ST. PETERSBURG – Nearly every day, Mike Murburg listens to an old voicemail message from his son. Ehren Murburg, 20, called him from Fort Bragg in North Carolina where Ehren was finishing up his training to become a Green Beret.
In the message, his son talks about being back at the fort and preparing for the future.
“I love you and want to see you soon,” Ehren Murburg says before signing off.
The message is significant because it’s one of the last ones Private First Class Ehren Murburg left before he died. Once a Bright Futures scholar at the University of Florida, Ehren Murburg put college on hold to do something bigger with his life. He enlisted and earned a spot at the Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center.
“They broke him down and rebuilt him as a great young man,” Mike Murburg told investigative reporter Doug Smith.
Mike says his son set high goals for himself during Special Forces training and achieved all of them.
“When their physical training was over,” he recalled, “Ehren would be out there an extra 45 minutes on the obstacle course, trying to make himself a better soldier and a better human being.”
When he called his father, Ehren Murburg had just one final test ahead: a mapping exercise where soldiers are sent out alone. As an experienced hunter, he felt confident he could handle it.
“This was supposed to be a cakewalk for him,” said Mike Murburg.
On June 9, 2008, during a week of record-breaking heat, Ehren Murburg went into the woods on a 10-hour mission, but never came out. He never even tried to activate his GPS tracking beacon to call for help.
Soldiers found his body at one spot, and his backpack at another. His father went to the Hoffman Training Area to see the place his son died.
“All I could do is fall to my knees and weep to see the grass still matted from where he fell,” Mike said, fighting back his emotions. “That’s where he laid for 24 hours until they found him.”
Ehren’s family buried him without knowing exactly why he died. In September 2008, the Army had an answer. The autopsy report said: “Cause of death: snake envenomation, manner of death: accident.”
The investigation concluded that PFC Murburg was bitten on the left hand by a water moccasin. The Army captured a snake, took photos and killed it.
The autopsy report, written after the soldier’s body had already been cremated, noted “discoloration of the left hand” and “multiple bites from a venomous snake.”
Mike Murburg tried to accept the Army’s conclusions, but as months passed, the Ivy League-educated lawyer began to have his doubts and started requesting all the investigative records.
“You call it a snake-bite story?” Doug Smith asked Mike.
“Yes, it’s nothing but a snake-bite story.” Murburg replied. He knew he needed help reviewing the Army’s records, and Pinellas County Medical Examiner John Thogmartin agreed to offer his expertise.
“If you look at what’s going on, it’s probably some sort of sudden event that took over his ability to be conscious and make conscious decisions in a relatively rapid fashion, so he couldn’t activate his tracking beacon,” Dr. Thogmartin said. “And that’s not consistent with a snake bite.”
Dr. Thogmartin says if PFC Murburg would have been bitten on the hand by a snake, there would have been plenty of time for him to use his tracking beacon and signal for help. The medical examiner also says the photos don’t show any evidence of a snake bite on Murburg’s left hand.
“Even in his state of decomposition, you could probably tell that there would be something wrong with one hand verses the other hand,” said Dr. Thogmartin. “His hands look the same. They’re symmetrical.”
Congressman Bill Young, a Republican from Florida, also saw the photos, and he agrees.
“There were no bites, no puncture marks, couple of scratches,” Young said.
The congressman has been working on behalf of the Murburg family to get the Army to release all of the records to Dr. Thogmartin.
“The picture of the area that the Army finally sent to him last week showed that he dropped his pack one place, he dropped something else another place, and his body was found in a third location,” said Congressman Young. “(That) tells me that he was disoriented for some reason, either dehydration or exhaustion.”
”It could easily be heat exhaustion,” agrees Dr. Thogmartin. “The findings are consistent.”
“The exercise should have been black flagged,” said Mike Murburg. He now believes his son should never have been sent into the woods during the heat wave, and that the Army broke its own rules when it allowed the exercise to continue.
Mike Murburg contends that the Army blamed a snake, so no one’s career would be hurt. After he started asking tough questions, the Army changed its story.
The amended report says, “Cause of death: undetermined, manner of death: undetermined.”
“There’s something wrong with that,” said Congressman Bill Young. “I need to know what happened to Private Murburg to make sure that this doesn’t happen to some other soldier
going through this training course.”
Each time Mike Murburg plays Ehren’s final voicemail message, it helps him hold on to his son’s memory. The Army turned over his Ehren’s ashes and dog tags — now, what his father wants most are answers.
“Are you any closer today to knowing the truth than you were almost two years ago?” Doug Smith asked Mike Murburg.
“No answers and no apologies,” he simply replied.
The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command is looking into PFC Murburg’s death, but would not comment. A public affairs officer told FOX 13 the Army’s policy prohibits him from discussing any case until it is closed.