No military honors for man accused of faking his death and assaulting teens

Robert Macy

Wednesday, July 14, 1999 | 2:44 a.m.

Arthur Bennett will not be buried with the military honors he coveted, like those bestowed on him when he faked his death five years ago.

Bennett hanged himself with a bedsheet in his jail cell Monday night, two days before he was to face a court-martial for rape and other charges involving 10 young women, including two of his teen-age daughters.

Attorneys who represented Bennett said Wednesday he was depressed over having to face a jury of his peers over allegations that he sexually assaulted the daughters of fellow Marines.

"He was very despondent that he was undergoing the military proceedings," said Drew Christensen, an attorney with the Clark County Public Defender's office.

Christensen, who was defending Bennett on murder and other state charges, met with Bennett Monday just hours before his death.

"Because he had been a Marine so long, he was upset with the idea of other Marines judging his actions and his character," Christensen said.

In a rambling suicide note several pages long, Bennett said he "could not continue living in a cage," according to Las Vegas Metropolitan police Lt. Wayne Petersen. He did not accept any responsibility for crimes with which he was charged, Petersen said.

"He showed no remorse other than to corrections officers for having to find him like that," Petersen said.

He also indicated he wanted a military burial.

Capt. Winston Jimenez, a Marine spokesman in Yuma, Ariz., said there would be no military honors. He did not know if Bennett could be buried in a military cemetery, or if relatives would be eligible for more death benefits.

Bennett faced a court-martial in February 1994 on charges of sexually assaulting the daughters of fellow Marines in Yuma and Okinawa, Japan. Rather than face the court-martial, he allegedly returned here and faked his death in a trailer fire. No one knows who burned to death in that fire, although it may have been a transient.

Ashes believed to be those of Bennett were buried with military honors and his family received $200,000 in insurance money. His mother, Ellen, 67, brothers, Scott, 39, and David, 41, and ex-wife, Amelia, 45, face federal conspiracy charges in connection with the insurance case.

"I think he respected his 20 years in the military and the idea of people in that peer group sitting in judgment didn't sit well," Christensen said. "He wanted to be remembered as a Marine and buried as a Marine."

Kenneth Combs was Bennett's public defender when he pleaded no contest in St. George, Utah, to sexually assaulting three teen-agers, two of them Bennett's daughters.

"It seems to me that what the military was trying to do to him had more of a psychological impact than what happened here," Combs said of the Utah case. "I felt like he was pretty patriotic and enjoyed his service as a Marine."

Jimenez said the military's sexual assault case against Bennett would be dismissed.

"It does not mean that he is not guilty," Jimenez said. "It means he cannot be present for trial because he's a decedent at his own hands."

Bennett's body was transferred from the Clark County Coroner's office to a funeral home Wednesday morning, Coroner Ron Flud said.

David Bennett declined comment on the case on the advice of his attorney.

In Hurricane, Utah, where Bennett moved with his wife and three daughters after faking his death, the suicide came as no surprise.

"The people I've talked to said they were surprised it took him so long" to commit suicide, Sgt. Shayne Copeland, a member of the Hurricane Police Department, said Wednesday.

When Copeland attempted to arrest Bennett in October 1997, the suspect swallowed numerous pills in a suicide attempt.

"The people I talked to said good riddance. He got his death penalty. He did it to himself," Copeland said.

Clark County authorities had said they would seek the death penalty in Bennett's murder trial, scheduled to begin here in February.

"He got out of it," Copeland said, "but the girls, the victims have to live with it the rest of their lives."