WASHINGTON - Pvt. Alan May was already fighting charges that he had raped another private at the Army Ordnance Center at the Aberdeen Proving Ground last year when news of a sex scandal broke in November, rocking the Maryland base where he was training.
His case was not connected to the very public investigation that led to accusations of rape and other sexual misconduct against two drill sergeants and a company commander, but the 22-year-old private told his father that he was worried he might not be able to get a fair trial in the midst of the sensation.
May, who had denied any wrongdoing, hanged himself a week ago with the laces from his combat boots. Three days later, on the same day he had been scheduled to face a court-martial, the Army gave May a memorial service.
"It's incredibly sad," said Capt. Margaret Kemmerly Eckrote, the soldier's attorney. He "never got to trial, and his death denies him the possibility of his name cleared."
May was accused in August of raping someone he knew, a fellow private and trainee who has since been transferred and could not be reached for comment. She told investigators that May raped her. He insisted that the sex was consensual. Had he been convicted, he would have faced the possibility of life in prison.
The Army would not release the woman's name or the charging documents that would have provided details of the incident, which allegedly occurred in July.
Larry May can only speculate about why his son killed himself - the young man did not leave a suicide note - but the retired Air Force captain believes that the Army and the Aberdeen commanders were not interested in justice, and that his son felt that way, too.
"He was confused about why his captain was pressing this so hard," Larry May said. "He couldn't understand why they were going after him."
Alan May had asked to be discharged from the Army instead of going to trial. His request was denied after the scandal involving his superiors became public in November.
As the revelations of misconduct widened, investigators identified about 50 women who may have been sexually abused, assaulted or harassed during their time at Aberdeen - allegations that implicated more than 25 drill sergeants and other trainers.
Larry May contends that as the Army tried to control the public-relations disaster, his son became the victim of overzealous commanders who wanted to prove they were taking care of business at Aberdeen.
"Obviously these things have been going on at Aberdeen for quite a while," Larry May said in a telephone interview from his home in Round Rock, Texas. "But they were the authority. They were going to do whatever they wanted to prove they were in charge."
The Army contends that May's case was handled no differently from the four or five other rape cases prosecuted each year at Aberdeen, an Army training center 30 miles north of Baltimore.
"We tried very hard to put the blinders on," said Maj. Susan Gibson, deputy staff judge advocate there. "The case was prosecuted fairly."