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Mountain Rape Case

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A CASE OF WARTIME RAPE AND MURDER
This paper will be concerned with a crime involving U.S. Army soldiers, which took place on March 12, 2006 in the midst of the war in Iraq. Five soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division (Steven Green, Jesse Spielman, James Barker, Paul Cortez, and Bryan Howard) entered a home in the town of Mahmudiya, where they took turns raping a 14-year old girl while holding her parents and younger sister at gunpoint in a different room. Following the rape, they shot and killed the girl along with her family members. They then poured kerosene over the girl’s body and set in on fire in an attempt to conceal the evidence (Von Zielbauer, 2006). The soldiers killed the girl and her family because they did not want any survivors …show more content…

A primary question has been whether or not the attack was premeditated (i.e., planned in advance). Defense lawyers argued that the attack was not premeditated but was, rather, the result of the soldiers reacting to the stress that comes with the conditions of warfare. The area near Baghdad where the soldiers were stationed is known as the “Triangle of Death” because of all the extreme acts of insurgent violence that occur there. It has been claimed that the soldiers were demoralized by numerous attacks against them and by the deaths of their companions. According to the testimonies heard at trial, “the constant fear of death and the trauma of several devastating incidents took a heavy toll on morale” (Mosher, 2006, p. A13). The testimonies also revealed that the soldiers had been consuming alcohol prior to committing the crime. Furthermore, it was determined that Steven Green was the “ringleader” in the attack and that he was the one who had allegedly shot and killed the girl and her family. After the incident had occurred, Green was discharged from the Army because he was found to have a personality disorder. In addition, a trial witness who met Green in Iraq claimed that he had expressed “lack of concern or caring for Iraqi life versus American soldiers’ life” (Mosher, 2006, p. A13). Another witness testified that Green often expressed violent thoughts and said at one point, “I want to kill and hurt a lot of Iraqis” (Von Zielbauer, 2006, p.

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