The family of Pfc. Clint Lamebear is planning to attend the upcoming court-martial of two fellow 1st Armored Division soldiers accused of murdering him.
Lamebear’s mother, Kristen June, plans to fly to Germany with family for the trial, she said in an e-mail interview.
“It is very important for everyone to know my son was loved, and how this has devastated not only me, but the entire family,” she wrote.
Pfc. Jonathan Schroeder, 22, and Pfc. Andrew Humiston, 23, are accused of killing Lamebear, an 18-year-old American Indian in November.
Schroeder, from Pontotoc, Miss., and Humiston, of Champlin, Minn., are scheduled to be arraigned Thursday at 8:30 a.m. at Taylor Barracks in Mannheim, Germany. They’re charged with murder, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and obstruction of justice.
The arraignment only includes pre-trial motions, such as initial pleadings. Trial dates have not been set, said Hilde Patton, a V Corps spokeswoman.
Jurisdiction in the Lamebear case switched to V Corps after the 1st Armored Division deployed to Kuwait in late April.
Lamebear was assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment of the 1st AD, based in Friedberg, Germany.
Both Humiston and Schroeder are with Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 1-36.
Family and officials from his high school told Stars and Stripes that Lamebear’s overarching ambition in life was to join the Army. But his military career lasted only 96 hours after he arrived Nov. 12 at Ray Barracks, his first assignment out of boot camp.
On Nov. 16, a German man found Lamebear’s body in the Sachsenhausen pub section of Frankfurt, where he’d been beaten to death.
The trial cannot bring her son back, June said, and she realizes that she has little to gain.
“But the ones responsible for this must understand how much they took from us when they took my son’s life.”
