Mysterious Deaths of Two Staten Island Marines
July 4th, 2011Via: SI Live:
New Brighton natives Duane Robert Liburd Jr. and Hamson R. Daniels McPherson never knew each other.
But the two young men wound up in the same place a half-world away — as U.S. Marines stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa.
And in a tragic coincidence, Liburd, 22, and Daniels McPherson, 21, both met their deaths on that Pacific island under mysterious circumstances about two months ago and within weeks of each other.
Liburd’s family was told he drowned on May 14, while swimming off a beach near his barracks.
Daniels McPherson’s father said the Marine Corps told him the former defensive end for the Curtis High School football team doused himself with gasoline on May 1 and set himself ablaze. He died 19 days later in a burn unit in San Antonio, Texas, where he had been transferred.
The Marine Corps’ explanation of how their sons died have left the two men’s kin with far more questions than answers.
Research Credit: cptmarginal
