Navy noir: Ex-sailor dead in Seabee saga - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Navy noir: Ex-sailor dead in Seabee saga

VENTURA, Calif. — A woman battling with her ex-husband over their young daughter. A second woman obsessed by her girlfriend’s nasty custody fight. Male friends asked to kill the ex-husband to protect their friend from alleged death threats.

All a recipe for murder? That’s the Hollywoodlike script Ventura County prosecutors are chasing to determine why John Marmo Jr. — the ex-husband and a former sailor — was gunned down as he left home for work Dec. 1.

Four Navy Seabees are locked up in the city jail, awaiting trial in a case that’s rocked the local and Navy community in this coastal area an hour northwest of Los Angeles.

Three Seabees — Construction Mechanic 2nd Class Rebecca G. Braswell, Construction Mechanic 3rd Class Shannon M. Butler and Construction Mechanic Constructionman Apprentice Matthew G. Toerner — are charged with murder and face trials later this year. Prosecutors paint Toerner as the shooter in a case brokered by Butler with the implicit consent of her close friend, Braswell, the ex-wife of the victim.

The fourth Seabee — Builder Constructionman Apprentice Seth A. Hardy — awaits a preliminary hearing. Police said Hardy admitted to twice attaching makeshift bombs to Marmo’s car in an attempt to kill him.

Bitter from the beginning

Just how these four sailors allegedly came together in a conspiracy to commit murder is at the crux of the prosecution’s case.

Rebecca Braswell, now 26, met John Marmo when they were both in the Navy. They married Dec. 1, 2001, three months before their daughter’s birth in Sigonella, Italy. But the young marriage turned bitter before their separation and subsequent divorce after they moved to California.

The ripple effects of that contentious relationship are at the heart of the murder investigation and conspiratorial web alleged by prosecutors.

During a preliminary hearing April 17-18 for the three, lead prosecutor Richard Simon cited Rebecca Braswell, 26, as the underlying driver and silent partner on the road to Marmo’s murder. Braswell, said prosecutor Simon, told a former paralegal: “He’s going to win. I’m not going to let that happen. He’ll be dead first.”

Braswell and Butler, Simon said in opening statements at the preliminary hearing, “arranged to have John Marmo killed.”

Braswell, Butler and Toerner — each shackled at the legs and wearing orange shirts and slate-blue coveralls — sat with their defense attorneys in the courtroom as a dozen relatives and friends and Marmo’s mother and sisters watched the proceedings. Initial testimony in the hearing before Superior Court Judge John Dobroth showed the Seabees pointing fingers at each other.

The case raises troubling questions beyond the immediate puzzle of the conspiracy. How, for example, could so many sailors casually hear repeated statements and solicitations to commit murder, yet do nothing to stop it or talk them out of it? Why didn’t the command do more to investigate the initial claims of a murder plot — and could it have prevented Marmo’s death?

The following account is based on court documents, law enforcement sources and witness testimony in the case.

The shooting

It was just before 6 a.m. Dec. 1 when three gunshots jarred Sheryl O’Neil from her bed. John Marmo Jr., who rented a room in her Camarillo condo, would have just left for his job at an equipment shop.

Lying in wait inside a Dodge Durango on an adjacent driveway, prosecutors contend, were two sailors, one armed with a Ruger 9mm handgun.

Seconds after the shots rang out, Marmo “banged on the door and said, ‘help,’.” O’Neil testified April 17.

Running downstairs, she dialed 911. “As I opened the door, he was lying face down on the sidewalk” in a pool of blood, she testified. “It was very labored breathing, and then the breathing stopped.”

The shots awoke neighbor Benjamin Matzkind two houses away. “I heard three gunshots, and then I heard a victory cry and tires just peel out,” Matzkind testified.

“It sounded like a ‘woo-hoo,’ like they succeeded in what they were doing, and they took off,” he added.

Six weeks earlier, John Marmo, a former aviation machinist’s mate, told local authorities of two discoveries of makeshift bombs attached to his car. Marmo blamed his ex-wife in the Oct. 14 and Oct. 28 incidents, in which someone affixed propane canisters to the exhaust pipe, and Ventura police and sheriff’s deputies began to investigate.

The ex-wife

Jaclyn Marmo could barely stand to look at her ex-sister-in-law, seated at a table 20 feet away.

John Marmo’s sister testified of often listening in on conversations he had with his ex as their custody and visitation battle strung through hearings and continuances. The short marriage was rocky from the get-go.

During one argument, Rebecca Braswell “told my brother John he’d better watch his back,” testified Jaclyn Marmo, who’s contesting Braswell’s sister for custody of their niece Heather, now 5.

The couple traded accusations. John Marmo, she said, got repeated phone calls from Braswell telling him, “I’m not trying to kill you.”

The girlfriend

In the prosecution’s eye, Shannon Butler, 23 — a slight blonde with pale skin and blue eyes — was the broker in the murder conspiracy.

Several witnesses testified that for months on quarterdeck watch, digging for water wells or during breaks in the Smoke Pit outside the enlisted barracks, Butler openly spoke about hurting or killing Marmo, who they knew as her friend’s ex. Butler often complained that she was “jumped” by unknown assailants and that Marmo had beaten her.

Several Seabees said Butler asked if they would kill or “do something to” Marmo or knew someone who would, and she offered $200 to hurt him or $1,000 to kill him. “Money was put up to see if she could get somebody to abuse the victim, do damage to the car ... just to make it look like it was an accident,” testified Builder 3rd Class Donald Kohler, who dated Butler for two months but broke it off because “I didn’t want to get involved in this.”

Douglas Bonner, a former builder recently discharged from the Navy, testified that Butler once approached him, asking “if I knew any ... contract hit men.”

Seaman Brian Linnell said Butler once showed him a black 9mm handgun. “She asked if I would or if I knew anybody,” Linnell testified. “I said no.”

Butler asked for help in getting a gun and casually spoke “once a week, at least” over four months of her desire “get rid of” her friend’s ex, Equipment Operator Constructionman Apprentice Raymie Huddleston testified. Butler never mentioned Marmo by name, Huddleston said. Butler “said she didn’t tell Rebecca anything ... because she didn’t want to get Rebecca in trouble.”

The shooter

At the Smoke Pit, a smoking area outside the barracks at the Port Hueneme base, Shannon Butler found helpful hands in two sailors, Matthew Toerner and Seth Hardy.

On the day of the shooting, Toerner, then 19, sat in the back seat of a rented SUV driven by Butler. They waited about 30 minutes before John Marmo stepped outside, and Toerner fired the gun, Toerner told homicide detective Joe Evans.

Toerner thought the murder would save Butler. He “felt that Shannon was in danger from Mr. Marmo, and he felt that it was Shannon or Marmo,” Evans testified. “She had told him of incidents that she had been beaten up ... and she was afraid of Marmo.” It’s unclear whether Butler’s claims are true, and no evidence was presented. Toerner said he declined Butler’s offer of money, saying, “It’s about protecting her,” Evans testified.

Toerner, who didn’t know Braswell, may have been conflicted. Days before the shooting, he told Evans, he and Butler went to Marmo’s home. “Shannon wanted him to go in the house and shoot him,” the detective said. But he “didn’t want to do it and he wasn’t going to do it.” They left after a neighbor confronted them.

Evan said Toerner, who said he left the gun in a backpack in the vehicle, was “extremely” remorseful.

The bomber

It wasn’t just Toerner who got sucked into the murderous plot. Detectives said Seth Hardy, 20, admitted he and Butler tried to blow up Marmo’s car. It was a topic of discussion at the Smoke Pit, several sailors said.

Butler “asked about a propane tank and a muffler” and often discussed “if that would work,” Huddleston testified. Kohler testified that Toerner and Hardy “told her they knew how.” Linnell said Butler also spoke about attempts to “blow up” Marmo’s car and, when he asked her why, she told him about “trying to kill him over a custody battle, or something like that.”

Evans said that weeks before the shooting, Toerner tried to persuade Hardy, a friend who “was like a brother to him,” not to help Butler or risk his life for “one dumb mistake.”