Man held in shootings recently served in Army

David Kihara

Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.

After he was arrested in connection with the shooting of two people in an alley north of the Stratosphere, 20-year-old Matthew Sepi asked police, "Who did I take fire from?"

Sepi, a former Army specialist, told police he had served in Iraq. Military officials were unable to immediately confirm that, but did confirm that Sepi was discharged from the Army in May.

He now is charged with murder and attempted murder in the killing of 47-year-old Sharon Jackson and the wounding of 26-year-old Keven Ratcliff in an alley behind the 200 block of New York Avenue early Sunday.

Sepi told police he served in Iraq for a year as an infantryman and said he had been involved in combat, according to the arrest report.

He used an assault rifle in Sunday's shootings and described his actions in stark military terms, saying that the military trained him how to react to an ambush: "Engage the targets, and retreat from the area," according to the police report regarding his arrest.

"(Sepi) felt that the situation in the alley was an ambush, and he reacted the way he had been trained," the report stated.

Sepi, who is 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds, served with the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas, said Nancy Bouget, spokeswoman at Fort Hood. She said he was discharged in May 2005 but could not verify that Sepi had served in Iraq because Fort Hood sent Sepi's records to the Army's records division.

The National Personnel Records Center at the National Archives and Records Administration could not immediately confirm that Sepi served in Iraq.

On the night of the shootings, Sepi, originally from Winslow, Ariz., had left his apartment at 216 W. New York Ave. armed with the assault rifle which he hid inside a coat under his left arm, according to the report.

Sepi was walking to a nearby 7-11 convenience store on Fairfield Avenue to purchase beer, and to get there he walked through the adjacent alley. He told police he armed himself because an unidentified individual threatened him with a knife the previous night while he was walking through the alley.

Jackson and Ratcliff allegedly were in the alley as Sepi walked to the store but did not confront the veteran. Sepi then proceeded to the store, where a man bought him two cans of beer for $5, according to the police report.

It was while Sepi was returning to his apartment, drinking a beer, that he encountered Jackson and Ratcliff.

According to the police report, Jackson and Ratcliff allegedly "began yelling for him to get out of the alley." Sepi told police that he saw Ratcliff holding a handgun and that Ratcliff fired in his direction.

Sepi pulled out his assault rifle and fired four shots at the victims, who then fell to the ground, the police report stated.

Police recovered six shell casings of the rifle ammunition as well as three spent 9 mm casings at the scene, according to the report.

Sepi referred to the shooting in the alley as "breaking contact," another military tactical term, according to the police statement.

Sepi had been nervous since returning from Iraq, he told police. Little things would often startle him. When he was working as a day laborer and a pallet fell to the ground, he was "so startled by it, he could not function for an hour," he told police.

Police noted in their report that Sepi was "visibly upset, and was very emotional while speaking about the incident in the alley and his military time in Iraq."

After the shooting, Sepi returned to his apartment and picked up more ammunition before driving away in his 1997 Oldsmobile Achieva. Police stopped him as him near Wall Street at Western Avenue, and after seeing the assault rifle in plain sight in the backseat, arrested him.