TAEGU, South Korea — An Army private based in Taegu pleaded not guilty Monday to murder in the stabbing death of a sergeant at Camp Carroll earlier this year.
Pfc. Gregory David Robertson’s court-martial opened Monday morning at Camp Henry on charges stemming from the fatal Feb. 19 stabbing of Sgt. Kenneth Lamond Kelly at Camp Carroll in Waegwan.
Kelly, 27, was assigned to the 293rd Signal Company at Camp Carroll. Robertson, a computer graphics designer assigned to the 20th Area Support Group at Camp Henry, has been in pretrial confinement at Camp Humphreys pending the court-martial.
The Army also charged him in connection with a separate Camp Henry incident. He is accused of entering a female soldier’s room in November and touching her while she slept.
In the stabbing case, Robertson pleaded guilty to wrongfully possessing a knife; to trying to impede the investigation by trying to hide the knife; and to disobeying an officer’s order when he left Camp Henry without permission. He’d been restricted to the post pending trial on the November incident.
In the November case, he pleaded guilty Monday to indecent assault, admitting he entered a sleeping female soldier’s room and touched the blanket covering her at a point near her genital area.
He also pleaded not guilty to a burglary charge but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of unlawfully entering the woman’s room.
For charges to which he pleaded guilty on Monday, he faces maximum penalties of reduction to the lowest military pay grade, E-1; forfeiture of all pay and allowances; a dishonorable discharge; and 17½ years in prison.
A conviction on the murder charge carries a maximum penalty of reduction to E-1, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, a dishonorable discharge and life in prison.
Presiding is Army Col. Patrick J. Parrish, assigned to the office of the chief circuit judge, Sixth Judicial Circuit in South Korea. Robertson opted to be tried by military judge alone instead of a jury.
Prosecutors portrayed Robertson as a soldier who did whatever he wanted, even if it meant breaking the law. They presented most of their case on Monday, calling eight witnesses, including a female soldier who had been Kelly’s girlfriend, and in whose barracks room he was stabbed. She was a member of his battalion.
Prosecution witnesses testified variously that Robertson had maintained a close friendship with Kelly’s girlfriend, a friendship Kelly came to resent, even striking Robertson and embarrassing him publicly one night at Camp Walker’s Hilltop Club.
The day Kelly was stabbed, Robertson visited the female soldier at Camp Carroll. She and Kelly had broken up the night before, she testified.
Kelly, becoming furious when he learned Robertson was with her, sent her a cell phone text message that he was on his way to her barracks.
When she urged Robertson to leave, she testified, he showed her the knife and assured her Kelly didn’t worry him.
The woman testified that when Kelly arrived, he attacked, knocking her to the floor, then set upon Robertson, who had withdrawn to the bathroom.
It was then, prosecutors stated, that Robertson stabbed Kelly, who staggered across the room and collapsed, dying that night.
Assistant defense counsel Capt. Pia W. Rogers told the judge that “this is a case about fear...about rage,” and that Robertson bore no harmful intent when he visited Camp Carroll or when Kelly later confronted him in the barracks.
The trial was to resume Tuesday morning.
