Inside the disturbing US Army base where people disappear and murders, suicides and drug use is rampant
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The military base where the New Orleans terrorist and Cybertruck bomber once worked has a dark and sinister past. In a violent start to 2025, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, mowed down and killed 14 revelers in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, then hours later Livelsberger blew up a Tesla EV outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day at, miraculously harming no one, in a terror-suicide attack.
![[Smither's mother, Heather Baker (left), said the military failed her and her son, saying: 'Caleb was discovered in teh fifth stage of decomposition, petrified and mummified at 19']](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/16/02/94050327-14264451-Smither_s_mother_Heather_Baker_left_said_the_military_failed_her-a-4_1736994003875.jpg)
Ideologically, the two couldn't be further apart - Jabbar was an Islamist who hated the West while Livelsberger appeared to be a disturbed patriot - but one thing connects the two. Both were military veterans who lived at Fort Liberty, the country's biggest military base in North Carolina which has been plagued by murders, suicides, rampant drug use, sex trafficking and mysterious disappearances dating back decades.
![[US Army Veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar (left) plowed his pickup truck into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Matthew Livelsberger (right) rented a Cybertruck, filled it with explosives and detonated it outside the Las Vegas hotel on January 1]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/16/02/93654331-14264451-US_Army_Veteran_Shamsud_Din_Jabbar_plowed_his_pickup_truck_into_-a-5_1736994003876.jpg)
Multiple servicemen and military wives who live on base revealed to DailyMail.com the squalid housing conditions, with toxic black mold infesting their living quarters, and a toxic culture that drove people to psychological breaks. Hazing rituals have also been conducted in the shadows of the barracks, with one soldier taking his life after being harassed over his Chinese ancestry.
![[Army paratrooper Spc Enrique Roman-Martinez , 21, was murdered in 2020 during a camping trip with his fellow soldiers. His head washed up on a beach a week later]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/16/02/94080401-14264451-Army_paratrooper_Spc_Enrique_Roman_Martinez_21_was_murdered_in_2-a-7_1736994003880.jpg)
Data for deaths on the base is limited, but records show there were 41 suicides and 109 homicides reported from 2020 to 2021 alone. One of those was Private 2nd Class Caleb Smither, who at age 19 died in his barracks following head trauma during training. His mother told DailyMail.com: 'My son died in his barracks and was left there for six and a half days before leadership found him.
![[Sgt. Armando Garza and his then-wife, Brittany, lost their four-month-old son, Jaxson (pictured), under tragic circumstances]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/16/02/94057607-14264451-Sgt_Armando_Garza_and_his_then_wife_Brittany_lost_their_four_mon-a-6_1736994003878.jpg)
