Alexis Colon had shot herself in the chest with a .357 Magnum. The gun was next to her body, along with a suicide note, which read, "I am too weak and ashamed to live."
To her relatives, Alexis Colon's death was more than a suicide. In a 8320 million wrongful-death claim filed against the Army this month, her parents allege that Alexis' commanding officers drove the young woman to kill herself after she filed a sexual harassment complaint against two sergeants in her unit. Officers who responded to the complaint with a terse written reprimand accusing her of "conduct unbecoming a soldier in the form of sexual harassment" drove their daughter to despair, the parents say. They believe that Alexis is a casualty in the military's furious be-hind-the-lines battle between the sexes, a struggle that has become increasingly rancorous since the 1991 Tailbook convention in Las Vegas, when at least 36 female officers and civilians allegedly were sexually assaulted by Navy fliers. "She was asking for help from her superiors, and they turned on her," says Colon's father, Alexander Martinez, 48, a computer-systems coordinator. "It was as if they pulled the trigger."
The daughter of Filipino immigrants, Alexis was raised in San Francisco and joined the Army in 1986, soon after graduating from high school. "She wanted adventure," says her mother, Peaches, 47, a data-processing supervisor. Alexis met Luis Colon when she was assigned to Fort Hood in May 1986 and married him eight months later.
Last April, Alexis told her mother that some men in the clinic were giving her "a bad time," but did not offer any details. Around the same time, Luis began to notice that Alexis was having mood swings and difficulty sleeping. He confronted her on April 25, and she told him two men who worked with her at the base dental clinic—Sgt. Robert McDonald and Sgt. Dax Aries—had been harassing her for several months. "I wish she had told me earlier," says Luis. "But she knew the kind of temper I had. She knew I would have gone out and whipped those guys. So she tried to keep it to herself."
On April 27, Luis accompanied Alexis when she filed a formal complaint with Sgt. Maj. Melvin Hutchens. She charged that McDonald, 22, had been making sexually suggestive comments to her since December and that Aries, in his mid-30s, had kissed her and run his fingers through her hair despite her protests. "The sergeant major was outraged," says Luis. "He said both individuals would be removed from the clinic the next day." The Colons celebrated that evening. "Alexis was so happy," says Luis. "It was like somebody took the world off her shoulders."
Two days later, McDonald and Aries had not been transferred. When Luis saw his wife briefly after work that afternoon, he says, "Her eyes were swollen from crying. She told me she was being accused of sexual harassment." Luis was totally baffled. "I asked her why she was charged, but she didn't tell me," he says. "I think she felt ashamed. She came forward, and now she was being kicked in the gut." By that evening. Alexis was dead.
Following Colon's suicide, McDonald and Aries were issued reprimands and McDonald was barred from re-enlistment. All the soldiers involved in the case have been ordered not to talk with the press. But in a November letter to Colorado Congresswoman Patricia Sehroeder, Col. John McNulty, chief of the Congressional Inquiry Division of the Army, said an investigation had revealed that "Colon herself had initiated and participated in sexually explicit conversations with the male soldiers involved. . .[and] was cautioned that any additional incidents could result in disciplinary action." In an earlier letter to California Congressman Tom Lantos, McNulty said there were also "reasons to believe that Specialist Colon was experiencing problems and stress outside of her workplace, and of a personal and marital nature."
"It's a lie," says Luis. "There was no stress in our marriage. There was no reason besides what was happening at work for her to take her life. I was real protective of her. But we trusted each other."
Some of Alexis' friends agree that Luis was extremely protective ("[He] wouldn't let Alexis go places," says one female coworker who does not want to be named because of the gag order at the dental clinic), but they doubt that had anything to do with her death. "It's a man's army," says the same coworker. "They try to intimidate you. Alexis was like a mouse in a trap. She had nowhere to turn."
Luis still finds it difficult to believe his wife is dead. Last August he was transferred to a base in his native Puerto Rico at his own request and carries the memory of Alexis with him. "There was one sweater she al-ways wore which I lake to bed with me every night. And I talk to her," Luis says. "It's like half of my life, half of my body is gone."
DAVID GROGAN
LIZ MCNEIL in San Francisco
- Contributors:
- Liz McNeil.