WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- A Special Forces soldier who served in Afghanistan killed himself at Fort Bragg last week after wounding two people, authorities said Friday.
The soldier was in a unit prescribed a controversial malaria drug that has been linked to several other violent incidents ending in soldier suicides.
Spc. Richard T. Corcoran, 34, shot himself Feb. 3 at his ex-wife's home near the North Carolina base. He first shot her boyfriend several times, then shot her in the arm. Both survived.
Corcoran served in Afghanistan from September 2002 to March 2003 with the Seventh Special Forces Group in an area where soldiers were routinely prescribed Lariam, said Major Robert Gowan, a spokesman for the Army Special Operations Command based at Fort Bragg. Gowan said he did not know whether Corcoran actually had taken the drug.
In the summer of 2002 three Special Forces soldiers who had served in Afghanistan and took Lariam killed their wives and subsequently themselves, after returning to Fort Bragg. The Army investigated, ruling out the drug as a common factor in those deaths and instead blaming marital problems.
United Press International uncovered three more suicides by Special Forces soldiers who took the drug.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon said a study that began a year ago to see if Lariam caused suicides or other problems was still in the preliminary stage. There has been no change in the military's use of the drug, the Pentagon added.
