Additional remains of Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed in an Oct. 4 ambush in Niger, have been found at the site where his body was discovered two days after the attack, the Pentagon confirmed.
The remains were found nine days ago by a U.S. Africa Command team investigating the attack in which four U.S. troops were killed after they were surprised by Islamic State-linked insurgents.
“We can confirm that the Armed Forces Medical Examiner has positively identified these remains as those of Sgt. Johnson,” chief Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement.
The remains consisted mostly of bone fragments, according to one Pentagon official, and the discovery was not made public until Johnson’s widow was briefed about the findings.
Johnson was the subject of a frantic search by the U.S. and Nigerien forces when he was reported missing after an intense firefight. The soldiers are in the country to train local forces.
The Pentagon announcement confirms his body was not found intact, and helps explains why his widow was discouraged from viewing his remains upon his return home last month.
“They won’t show me a finger, a hand,” Myeshia Johnson said in an interview with ABC news last month. “I know my husband’s body from head to toe and they won’t let me see anything,” she said. “I need to see my husband.”
It was during that same interview that Johnson confirmed reports that President Trump, while speaking to the widow over the phone, forgot the soldier’s name and said “he knew what he signed up for.”
“It made me cry because I was very angry at the tone of his voice and how he said it,” she said.
Reports from Niger say a local farmer found Johnson’s body with his hands bound, about a mile away from the site of the attack, suggesting he may have been taken captive before he died.
The Pentagon has not confirmed those reports as it awaits the results of the official investigation that is expected to be completed early next year.
“The department continues to conduct a detailed and thorough investigation into the deaths of Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, and Sgt. La David T. Johnson,” White said. “We extend our deepest condolences to all of the families of the fallen.”
