00:37 - of the island with a small civilian population of, of approximately 10,000 people. it is the, by 1948, the, the military had decided to use Vieques, which is an island municipality of Puerto Rico, as a, a fire range, a live fire range. And so they were conducting maneuvers with hun up
00:01:06 - And our con our story begins, during Holy Week of 19, 53. it's the middle of the Korean War, which is not going well. And the Navy has sent, troops on maneuver to Vieques. There's 60,000, sailors and marines who are arriving on this little island with the
00:01:36 - And they are coming in by, by the dozens on r and r. And some of these troops have been in combat. Most of them have been on the ship for a very long time. They descend upon the island, and that is when our murder takes place. so, I, we, I will talk about, this murder as, as Kate, mentioned, there were many, there was always a limited number of men who were allowed
00:02:07 - during these very intense, training sessions where they were using live fire all day long for days and days at a time. And, during this time of Holy Week, it was holy Week. It was a big couple of days before Easter, and it was also the middle of Passover. So it seems we are, we're con, we are speculating that the men were pretty lonely and missing home being on this, island where, you know,
00:02:39 - And, they were, camped up. So, we read about this murder on the island during this night, and found very scant information. We found that these, marines and sailors had murdered a proprietor of a bar called El Basque Bar that was right near the camp in, Vieques, and that they had been court marshaled for this murder,

Uncovering a Historical Miscarriage of Justice

00:03:11 - So we began to, try to unearth what happened and to figure out why these folks were not convicted under the court martial. Maybe Kate, you would like to say something about the, uniform code of, So, there's two things. One is that, this was a murder that was very well known in on the island. and there wasn't very much, written information about it. So what we learned was
00:03:42 - that this was a miscarriage of justice. There had been a murder of a prominent member of the community, and that there was, there were no convictions. So, we came to understand that this was not the case. And, that was because, Bonnie was able to under, to reveal the, the investigative report. so the way that it works is that when, when a mil,
00:04:13 - if there's an acquittal in the case, the written record is destroyed after 25 years. but before the, court martial, there is actually an investigation into the crime that is probably a much richer document than the court martial itself, because in the days following the crime, what happens is that the military sends out a crew of investigators. And this is, this happened in Vieques three days after the crime.
00:04:42 - They were looking at the, at the remains that the crime scene interviewing witnesses, and that, that report is, is a very rich document. And the, the exciting part of this research was the fact that Bonnie was able to uncover that. I'll let her describe that. Right? So I went looking for the court-martial records, which were non-existent, but I didn't know that. I mean, they were nonexistent because they'd been destroyed.
00:05:13 - I went to National archives, and I, I contacted every branch of the National Archives and, the Jag, the Navy, lawyers and could not come up with this torts Marshall. And I was getting ready to give up 'cause it had been five years when I got a call from a, an archivist, it's Suitland, Maryland, branch of the National Archives. And she said, I found the investigative report
00:05:45 - And I couldn't believe it, you know, I was just like, over the moon. So she sent it to me, and it was a hundred, about 120 pages long. And attached to that report were photographs of, the bar after they were crime scene investigation photographs. There was a photograph of the man who had been murdered, Pepe, but he was suspended between life and death. He had been beaten and he was dying,

Uncovering Evidence: A Tragic Bar Incident

00:06:15 - So, and, I subsequently found that it was the only, it's the only picture that is known to exist of him in these last moments of his life. it had pictures of the bar after the fight, you know, with overturned chairs and you, you know, all kinds of, stuff that was going on in the bar. And it had the names and the serial numbers of all of the people who were in the bar that night, including the people
00:06:45 - and the people who were bystanders or witnesses. So that's that. sent me to the National Personnel Records, archive, which is in St. Louis, Missouri. I wrote to them, I named every guy who was in there. It was all men, and their serial numbers. And I was sent there, their service records. And, when I got those, I decided to try to make portraits of these men.
00:07:17 - that those are the photographs taken the day. The man and, joined the Marines or joined the Navy. And so it was like a, they were like a blank slate. They hadn't been trained in the arts of, military arts of like how to kill. And, they were just beginning their military careers. So I decided to take their military service records and this, these very small little portraits that had come
00:07:47 - portraits that came with the records. And I wove them together in Photoshop. I actually have, this is the, these are the way these images look, these portraits look. So, I was able to weave these very faint, you know, blurry photographs and service records, and the redactions that the military had given to the service records and create these portraits.
00:08:19 - an exhibition first that was visual unpacking of what happened that night using these portraits, the portrait of, eppe, who is also, I have him also, but it's, this is the photo of Eppe on his, on his deathbed. which I, it was blown up very large through the, in for the exhibition.
00:08:50 - When we found the investigative report. We, we discovered that the, the story was much more complicated than what people had told us. what we knew, up until that point was what had been in the newspaper, again, the, the, the court martial record was destroyed. And what Bonnie uncovered was this rich document that read like a novel that unfolded that

Uncovering a Tragic Bar Fight in Vieques

00:09:22 - of, of conflict, that came together that night. And so, we decided that I'll, I'll say a couple things about those, those issues. But what we decided was to bring that story back to VCA because, that we wanted people to know what we had found to see the document to. And there were people that were still alive,
00:09:52 - But, so rather than write, we eventually wrote a scholarly, essay. But our, but first we created an exhibition where we pulled together the photographs. We pulled together excerpts from the report and video interviews with, with several key key players, and we brought that to Vieques. so the first, the first issue that became very clear in the, in the investigative report that was very exciting
00:10:25 - as a, as a crucial element of the story, around most military bases. there's prostitution, massage parlors. sex work is a key aspect of how military bases operate. people mention that to us. And Vieques, nobody wanted to talk about it, and there was no written record. There's very, very little information, except that we knew
00:10:52 - And we also knew that there were up to a hundred thousand troops descending upon the island, and certainly they were looking for sex there. We found there was one magazine article that talked about plane loads of sex workers coming in from the main island to, to service the men. But there had never been any kind of documentation. What we, what we discovered in, in the investigative report was that the, the, the bar, bar fight broke out over a woman.
00:11:26 - the owner of a, of a bar slash brothel. In the investigative report, we found a map of the, of the bar, and it showed that the bedroom in the back of the bar was actually larger than the bar itself. Which sort of suggests to you that, you know, what, what the real estate priorities were, that the, that the, that the bedroom was much larger. so on the night of the, of the murder,
00:11:55 - and another group of soldiers apparently had gone to the bar and propositioned this wo this young woman. But because they were so drunk, she rejected them. So they poured into the bar and they were drinking, and they were, cl you know, clearly frustrated because they were not able to, to hire this, this young woman. And then I'll let Bonnie pick it up from there. Yeah, okay. Thank you, Kate. yes.

Rejection Leads to Tragedy in Vieques

00:12:27 - after they were rejected by this young woman whose name was also in the investigative report, so I was able to track her down as well. We found her in, New Jersey. she was 19 years old at the time of the murder, but she was, close to 80 when we interviewed her in New Jersey. her name was Kaan. and she, was 19 years old at that time.
00:12:59 - And then some Puerto Rican marines came into the bar, and they, they actually negotiated their way into the bar. They sent a, a young boy in to check with the owner to see if it was okay for them to come and proposition this young woman. And so it was a little more decorous than the, the, north American Marines. And so they came in, they propositioned her,
00:13:29 - that bedroom behind the bar. And when the white North American, Marines saw that happening, they were enraged, and they went back to, and they tried to break the door down. So while they were breaking the door down, Katan and the, man she was with jumped out the window. And Ma Pepe, the bartender came over to try to stop them from breaking down the door. They, I mean, he was apparently afraid, you know,
00:14:00 - but they turned on him and they beat him to death. one of the Marines went outside to his patio and broke branches off of his mango tree, and they used them as clubs to bl bludgeon him to death. and, Kate, shall we go next to the, to the district attorney or So, there were, there the fact
00:14:31 - north American sailors and the Puerto Rican sailors, where they were Marines, I can't remember. Marines, really stood out to us because there were a couple of things going on. First of all, the, and, and you can, and you can see in the, in the transcript that the, the North American, servicemen had been drinking heavily there, there were lots of contradictions
00:15:02 - and they, it was sort of a muddled mess when they, when the Puerto Rican Marines or interviewed their very clear, direct answer the questions. And in fact, because they were the only reason why there was any, any truth came out of the evening because it became very clear that people were trying to cover up this, this event. the Marines were, coherent in part because they weren't drinking, which told us that they weren't socializing together.

Integration and Tensions in the U.S. Military

00:15:32 - because this was a period, shortly after, shortly after Truman had desegregated the us, military in 1948, I believe. And, pre, there hasn't really been much attention paid to the role of Latinos in the, in the US military. we know that Mexicans served in the us military during World War ii, but Puerto Ricans up, up until that point, had been segregated.
00:16:04 - and they were not integrated into the, into the US military. But in, at, at this moment, in 1953, they are serving for the first time in the US Navy, which had been a really of the whitest branch of the, of the US armed forces. And it was very clear that that integration was imperfect, that they were not socializing together. And the, the, the white North Americans, in the transcript clearly expressed anger
00:16:35 - and they were, they were, they were livid at that, violation and their, their own sense of entitlement to, to the woman and that the Puerto Rican, that the girl was really, really enraged them. so then, then the other thing that became apparent in the, in the, document was that there was, a lack of, compliance, and an effort to sort of cover up details of the case on the behalf of the Puerto Rican authorities.
00:17:07 - Yeah. There, so when the, investigation began, they were looking, so the, the people who were sent to, investigate the scene, the crime scene where, you know, we have these photographs of the crime scene. They found the, the mango branches were gone. They had been destroyed, taken away and destroyed. And, there's no real explanation for that, but it seems, one of the relatives of Eppe said
00:17:43 - province that que belongs to, had had them destroyed. And we were trying to figure out why they wouldn't have, car have cooperated with that investigation, why they, the district attorney would have tried to sort of thwart the investigation by hiding those, that evidence. And Kate had come up with a few, theories about why
00:18:14 - that Puerto Rico had, just, after a half a century of being essentially a colonial possession of the US has had just obtained what they call commonwealth status. It still, to me, is kind of a colonial relationship, but, it was something that was a step up where they got to get their own government and their own, their own, governor and things like that.

Puerto Rico's Complex Post-War Military Justice

00:18:44 - the other issues around that? Sure. So, so in the, in the post-war period, the United States is trying to establish itself as a beacon of democracy and con in, in comparison to the Soviet Union. And Puerto Rico, which gets its commonwealth status in 51, is heralded as this shining beacon of, of democracy. And so then this story certainly does not, does not mesh with that vision. And, and it's also coming on, coming on the heels of a,
00:19:19 - which has to do with the court martialing of the, 60, no, I'm just forgetting blanking on the name, the 69th, 67th. Anyway, there was a port, the Puerto Rican, the, the, there was a Puerto Rican infantry that was sent to the cor, the Korean War, were very, very, successful and very, esteemed.
00:19:49 - a new commander. And, he didn't speak Spanish, and he sent the, he sent the troops out on a, a, basically a suicide mission, and they refused, they refused to serve and were all court marshaled. And this was, grabbing the, the attention of the, of the public at the time. And there were high, profile, negotiations going over the, the fate of the,
00:20:18 - And so one of our theories was, was that perhaps, because of this other high profile case, the military wanted this to, or, or the military wanted to go away, the Puerto Rican government wanted it to go away. and, for whatever reason, we saw that there was a, a lack of political will on the behalf of the Puerto Rican authorities. And the other thing that we wanted to sort of emphasize was
00:20:50 - when the military brought the court martial, it was, there was a perception in VCAs that it was just sort of a kangaroo court. but in fact, what we discovered was that, evidence would suggest that if they brought the, the court martial, it was because they intended to win it. that in, in 1951, they,
00:21:20 - uniform Code of Military Justice, that cl that cleaned up the military system that had come, under a lot of scrutiny in World War ii. And one of the things that happened was that, there were many, many fewer cases that were brought, and a majority of them, that were brought, were ended in a conviction. So, for example, of the, the lesser court martials,

Justice Denied: The Vieques Court Martial Case

00:21:48 - an 80% conviction rate in the general court martial, which was what, what was happening in this case. Two, two Marines were sent to general court martial, which was the most serious form of, court martial. those cases had a, a 95% conviction rate. So what that told us was that, the military had every intention of taking this case quite seriously. In fact, within three days of the crime, it had,
00:22:21 - brass in, in the us. It was not some like sleepy outpost. This, this got on the radar screen and was taken very seriously by the US military authorities who set, sent this team out to BCAs Island, which again, is a separate island from Puerto Rico. So it's, you know, it's far out. They sent the team, they did the, they did the interviews. district Attorney destroyed evidence that people lied on the witness stand, key witnesses disappeared.
00:22:55 - in an acquittal for the two, two Marines. Okay. So I, I was just mentioning that when we went, when we had the, the exhibition for the was shown for the first time, I think it was 2011, in Vike in the historical museum there. And it was just packed with, with local people who were wanting to understand the details
00:23:26 - of this murder that had happened. Many of them knew Eppe. since then, a lot of the people that we've spoken with have passed on. Like we spoke with, as I said, the young sex worker, Katan, we found her in New Jersey, we interviewed her. and a few years later she did pass. And then we also found, Emiliano Christian, who was a, a 96-year-old man who had been raised by Ma Peppi
00:23:58 - And he gave a very emotional interview, you know, questioning why it took so long for anybody to look at this situation and try to figure out what had happened. and he passed just a few months after we spoke with him. And there's only one person left who's still living that I know of. And that is one of the Marines who was prob know, was responsible for m Pepe's death. And he's probably about 92 now. and he won't talk to me.
00:24:30 - contact him both back then 10 years ago. And then, very recently, a couple of weeks ago, I tried to contact him because I would love to have him as a final piece of this story. You know, the last surviving person who was in that, bar that night, the concept in the exhibition was to structure it like a truth and reconciliation situation. So we have the Puerto Rican, the portraits of the Puerto Rican men are facing the portraits

Colonialism, Race, and Violence in Military Context

00:25:02 - and both of them are kind of, in view of the dying eppe portraits. So it was, it was meant to be kind of, you know, almost like an altarpiece, you know, to, to kind of bring all the, the people together who had been there that Night. So both Bonnie and I, have a background, studying colonialism. And this case was fundamentally about colonialism. And, and we knew that going into the story,
00:25:36 - was that this case was about, it was about colonialism, but it was also about race. It was about sex, and it was about, military occupation. race was crucial in terms of the, the divisions between the Marines, their sense of entitlement on, on, on the island to the,
00:26:08 - to its resources, including its people. there was a, there was a form of, of racial arrogance that, that informed their, their behavior and their words. Sex was clearly, the, the catalyst to, to the conflict that the, the men wanted, wanted sex and their inability to, to, the white Marines' inability to, to secure it fostered a sense of rage and again, a sense of entitlement.
00:26:38 - because, to, to give these, these, marines, these killers, a sense of humanity is also to recognize that they were young men. They were taken out, taken out of rural areas in the us, they were sent to Korea, they were coming out of combat. We have no idea what they saw, what their experience was.
00:27:06 - of the key key perpetrators had extensive combat experience in, in Korea. The war was not going well. and that the military created this situation where you would have trained warriors, stuck on stuck coming outta combat, stuck on a ship for, for months, and then unleashed on this island, told that the island is theirs for recreation to drink, to take women.
00:27:38 - that was inevitably going, going to lead to, to conflict and, and violence. And, and so it was, it was bound to happen. And in fact, it happened in, in several other instances. But we, this particular case allowed us to have a written record taken, taken in real time about what un what unfolded that evening. Yes, I'll just tag onto that, that there were many, many instances of violence that happened on the,

Tragic Incident Heightens Island Tensions

00:28:11 - And in fact, two weeks before the murder of me, Pepe, there was a young boy, a 12-year-old boy who was collecting scrap metal from the firing range, getting, you know, spent bullets to make money to, you know, to recycle the, the metals. And he hit a live, bomb and was blown up. So the, islanders were already in a very heightened state of anxiety about this young boy who was, who was killed.
00:28:45 - stress on the already beleaguered ci citizens of the island.

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