Marine’s father, widow question how he died

updated 8:34 p.m. ET June 5, 2008

LAKE STEVENS, Wash. - On the afternoon of March 23, two superiors took a 21-year-old Marine, Lance Cpl. Dustin Canham, into a tent at Camp Lemonier, a U.S. base in the rocky desert of the Horn of Africa.

Exactly what happened inside remains unclear, except this: Canham died.

In letters, the Marines told Canham's family he collapsed while exercising. His father and his 19-year-old widow believe that's half the story. They were told by Canham's fellow Marines that he was being punished for accidentally chipping another Marine's tooth. They suspect he might have dropped dead from being forced to work out too hard.

A military autopsy determined the manner of death to be "natural" and said Canham had a mildly enlarged heart. But the medical examiners were not told the circumstances of Canham's death and thus did not consider heat exhaustion as a possible cause, The Associated Press has learned.

Questions raised
After the AP raised questions last week, Armed Forces Medical Examiner Craig T. Mallak and the deputy medical examiner who performed the autopsy, Cmdr. Timothy D. Monaghan, told the family they would take another look at Canham's case.

"They try to make it sound routine, but there's nothing routine about taking one Marine aside," said Canham's widow, Devyn. "Why wouldn't they be doing their daily exercises together?"

The AP has also learned that one of the two superiors who brought Canham into the tent, Sgt. Jesus Diaz, was reassigned out of the platoon after the death.

A spokeswoman at Marine Corps headquarters declined to comment, citing the continuing investigation, as did representatives of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which is conducting its own inquiry. The AP was unable to locate contact information for Diaz or the other superior, Cpl. Richard Abril.

Only a week at the camp
Canham, 21, of Lake Stevens, had arrived at Camp Lemonier, in the African nation of Djibouti, about a week earlier. The U.S. maintains the 500-acre base for its Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, which blends traditional security and training roles with humanitarian efforts to combat terrorism.

Canham was assigned to the Marine Forces Reserve's 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th Marine Logistics Group, out of Portland, Ore. In Djibouti, he was serving with the 8th Provisional Security Company, installing and repairing fuel equipment.

None of his platoon mates would comment when contacted by the AP. But some did speak with Devyn, telling her that earlier in the day, Dustin was unloading a truck with other Marines when they began joking around and throwing rocks at each other. Dustin chipped another Marine's tooth, she said.

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