Kriti Mehrotra
In the summer of 2008, 23-year-old Army Specialist Megan Touma was murdered while 7 months pregnant, leaving her family and friends shaken to the core. As explored in ABC’s ’20/20: You Took My Daughter’ and Dateline’s ‘The Trouble in Bardstown,’ she was the second of three military service women to be killed near active North Carolina bases within a few months. Therefore, after law enforcement and news publications started receiving letters, there were rumors of a possible Zodiac serial killer-inspired situation, but that was not at all the case.
Megan Touma Was Found Dead Inside Her Hotel Room
Born on August 26, 1984, in Seoul, South Korea, to a family dedicated to serving their country in the military, Megan Touma was just a young girl when she understood discipline and diversity. She always knew she wanted to follow in her ancestors’ footsteps, which drove her to join the army in 2003, just a few years after graduating from Campbell County High School in Cold Springs, Kentucky. She reportedly completed her basic training at Fort Jackson in South Carolina and her advanced training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, before also finishing the Combat Lifesaver course.
Megan was a dental specialist who subsequently served at the Fort Drum base in New York before concluding a three-year tour at the Army Dental Activity Clinic in Bavaria, Germany, in 2008. It was then that she requested a transfer to the Special Forces training facility at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, leading to her arrival there as a member of the 19th Replacement Company on June 12, 2008. With the Army Achievement Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal, and National Defense Service Medal already under her belt, the 23-year-old was no stranger to new places and new situations.
However, since Megan had just arrived in the area, nobody noticed she had suddenly disappeared until she was discovered dead inside the bathtub of her Fairfield Inn hotel room on June 21, 2008. A maintenance supervisor had found the 7-months-pregnant dental specialist after noticing a foul odor emanating from inside her room, which had a “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging on the doorknob. According to her autopsy, she had passed away at least a few days before her remains were recovered. Per reports, the cause of death was later determined to be asphyxiation, likely by strangling or drowning.
The Investigation Into Megan Touma’s Murder Was Quite Complex
Although Army rules dictate that an officer must be classified as AWOL if they have been unaccounted for for more than 24 hours, Megan was never deemed missing, let alone reported AWOL. Therefore, nobody even attempted to check up on her in her hotel room despite it being well-known that she had only arrived in the Fort Bragg area from Germany less than two weeks prior. An internal investigation was launched to look into this aspect, but more pressing was the authorities’ investigation into her homicide, as they could not figure out who would want to harm her and why.
According to records, 23-year-old Megan had gotten divorced sometime in 2007 and then fallen pregnant, so there was little on file about her recent personal standing. Moreover, she hadn’t filed any complaints against anyone, even during her previous military assignments, so it didn’t appear as if she had any enemies or rivals. However, everything changed within a couple of weeks as law enforcement and The Fayetteville Observer received a typed letter stating, “I’m responsible for the dead body at the motel.”
At the bottom of both letters was a circle-and-cross drawing that was last seen by officials over a generation prior, when San Francisco, California’s infamous Zodiac Serial Killer was active. These letters gave rise to suspicion that perhaps a copycat had arrived, along with fear over whether they had already set their sights on their next target, but that was not the case at all. Thanks to The Fayetteville Observer handing their letter to the police, as well as the details in the paper and the kind of typewriter used, officials were able to zero in on a suspect quite soon.
Related
Megan Touma’s Killer Was Brought to Justice in 2010
It was on July 29, 2008, when 27-year-old Sergeant Edgar Patino was arrested at his Cumberland County, North Carolina, home in connection with the homicide of Megan. The apprehension arose after investigators were able to trace the two letters back to the typewriter he had purchased at a pawn shop the day before they were sent out. It turns out he had written them to mislead the police because he was the one responsible for the pregnant dental specialist’s murder to hide their affair and the fact that he had fathered her unborn child.
According to records, Edgar and Megan met while they were stationed together in Germany, which soon led to their romantic involvement. She reportedly had no idea he was married, so when she showed up at the Sergeant’s base in the hopes of them living and working together for their new family, he freaked out. As per records, he went to her hotel room on June 13, 2008, the last day her keycard was used, and killed her. So, he was charged with murder on July 30, 2008. However, the case only came to a close on November 2, 2010, when he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 16-20 years in prison. It’s imperative to note that since then, the army has updated its policies to enable group commanders to keep a better track of new soldiers arriving for assignment.
