Navy News, news from Iraq - Navy Times

Navy was murdered reservist’s passion

BETHEL – Debbie Russell had found her life’s work four years ago, at 40.

Inspired by the military service of family members, Russell had enlisted in the Navy Reserve and served a sixth-month tour in Iraq, returning in October and becoming active in the American Legion in Williamsburg.

She was going to carry a flag in the town’s Memorial Day parade Monday morning.

When she didn’t show up, friends at the Legion hall knew something was wrong.

Monday afternoon, Clermont County sheriff’s deputies found Russell, 44, and her husband of six years, Kurt Russell, 41, dead in their rural home at 3830 Happy Hollow Road.

Clermont County Sheriff A.J. Rodenberg initially has ruled the deaths a murder-suicide. He said Kurt Russell shot his wife as she slept in their bedroom with a .357-caliber pistol. Then he walked to the living room, where he sat in a chair and shot himself, the sheriff said.

The couple had struggled with their marriage, said Debbie Russell’s sister-in-law Missy Piper of Florence.

“She was going to leave him,” Piper said Tuesday afternoon. “He didn’t know she was planning on leaving. I don’t know if he had found out.”

Debbie Russell worked for eight years for Fifth Third Bank and was a training specialist at its facility on Red Bank Road, a bank official confirmed Tuesday.

But the Navy had become her passion.

She was a petty officer and had been recommended twice for early promotion. She was about to embark on a three-week training mission in Australia, her sister-in-law said.

Her service in Iraq focused on cargo. She drove forklifts and other heavy equipment in the Navy, family members said. Her unit was stationed in Kuwait. She volunteered to be one of a small number to go to Al Asad, Iraq. There she worked as a logistics coordinator at the airport.

She also ran into her brother, Michael Walton, an Army reservist who served two tours in Iraq.

“I have two heroes, my father and my sister,” Walton said through tears on the phone.

Then he talked about how his sister overcame cancer and underwent a hysterectomy in order to be allowed to enlist at 40.

“I don’t know of many Americans who would enlist, let alone fight cancer to get there,” he said. “At the end of the day, that is her legacy, not how she died.”

Though she did not have children of her own, Russell was “family-oriented, the kind of aunt who never missed a birthday party or graduation,” Piper said.

Russell was a 1983 graduate of Boone County High School. She grew up in Covington and Florence. She was previously married to David Vagedes.

Arrangements are pending for Kurt Russell at E.C. Nurre Funeral Home in Amelia. Her arrangements will be handled by Chamber and Grubbs Funeral Home in Northern Kentucky. Several fellow members of American Legion Post 288 in Williamsburg are planning to attend.

“She was going to walk in the parade, carrying one of the two flags (U.S. or Legion) in the color guard,” said Ray Sipple, post commander. “She really liked what she was doing in the Navy.”

Fellow Legion members in the hall’s barroom swapped stories Tuesday of one of the post’s three female members. They didn’t want to talk to outsiders and referred all questions to Sipple.

Murders are rare in the close-knit communities of Williamsburg and Bethel, which has a population of 2,633.

The scene at the Russell house Tuesday was silent. A contemporary ranch house, with an exterior of brick and vinyl siding, rests in the woods at the end of a gravel driveway stretching two-tenths of a mile. The Russells had built the home.

Rain fell Tuesday on the long grass. It had been matted by heavy tires of emergency vehicles.