How Did Specialist Ciara Durkin Die?

Soldier In Finance Unit At Bagram Air Base Said To Have "Discovered Things" Is Found Dead

(CBS/AP)  Exactly how Ciara Durkin died remains a mystery. The Army National Guard soldier from Massachusetts was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head in Afghanistan last week, and now her family is demanding answers from the military.

Initially the Pentagon reported that Durkin, part of a finance unit deployed to Afghanistan in November 2006, had been killed in action, but then revised its statement to read she had died of injuries "suffered from a non-combat related incident" at Bagram Airfield. The statement had no specifics and said the circumstances are under investigation.

Durkin had a desk job doing payroll in an office about three miles inside the secure Bagram Air Base. About 90 minutes after she left work last Friday, her family says she was found dead near a chapel on the base with a single gunshot wound to the head.

The 30-year-old soldier, who was born in Ireland and came to the U.S. as a little girl, felt safer deployed in Afghanistan over Iraq, her family told CBS News correspondent Kelly Wallace. Yet she was found dead within a highly secure base, with few answers.

"The family has been informed that she was in the compound, and she was shot in the head," Durkin's sister, Fiona Canavan, told the Boston Globe. "She was in a secure area of the compound, which, even though the investigation is not complete, leads the family to believe it was what is called friendly fire," she said.

Adding to the mystery is something the Army Specialist told her family: if something happened to her in Afghanistan, they should look into it. She was concerned about things she was seeing over there, one of her eight brothers and sisters said in an interview.

Canavan told the Quincy, Mass. Patriot Ledger on Wednesday that when her sister was home three weeks ago, she told her about something she had come across that raised some concern with her: "She was in the finance unit and she said, 'I discovered some things I don’t like and I made some enemies because of it.'"

Canavan revealed that Durkin said if anything happened to her, to make sure it was investigated.

"At the time we thought it was said more as a joke," Canavan told the paper.

The family is also wondering whether Durkin's sexual orientation - she was gay - played a role in her death.

"We just want full disclosure, that's all we want - to know what happened to our sister," Diedre Durkin said.

Massachusetts Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry and Rep. William Delahunt are pressing for answers.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Kerry said the circumstances need to be uncovered expeditiously and thoroughly.

Durkin's extended family has also asked for help from the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs.

The family doubts suicide, pointing to an upbeat "Happy Birthday" voicemail Durkin left for her brother just hours before she died.

"I thought it was cute at the time," Pierce Durkin said. "Now it's priceless."

The family's grief, made more torturous by the limited information being released and rumors, is not helped by remembrances of past instances where misinformation followed the deaths or injuries of service members.

The military initially said Army Ranger Pat Tillman was killed in an enemy firefight in Afghanistan in 2004, even after evidence came to light that he had been killed by friendly fire.

There were also reports circulated that captured Army pfc. Jessica Lynch had bravely fired upon insurgents after being wounded, though she testified later that that was not so.

Sgt. Patrick McCaffrey and 1st Lt. Andre Tyson, killed in Iraq in 2004, were first reported to have been killed in an insurgent ambush, when they were actually killed by two Iraqi soldiers they were training.

[kellllllyk]

Will you negative people PLEAAAAAAAAAASE just go post elsewhere!?!?!?!?!

ciara''s loved ones DO NOT deserve to listen to your propaganda and JUNK!!!!!!

HAVE RESPECT AND LEAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jcyk58]

It probably is pointless to speculate, since we have few details, but this should be kept in the public forum. Her parents and other loved ones deserve to know what happened and if Ciara was murdered. We deserve to know what Ciara may have known that got her killed, if that was the case.

My heart goes out to her family and friends. It would be bad enough to lose a loved one in the war from enemy fire, but to think that someone, one of us, at that, may have murdered her has got to add to their grief. I hope they get answers soon, one way or the other.

Those on here who are posting hateful,disrespectful, and flippant comments need to stop it. This is a human being we''re talking about, here, and a soldier. Have some respect, if you can''t have any compassion.

[outgirlla]

Follow the money....

[signof4]

And you wonder why REPUGS are called FASCISTS ... LOL
Posted by parrots7 at 12:25 PM : Oct 05, 2007

We only talk about it. The libs are actually trying to silence people with lies. Or haven''t you been keeping up with current events? Of the two, YOUR bunch are the true nazis.

[robertkjjj]

Parrots, the day you write something on CBS that is longer than 20 words, and appears that it was composed with some thought, intelligence, and a higher-than-6th-grade education, the rest of us will pay attention. Until then, everything you write comes across like the sound of a bee buzzing by. Buzzzzzzzzzzz.

[robertkjjj]

Look, suicide is not uncommon in war zones. Whether Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam. Anywhere. It%u2019s depressing to fight in a war, see the horror, and be so far from home. Many cannot handle this. The military is not really comfortable discussing it, because of (1) the morale factor and (2) families would prefer their loved ones died in "action" rather then shoot themselves in the head. As someone who has studied suicide, it''s not unheard of for people to leave no warning or note when they do this. They go off and shoot themselves, and then those left behind are baffled. My gut tells me this will be ruled a suicide.

[robertkjjj]

zootallures2, you''re an unimaginable as*hole. You''re lucky I''m not the President, because otherwise you''d be in Guantanamo Bay by tomorrow. And you''d never be heard from again, you incendiary traitor.

[signof4]

USA Unimaginable Sadistic *********
Posted by zootallures2 at 11:24 PM : Oct 04, 2007

Oh wow.....you are really, really clever. Did you make that up all by yourself? What a pathetic little piece of horse squeeze you are.

[signof4]

Obviously Bush and Cheney did it. She discovered all the oil money going in to their bank accounts and they had her bumped off - ala Norma Jean! It was done using pygmies with blow guns from the grassy knoll.

[cbs_oliver]

The officer core of the US military is covered in dishonor and disgrace for their repeated lies and depraved actions. They can hardly tell the truth about the sun rising in the east let alone the repeated mysterious deaths of soldiers under their care.