Mourning mom blames Tinker
Mourning mom blames Tinker

The technical sergeant who killed his two children and himself at Tinker Air Force Base suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Related content

Links

• Warning: Graphic language: Read an excerpt of...
  

More Info

Dylan, left, Michelle, center, and Jourdain Thorson. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MICHELLE THORSON

NewsOK Related Articles

• DHS letter draws ire
  05/18/2008 The state Department of Human Services sent a grieving mother a notice that her family should get counseling, apparently not realizing the children already...
• Mother felt guilt, records indicate
  05/18/2008 Michelle Thorson blamed herself after learning her son and daughter had been fatally shot by their father at Tinker Air Force Base, records show. "No, no,...

Dustin Thorson, 35, was diagnosed last year in Oklahoma after returning as a war hero from Iraq, according to records reviewed by The Oklahoman.

Thorson "filed numerous reports ... against his ex-wife, which were reported to be unfounded, as well as displaying signs of paranoia by purchasing security systems, with small cameras, and installing them inside the residence.”

The documents give new details about the tragedy which has raised questions about whether the Air Force did enough to prevent it.

The children's mother, Michelle Thorson, is considering civil action against the Air Force.

"Do I believe that more could have been done to protect us? Yes,” Michelle Thorson told The Oklahoman in an e-mail.

"I think that when this first started happening, it was looked at that he was a good troop, so he must not have made the threats,” she wrote.

"Being a good troop does not make you a good person. He repeatedly broke military no-contact orders and nothing was done about it. He tested positive for narcotics, accused me of doping him, but even after I passed a polygraph and he refused one and lawyered up, still nothing was done.

"I do not believe that the threats that he was making were taken seriously by anyone with any authority. If just one person had taken me seriously, maybe Jourdain and Dylan would still be with me.”

Dustin Thorson wrote days before his death he "was pretty much cured of” PTSD. He wrote the Air Force held him for a week in a psychiatric facility after he tested positive this year for opiates. He claimed his wife poisoned him.

"I was found to be perfectly sane but they still left me there,” he wrote an attorney Feb. 9. "I didn't complain. I just did what they told me to do. ... I love the Air Force and love what I do.”

He also wrote, "When I went to Iraq I never expected to have something like this happen to me when I came home.”

Thorson on Feb. 25 shot his son, Dylan, 4, first and daughter, Jourdain, 9, then himself after a fight with their mother inside their home on base during a custody exchange. Michelle Thorson reported hearing shots as she fled.

The bodies were found in the boy's bedroom.

Dustin and Michelle Thorson were granted a divorce Feb. 14.

A judge overturned the divorce in March so Michelle Thorson could collect military benefits.

Neighbors said Dustin Thorson repeatedly violated military orders not to contact his wife while they were apart last year but the Air Force did little, the records show.

"Dustin was never punished for anything he did,” a neighbor, Jennifer Christianson, told a sheriff's investigator.

She said if Dustin Thorson had been arrested for violating orders, "this thing may not have happened in the first place.”

Records show a state Department of Human Services worker reported to Air Force investigators that Dustin Thorson demanded last year his children be put in foster care. He was so belligerent at a DHS office, he was told to leave, records show.

A Tinker spokesman said Friday, "All of Tinker continues to offer our heartfelt sympathy and support to those still suffering from this tragedy. It would be inappropriate to speculate on any potential civil action related to this incident.”

Dustin Thorson was diagnosed with PTSD after he was examined last year in Oklahoma by an Air Force psychiatrist, records show. He came under investigation, but was not charged, after he allegedly threatened to kill his children if his wife divorced him.

He was considered a war hero because his efforts were key in the capture of a notorious terrorist.

Dustin Thorson claimed he developed PTSD after shooting a driver attempting to take a bomb onto a base, according to records. He claimed the driver lost control and crashed into a building, killing school children. He said he carried children's bodies out of the building, which was very difficult for him to handle mentally.

He was investigated by the Air Force after he allegedly told his wife on May 14, 2007: "We're not getting a divorce. You don't know what I'm capable of. I killed a man with my bare hands in Iraq and I have no problems doing it again. ... I'm not kidding. I will kill them and myself.”

He allegedly held up his son on May 14, 2007, and said, "Tell Mommy you love her and don't want Daddy to hurt you,” according to court papers. He denied making the statements.

Michelle Thorson filed for a victim protective order May 14, 2007, but a judge dismissed it in June when she didn't show up in court.

"Michelle said she didn't show for the VPO hearing because her father and the commander were yelling at her. Michelle said the commander told her she would have to leave the house because it was Dustin's house and she would have to leave with the kids. Michelle said it was too much pressure from everybody,” a sheriff's investigator reported.

She eventually did move out with the children, taking them to her parents in Illinois without telling her husband. The neighbor, Christianson, told an investigator Dustin Thorson "told her and her husband that if he found out they had anything to do with his wife and kids leaving him, ‘I will have no mercy on you, no mercy at all.'”

The reconciliation came after a divorce judge gave the father temporary custody of the children because she had moved them.

After the divorce, the two agreed to leave the children in the base house and rotate who would stay with them.

Michelle Thorson told an investigator that after the divorce, Dustin Thorson once had acted like his hand was a gun and pointed it at Jourdain's head. Michelle Thorson said she reported it to an Air Force sergeant but was told "the Air Force couldn't do anything until she had proof.”

Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel said Friday, "There was no suicide note found.”

Investigators found Dustin Thorson paid $420 for the Ruger handgun used in the shooting and a trigger lock that same day at a pawn shop, the records show. He had purchased $1,498 in camping equipment, food, fishing equipment and blankets at the base exchange the day before. The equipment was packed in Dustin Thorson's sport utility vehicle.

Dustin Thorson had barricaded the back door of his base house with a kitchen table. He had tampered with the lock of the front door.

"We know he had something planned, but I guess we'll never know exactly what,” the sheriff said. "He ... had taken the guts of the locks out on the front door so that ... if the door had actually closed, it would not have reopened. And his plan — we think — was that as soon as the wife came in the house that door was supposed to be closed and she would be trapped inside the house,” the sheriff said. "And for some reason, it didn't close fully.”

News Photo Galleriesview all

Abortion rights protest

People gathered at the Oklahoma State Capitol to protest HB 1595.

6 photos

Daily Published Photos: November 05, 2009

View pictures from The Oklahoman.

25 photos

Daily Published Photos: November 4, 2009

View pictures from The Oklahoman.

51 photos

Daily Published Photos: November 03, 2009

View pictures from The Oklahoman.

38 photos

Page 1 of 5

Prev 1 2 3 4 5 Next