Report: Marine shooter at Quantico had suffered brain injury

McLEAN, Va. A distraught Marine who fatally shot his ex-girlfriend and a colleague before killing himself at the Quantico Marine Corps base was suicidal, had signs of traumatic brain injury and should have received better psychological care, a military investigation found.

Sgt. Eusebio Lopez was receiving treatment in North Carolina after his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in Iraq, but his medical care stopped abruptly when he was transferred to Quantico in 2012, according to a report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The reason appeared to be two-fold: His new doctors didn't know about his previous treatment and he didn't speak up.

The report also found problems with the response to the shooting because unarmed Marines were deployed to secure the perimeter around the barracks. Two of the bodies were not found until nearly four hours after the shots were fired.

Lopez shot Lance Cpl. Sara Castromata, 19, and Cpl. Jacob Wooley, 23, inside a barracks at the Officer Candidates School after a night of drinking. Lopez was upset Castromata had ended a relationship with him and had begun dating Wooley, according to the report obtained Thursday.

The day of the shooting, Lopez sent numerous despondent text messages to Castromata, including "See u on the other side sara im out" and "U could have saved me."

The report found Lopez's problems began on a 2007 deployment to Iraq, when he was inches away from stepping on a homemade bomb. It worsened after a stint in Afghanistan in 2011, when he was a passenger on a vehicle struck by a roadside bomb. He was diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury and post-concussion syndrome. The report also referenced symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder and said Lopez was going through a separation with his wife.

Lopez received treatment at a Concussion Recovery Center while stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, but the report indicates his medical records were not transferred to Quantico when he was reassigned.

"There should have been a conscientious and deliberate transfer of Sergeant Lopez's medical case," the investigating officer found.

Some of his mental health records were in a database available to Quantico, but not until several months after he arrived in June 2012. The investigation concluded Lopez's mental health problems should have caused him to fail a screening he received in November 2012 to qualify for arms, ammunitions and explosives duty. At the time of the shootings, Lopez was a tactics instructor at the Officer Candidate School whose specialty was machine gunner.

The failure to carefully review his medical history in that screening was a missed opportunity, the investigation found.

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Report: Marine shooter at Quantico had suffered brain injury