Crime Junkie - MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Kyle Antonacci

Episode Date: November 11, 2019

When Navy sailor Kyle Antonacci was found dead in his barracks in 2010, investigators quickly ruled it a suicide. However, discrepancies pop up right away and his family is left with one critical question: did Kyle really die by suicide, or was it something more sinister? For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/mysterious-death-kyle-antonacci/​ 

Hi crime junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers and I'm Britt and as you probably know today is Veterans Day We've talked about issues in the US military justice system before back in October of 2018 We actually did an episode on the suspicious death of women in the armed forces that were basically all ruled Suicides despite some pretty questionable and even downright horrifying evidence that points to rape murder and systematic cover-ups And if you haven't heard that episode, I highly recommend checking it out It's called conspiracy women in the US military and when I originally did that episode I was shocked that it wasn't a bigger deal in the media like no one was talking about it And so this year I decided to look into some more cases like this this time about male soldiers instead

And I'm still just as stunned I really cannot believe more people aren't clamoring for justice for those who serve our country And so I'm turning to our listeners again to help spread the word Share this episode on your social media channels Tell your friends tell your family and be sure to check out military families for justice org to learn more about how you can help Regardless of race age gender religion or service branch every military family shares one Common visceral fear that unexpected knock on the front door from officials that are there to notify them that their loved one has died And for Al and Lisa Antonacci their worst fear came to life in early February 2010

They're at home in Long Island when someone knocks on their door It's Navy personnel coming to deliver the terrible news that their son Kyle an explosive ordinance disposal trainee stationed in Illinois is dead Al and Lisa are absolutely heartbroken But their misery is immediately compounded by confusion because in just a short time after being initially notified inconsistencies start popping up in the Navy's story about what happened to their son on the day that he died Al told ABC News that the officials who came to their home to deliver the terrible news like at first They just kept changing their story like first they told Al and his family that Kyle had died in a car accident Then they were told that he died of a massive aneurysm in his bunk. Those are two completely different things

Right, and it's like not even like you could accidentally mix up something like that So Kyle's sister Carissa gets the idea that she thinks will get her closer to the truth She goes on Facebook and reaches out to some of the guys that were on Kyle's base like they were right there with Kyle So surely they know something like was he in a car was he in his bunk like which one of these stories is real Yeah, what she finds is baffling. So they say Neither story is true They tell her that Kyle was found hanging in the closet in his barracks with a belt around his neck Wait, what right? I know so according to the LA Times

Eventually the Navy changes their story yet again and this time tells the family that yes That is how Kyle was found and he had taken his own life and died by suicide Now Kyle's family is reasonably shocked like they can't believe that he would ever do such a thing He was a bright young man with his whole future ahead of him Like he joined the Navy back in 2007 because he wanted to make a difference and serve his country His ultimate goal was to become a Navy SEAL. So he went to Naval Station Great Lakes near Chicago for training And now all of a sudden three years later, he's dead No, of course, we know suicide is an incredibly difficult thing for loved ones to wrap their heads around under any

Circumstances, but okay, but but this would be even harder if if that was the real story like why not just come out with it Like very start like right and it's not even like they Misinterpreted something like their first story was straight up a lie about a car accident. That is right very very different Right. So denial is a natural reaction But Kyle's family are sure that something is wrong here Now the coroner's case report says that they talked to the sailor who found Kyle's body And that that sailor was said to have observed that Kyle was, you know, very down He didn't seem like himself and that's like something was off the day that he died

Okay, so was something going on with him? Well, so yeah, it turns out there was something like really big going on the Naval Station Great Lakes where Kyle was stationed is Huge and it's actually the Navy's largest training facility. There's over something like 20,000 people who work there and train there Yeah, so you've got sailors like Kyle soldiers civilians working for the Department of Defense marines and like they all kind of like mix across Groups it's basically like any other workplace where you get to know the people in your department other departments, whatever So Kyle and his sailor buddies know some marines and they share barracks and like a lot of young adults They like to party on the weekends. So on May 8th 2009 which is a Friday night Kyle is hanging out with this female Marine Lance Corporal that he's known for a while

So according to the LA Times, they're not romantically involved But they've had sex a few times like it's just kind of like a casual thing Okay, well on this night after a few too many drinks this woman is interested in having sex with him again In court later Kyle testifies that basically she had made some sexual advances toward him but he tells her no and Then according to him in these court documents Kyle calls his friend Michael over who lives upstairs and At some point Kyle says that he leaves them alone together After like Michael comes down to his room now when he gets back Michael is gone

But the woman is still there and now she's in his bed under the blankets naked and later that same night She tells her superiors that this Michael guy who Kyle had invited down sexually assaulted her So the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, which is the NCIS gets involved and starts looking into this case So according to the LA Times Michael is charged with aggravated sexual assault by Substantial incapacitation because the woman claimed to have been too drunk to consent properly So if he's convicted of this Michael could face prison time He risks losing like his entire career all of his benefits And they basically consider Kyle to be a witness at this point because he was kind of there with both of them

Like he invited him down even though he didn't like see it happen they consider him a witness and they basically have him testify against his good friend now from the outside like This kind of looks like I mean it could give Michael some kind of motive to be upset with Kyle if we're gonna operate under the assumption that anything Other than suicide happened to him But even though like good friends are kind of pitted against each other in court and Kyle's going to have to testify against Michael Two articles that I found in LA Times and Pash reported that Michael Wasn't mad at Kyle for long and wouldn't have had a reason to want something bad to happen to him So if not Michael if all of this is going on it kind of revolves around him

Who else would have been mad enough to do something to Kyle? Because Kyle is caught up in these sexual assault allegations He's afraid for both his career and his life Now even though Kyle says he wasn't there when the alleged assault took place No, according to patch Kyle tells his friend that he started to have some doubts about the woman's version of the events Like so early on he thought like you know all I know is that he came in and and then when I came back like she's laying there naked like that Could have happened but as time goes on he starts to kind of wonder like starts to question And now I want to be very clear here that we're just telling the story of what happened as it was reported

We're not accusing anyone of making false claims or even pretending to know what really happened on that night But this woman gets wind of this that the fact that he's like maybe kind of questioning this maybe might change his story And she goes to his room in the middle of the night with a warning that he better not change his story Now not too long after this woman makes this warning to Kyle one of her male friends who's also a Marine takes it one step further and threatens Kyle with a knife He gives the same message don't change your story Then a few days later Kyle comes back to his barracks and finds a giant X carved in his door Now yeah I mean it's like escalating threats over and over over this like kind of long period of time And this group that are making the threats don't let up and they keep coming and coming and getting worse and worse

At this point Kyle is understandably freaking out so he goes to NCIS to report what's going on and request some protection So all they do though is like they move him to another room but he's kept on base at that same Naval Station Great Lakes Now Kyle's family back home knows that all of this is happening because all along he's been calling them a lot especially his sister Carissa And she told the LA Times that he was scared during this time like he didn't know what to do Yeah I mean does he go through with it like I cannot imagine testifying against a friend like this that has to be so difficult to like bring yourself to Well yeah and I mean to have that compounded with like all the threats being made against you as well it's not even just like testifying against a friend But yeah despite how scared he is and how confused he might be Kyle testifies for the prosecution in the fall of 2009 So that November Michael's found guilty of aggravated sexual assault and he sentenced to three months in jail and given a bad conduct discharge from the Navy

So that takes away basically all of his veterans benefits VA disability compensation and a lot of the things that service people are normally entitled to after they leave the military So again like at this point like you would think Michael would be pissed and like don't get me wrong he is for a while but he told Patch that he got over it pretty quickly Because he knew that Kyle didn't really want to do it and he was like basically being threatened into doing it Almost as soon as the trial concludes military officials start raising doubts about Kyle's testimony So here's the thing it turns out both Kyle and the woman neglected to mention to anyone one important fact during the investigation The two of them had had sex on the same day before the alleged rape took place Now if you remember Kyle initially testified that he turned her down that night so court records from Michael's appeal shed a little bit of light on what might have really happened that night Basically eventually Kyle admits not only did he and the female Marine have sexual intercourse that day but according to the records she also performed oral sex on him while Michael was in the room

So it seems a little confusing and a little bit messy and according to a witness for the defense at Michael's trial the female Marine told this witness that she felt forced to say that she was raped And that she over exaggerated what happened now this is all in again in the court records not me trying to like say she didn't do it Now here's the thing previous sexual activity on the day of the alleged assault does not mean that the assault didn't happen But this is information that NCIS felt was relevant to the investigation and basically the investigators are upset that it was omitted by everyone And nobody like even thought to mention it to them and they felt like it really could have like impacted the case and how they investigated it Now keep in mind that at the time this is all happening it's a time when the NCIS the Navy the US Armed Forces as a whole were starting to face mounting criticism and deeply uncomfortable questions about how they were handling sexual assault and reporting Service Women Action Network captured some alarming statistics in late 2009 that quote 3,230 military sexual assaults reported in 2009 which represents an increase of 11% from the year before in 2008 Now they also reported that only 8% of perpetrators are prosecuted and that's five times less than the civilian 40%

Now without making any kind of judgment call about what happened between that female Marine and Michael like amidst a lot of controversy the military had a conviction that basically they could point to And say look we care we're taking sexual assault seriously but now with this new information the stuff that was left out that conviction might fall apart and make them look even worse So once the NCIS confronts Kyle about what he left out and they threaten him with legal action for omitting his sexual encounter with the woman Kyle confesses to the truth He says yes we had sex but it was fully consensual and he alleges that he kept it quiet because he says that she had threatened to accuse him of rape too Now according to an NCIS report that the patch saw Kyle states quote I did not speak about all the events because of her threat of rape I knew when she was discussing these things that she was stretching the truth I went along with this because she threatened me End quote So Kyle cuts a deal with NCIS to become an informant and in exchange for cooperating he'll basically get to clear his name avoid any perjury charge for making a false statement to investigators and get a transfer down to Florida

Now him being an informant isn't just like him changing his story or giving a new statement or whatever Instead he actually records two phone conversations with that female Marine one in late January of 2010 and one on February 1st Did they get anything incriminating on the call? So not really this woman sticks to her story about Michael assaulting her but she says she doesn't remember anything about having sex with Kyle that day She denies threatening him with rape charges and she also says that she has no idea that her fellow Marines were even threatening Kyle And here's the thing just hours after that conversation that second one that he recorded that is when Kyle is found hanging in the closet No Now like I said before right from the moment that they learn about Kyle's death his family and friends even Michael don't think it's suicide

They do about everything he was tangled up in and they are sure that he wouldn't do this Al and Lisa's suspicions only get stronger when Kyle's body is released to them because what they see at his funeral is horrifying The patch did a five-part series about this case where his father Al was quoted as saying When we saw my son's body in the casket he looked like he was excuse my language beaten the hell out of And in that same article Lisa basically added she said when we saw his face he had black eyes his nose was swollen He had abrasions all over his face his hands like someone could actually see gouge marks on his hands then we knew something was going on Okay, is this something that could have happened maybe at like the funeral home or during the embalming process like a body goes through a lot of things in that process And we've seen in other cases too like is that a possibility?

So it could have been yeah but the coroner's report makes me think that it wasn't just like a funeral director's air or something that happened during the embalming process Because according to ABC News the Lake County coroner's report noted that Kyle had hemorrhaging around his face a broken nose and other injuries that the medical examiners said were not consistent with a typical hanging Kyle also had a bloody nose when he was found which from what I can find like you don't normally see in cases like this where someone had hung themselves Now the official coroner's report doesn't specify if Kyle died from a homicide or a suicide it just says hanging and also and this is the part that really gets me The Lake County coroner himself wrote quote I stated to NCIS agents that I was not 100% convinced this was a self-inflicted hanging end quote Okay, but like they can't 100% rule it out either though right like with all the stuff going on in Kyle's life there could be a reason to suspect that he was suicidal Is there any reports anywhere that say that you know he was acting different or was feeling depressed or down or anything? So yeah I mean clearly he was going to be a little bit off like he had all of this pressure because of the stuff that was going on that was starting to get to him

Right but like enough for like people to think he would harm himself? Well yeah so I guess some of his friends told investigators that he had actually talked about suicide and just a few days before he died a case agent from NCIS told Kyle's superior officer that he was having suicidal ideations But he wasn't put on any type of like mental health watch and the commanding officer said later that he didn't even remember this conversation happening at all Which again makes this case more confusing right? Like there's a case to be made here for suicide being the cause of death But I keep coming back to why lie then? Like why say car accident? Why say brain aneurysm? Like it feels like something bigger is being covered up In spite of the coroner's doubts and his friends concern the Navy and NCIS refused to give Kyle's family any more details and they stand by their final ruling that Kyle died by suicide At this point Kyle's family is so heartbroken and furious that they decide to take matters into their own hands to find justice Al and Lisa hire a civilian military lawyer and their own private medical examiner

Now this isn't just any medical examiner either. They get Dr. Michael Bodden, a forensic pathologist who some people might know from HBO's documentary series Autopsy Oh yeah, he's like a big deal So Kyle's body is exhumed from its resting place at Long Island National Cemetery on July 21st 2010 for a second autopsy This is almost six months after his death and no one is prepared for what the results turn up In the summer of 2010 after six agonizing months of grief and uncertainty, Kyle's family hopes against hope that this second autopsy they've commissioned will finally get them some answers about how their son died Right away their medical examiner picks up something strange about Kyle's body So embalming is like kind of an art and it might be weird to think of it as an art but it kind of is because you need to have like good technique and training It takes a lot of practice and each person might have their own technique the way an artist would but it's a science too and there's certain things that you would look for

You know like certain things that would kind of be the same embalming to embalming Totally, it's a specialized thing from person to person but there's always going to be some similarities Right, so you'd think except here there aren't Some things are so different that even Dr. Bodden is shocked So usually after someone is autopsy and again sorry for like the mental images here but usually after an autopsy the pathologist puts the internal organs into a bag and then puts that bag back into the body Kind of like this is you know right but like if you were to get a turkey and then sometimes they'll put all like the giblets and stuff like in a bag That's honestly exactly how it works for humans as well But this time during the embalming process they got taken out

Wait so like his organs are just gone? No like they're still there but it seems like they got taken out of this bag if there was a bag ever at all Because Kyle's organs are completely covered in what the doctor calls a very large amount of gelatinous material So that patch article doesn't clarify what exactly that substance is but because his organs weren't protected by that bag This material this goo altered and decomposed Kyle's organs so much that it's impossible to analyze them or to learn anything new Weirdest of all though is that Kyle's hyoid bone was missing Now most of what is in your neck is cartilage but the hyoid is this like horse shoe shaped bone in the front upper part of the neck And hardcore crime junkies will know that medical examiners often look at the hyoid bone when determining causes of death in multiple types of cases

And specifically looking at cases of suspected suicide if the hyoid is broken or fractured that's usually a pretty good indicator of foul play So here's the strange part about the fact that it's been missing The doctor who originally performed that first autopsy said that he examined Kyle's hyoid bone and that there was nothing wrong with it Like it was there perfectly intact when he released the body But now it's nowhere to be found? Right I guess I don't get it like how is it just gone? I don't know that is the thing

Were there any like pictures or photographs of the first autopsy like anything out there that the second doctor can compare and contrast with? Well here's where this case gets even more fishy to me The doctor in Lake County said yeah like I took pictures of everything that's totally protocol But he says the computer system just happened to glitch So a big chunk of Kyle's autopsy photos just disappeared Including all of the pictures of his missing hyoid bone Which like listen I just lost an entire podcast script to a computer glitch this week so I get it glitches are real But what are the odds?

Of those pictures specifically too I know it's so strange and to me I think it's even more strange that that's not something that they could recover Like I lost a script I couldn't find it so I just had to start over and rewrite it But like in an autopsy where there's like questions around someone's death Like I feel like that's something you I don't know it's just so bizarre to me So because the new doctor is missing so much his report comes back inconclusive There's only so much he can do without the missing bone and those deleted photos and that's basically a dead end At the same time that the medical examiner was looking for secrets about Kyle's death

His parents lawyer is looking for secrets about his life Their lawyer James starts with Kyle's next door neighbor And just like with the autopsy it doesn't take long before he starts finding even more inconsistencies Navy investigators reported that Kyle's neighbor at the barracks, the woman, hadn't heard anything the night that he died But when she's interviewed by the lawyer she tells James like hey wait a minute that's not true that's not what I said I told NCIS that I heard several really loud thumps that night so the report's totally wrong Now James is also curious about some strange marks on Kyle's back and ribs that were in among all of the bruises And he has a hunch about what they might be

He thinks that they might be marks from a stun gun So in 2013 he goes down to Texas with Kyle's old friend Michael to do an experiment Wait the same Michael that he testified against? Yes so same guy but by this time actually Michael had gotten his conviction overturned And the appeals court ruled that there was evidence that his accuser might not have been truthful So the Navy opted not to retry the case he got his back pay he got an honorable discharge which restored all of his benefits So according to the LA Times James and Michael gather a crew of law enforcement at a vet's office with a dead pig And different types of stun guns that they think may have been used on Kyle

And basically what happens is that they jolt this pig over and over with these different kinds of weapons to see what happens To see what marks are made what burn patterns are made And they get one stun gun that produces burn patterns that are very similar to the marks they found on Kyle's body They take their findings back to Illinois to the Lake County Coroner Richard Keller who originally was the one who pronounced Kyle's cause of death as undetermined between homicide and suicide Now not only does Richard agree with their findings but he goes a step further and when he talks to the LA Times He lets everyone know that originally he was denied access to some key evidence And he was pressured to call the February 2000 death a suicide Oh my god like NCIS like reopens this entire investigation right this is a huge development

Brett like how many times we've done this No That is not exactly what happened The inspector general of the Department of Defense spends four years investigating not just how the NCIS handled Kyle's death But also how they handled the female Marines rape case and their treatment of Kyle after Michael's conviction So they didn't completely ignore it but again they're spending four years looking into kind of how all of this was handled And their findings are shocking After four years and thousands of dollars spent searching for answers Kyle's parents are no closer to finding out the truth

They hope a report from the Department of Defense which oversees the US Armed Forces will shed some light on what happened to their son The report is released on October 28, 2014 It contains a litany of findings that range from negligent to suspicious to outright troubling According to that report NCIS waited a full 20 days after the female Marine reported that she was raped before they formally interviewed Kyle Despite the fact that the alleged assault took place in his bed Oh my god Even though she gave them a list of people that she was drinking with that night NCIS only interviewed one other witness besides Kyle You're kidding

And even more shocking that report says that the other witness wasn't interviewed until 70 days after the rape was reported That's over two months Oh it gets better NCIS also didn't review the case file like they were supposed to It's in their regulations that they're supposed to go over the case file once every 30 days at least But they only went over the rape investigation three times during the six months before Michael was court-martialed And there's no telling how thoroughly they even were when they did Because surprise surprise NCIS couldn't find the case review records

Oh my god But Brett there is even more though A sexual assault forensic exam was performed on the female Marine And the Army Criminal Investigation Lab located what the report calls third party DNA that didn't match either Kyle or Michael And this seems like a pretty significant piece of evidence to me But we find out through the investigator general that NCIS didn't even re-interview the victim about this They didn't seek any kind of explanation about this third party DNA during the entire course of the rape investigation Oh my god

So basically at the end of the day what they found was that this investigation was not conducted in compliance with any of the investigative standards within NCIS And neither were those threats that Kyle reported Now Brett like again knowing what you know about how they investigated this rape case How long do you think it took for NCIS to fully look into the threats against Kyle? Like just yes I mean honestly did they ever? It took them two years Oh my god

Before they looked into the threats that were made against him Like you think a witness being intimidated on a regular basis like this Would be a party Yeah would get immediate attention but no According to the report Kyle made his statement about the Marine with the knife on September 28th 2009 The Marine who he said made the threats wasn't interviewed about the incident until a week before Kyle's death And that X that was carved into Kyle's door wasn't photographed by NCIS until October 2011 That's almost two years after he died

Yeah The Department of Defense report says that they didn't even present their findings to the Navy or to the Marine Corps until November 2012 I mean and by that time he's been dead for what three years like that's super useful Thanks Well and that's part of the reason why the Department of Defense is saying that this wasn't properly or thoroughly investigated Because it wasn't done in like any kind of diligent or competent manner Like at all At all

And I think this goes hand in hand with the perjury investigation because they both relate so heavily to Kyle's safety And here's the thing too so according to the report Kyle should have been escorted to and from Every interview that he had with NCIS But he wasn't Okay, but why not So I guess there was some confusion about what he was during this time period Like no one seemed to quite know if Kyle was a Confessed military suspect like someone who'd confessed to the crimes that they're being accused of

Or if he was a cooperating defendant According to Navy Times in their article on the report a confessed military suspect is supposed to be released into their command And escorted back to the barracks while a cooperating defendant can go to and from the interrogations on their own So this particular NCIS agent thought that Kyle was a cooperating defendant I guess Now the report states that NCIS told the Department of Defense that they'd gotten escorts for Kyle every other time that he'd been called in during the investigation However, they only ever documented it once And the report says, quote, we found no documentation or witness testimony reflecting NCIS released SN Antonacci to command officials on the day of his death Which seems pretty shady to me

Yeah And their findings about Kyle's death are shady too They note the discrepancies between the first autopsy and the second one, like that missing hyoid bone And once again, NCIS failing to interview witnesses Here's the other thing, the two agents who were with Kyle when he made that second phone call to the female Marine, the ones that were being taped On the day that he died, those agents were never interviewed Despite possibly having valuable insight to the state of his mind that day Yeah, for sure

Now, regardless of NCIS's gross negligence at all steps of this investigation, which I think we can all agree is like pretty clear at this point The investigators Department of Defense report sticks to the original finding that there's, quote, nothing to suggest a conspiracy between NCIS and Department of the Navy officials Rule SN Antonacci's death a suicide, end quote While NCIS, the Navy, and the Department of Defense may consider Kyle Antonacci's case closed The truth of what really happened on that February night almost 10 years ago may never be known Time passes, but I'm sure his loved ones grief will never go away Thank you to all of the men and women in the military serving today. If you want to learn more about initiatives to bring justice to fallen American soldiers Be sure to visit militaryfamiliesforjustice.org for more information

And if you want to see any pictures on this case or to look at our sources, you can find all of that on our website crimejunkiepodcast.com And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast We'll be back next week with a brand new episode Crimejunkie is an audio chuck production, so what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?