A Drunken Night in Iraq, A Soldier Is Left Behind

"She was young, spontaneous, very bubbly, giggling, laughing," said Spec. Annette Mack, her roommate in Taji. Another close friend, Spec. Nicole Cabral, said that McKinney took her son's teddy bear to war and slept with it at night.

The death was all the more poignant because McKinney was in her final stretch of war duty, nearing her return to the soldier she had wed in a small ceremony just before deploying. She and Christopher McKinney, then 21, planned a nicer wedding at Christmas, at the Heavrins' church.

"We had a funeral at the church instead," her mother said.

Hannah McKinney had enlisted in the Army Reserve in 2003, then became pregnant with Todd in 2004. When her relationship with Todd's father fell apart, she moved back home to California. But in 2005, hoping for good pay and benefits to support her son, she chose active duty, assuring her family that a single mother would not get shipped to war. It was then that she became romantically involved with Christopher McKinney.

Just months out of Army training, Hannah McKinney was deployed to Taji, north of Baghdad, with the 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion. She was soon pulling shifts with a machine gun and a fellow soldier at guard towers along the camp's perimeter.

Not far from there, one hot September night, three sergeants gathered to celebrate the coming end of their tours, according to their statements in the case file. Among them was Damon D. Shell, then 25, a one-time high school quarterback on his second tour. According to his MySpace page, his interests included Ohio sports teams, women, beer games and drunken karaoke .

Although alcohol was banned in the combat zone, one of the sergeants had managed to buy vodka, and they drank cocktails together that night in the barracks, according to the statements. Later, drunk, the sergeants piled into a Humvee to bid goodbye to a female tower guard, according to testimony.

At the tower, Shell tried to get the two female soldiers to kiss him, but they refused, according to their statements. It was 3 a.m. when the group stopped at McKinney's guard tower. Shell called her down, and she joined them in the Humvee.

A Crime, Not an Accident

The particulars of that night began to unfold after McKinney's funeral, when Barbie Heavrin said she asked investigators for "all the details." She learned that there was no ill-fated trip to a latrine. McKinney's death was a criminal case.

According to Shell's statements, made during interviews and polygraph exams, McKinney got "really drunk after drinking just one glass" of vodka and orange juice in the barracks. When the other soldiers drifted off to bed, he and McKinney had a sexual encounter, he said.

Heavrin cringed to hear such details. McKinney had violated military orders, she knew, by leaving her post and drinking. To McKinney's mother, the sex did not fit in with her daughter's focus on her marriage. She thought of McKinney's low tolerance for alcohol. Her autopsy showed a .20 blood-alcohol level.

Shell told investigators he tried to return McKinney to her guard tower, but she "was in no shape" to go inside. It was about 5:15 a.m. when Shell asked her towermate, Pfc. Rachelle Anderson, to cover for them when the next shift arrived.