PGR_NTX Patriot Guard Marine Family Tragedy

Wed Aug 12 19:30:30 CDT 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Recently a Marine Lance Corporal lost his life in action in Afghanistan.
His name was Lance Corporal Jonathan Stroud.  His father, Billy Stroud had
an address in Bedford and his mom and his wife lived in his home town of
Cashion, OK.  When we got word of his death we began preliminary
preparations, just in case Lance Corporal Stroud would be coming to our area
and the family requested PGR support.like we always do.  Lance Corporal
Stroud ended up going to Oklahoma and the PGR was present for him there and
did a wonderful job.

Today I received a telephone call from Scott Gordon of Channel 5 news
wanting to know if I had heard of the horrible tragedy.  I confessed to him
I didn't know what he was talking about and he mentioned Lance Corporal
Stroud.  I told him that I was aware of his situation and then he asked me
if I had heard about his father.  As it turns out, Mr. Stroud, while
attending the services for his son and seeing the PGR and the motorcycles
became inspired to purchase a motorcycle for himself when he returned to
Bedford.  Mr. Stroud was familiar with motorcycles but he decided to go and
purchase one and start riding again.  Mr. Stroud bought a new 2009
motorcycle just this past Monday.  Mr. Stroud was run over and killed by a
drunk driver the following day, yesterday.  Mr. Stroud will be buried in his
home town of Hobbs, New Mexico.  The driver is being charged with murder.
It is her 3rd DWI.  Both were travelling the same direction when she
apparently came up behind him and simply ran over him.allegedly.at 10:40 in
the morning.

What a terrible tragedy for this family.  First, Lance Corporal Stroud is
killed in action while defending our freedom and now his father is killed by
a drunk driver while enjoying that freedom that his son died to protect.
The pain that this family must be feeling cannot be anything less than
immense.  Channel 5 wanted an on camera interview right away and Mr. Gordon
was on the road in north Fort Worth so Ride Captain Mike Lambert provided
the interview for him.  I told Mr. Gordon on the phone that the entire North
Texas PGR family mourned the death of Lance Corporal Stroud and now the
senseless death of Mr. Stroud.  

Here is a family that has been given something of a double dose of grief.
We in the PGR happen to be exposed to their story and their pain through
involvement with the services of Lance Corporal Stroud and the close
proximity of where Mr. Stroud lived.  I have taken the liberty of posting
below the news article I found about the "accident" that took Mr. Stroud's
life for your information.

I am aware that this information is not exactly the type of mission related
message you might regularly expect, but I thought it was something you might
want to be aware of.

If you are a person who prays, this might be something you could consider
including.

Thank you all.

Steve Lucas

Deputy State Captain

North Texas PGR

Woman faces murder charge in Haltom City wreck

By DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR.

 <mailto:ramirez at star-telegram.com> ramirez at star-telegram.com

Related Content

<http://media.star-telegram.com/smedia/2009/08/12/09/918-stegallmug.standalo
ne.prod_affiliate.58.jpg> Tammy Sue Stegall

Courtesy Haltom City Police Department

Tammy Sue Stegall 

HALTOM CITY -- Billy Stroud drove his new 2009 Yamaha motorcycle on Belknap
Street Tuesday morning on his way to a visit a friend in Fort Worth.

The 56-year-old architectural engineer never made it.

Stroud, of Bedford, died from injuries he received when his motorcycle was
hit from behind by a car driven by a woman suspected of driving drunk,
police said Wednesday. 

"He had just bought the motorcycle on Monday," said his friend Dorothy
Kuhlman of North Richland Hills as she fought back tears during a telephone
interview on Wednesday. "He had had motorcycles before, so he was
experienced with them. He said he was going out for a ride."

Within a day of her arrest, 50-year-old Tammy Sue Stegall of Haltom City was
arraigned Wednesday on a charge of murder because she has two previous
driving-while-intoxicated convictions.

Stegall was in the Haltom City Jail with bail set at $500,000.

Initially, Stegall was in jail on suspicion of intoxication manslaughter,
but the charge was changed to murder because of her two DWI convictions in
Tarrant County, police said.

One of those convictions was in Haltom City following another accident in
August 2008, according to Tarrant County criminal court records. The other
happened in Fort Worth in September 1994, records show. She was sentenced to
45 days in jail and fined $896 on the Fort Worth case and she was sentenced
to 30 days in jail, seven years probation and fined $1,123 last year on the
Haltom City case, according to court records.

Since 1982, Stegall had convictions for theft, credit card abuse, two cases
of passing a forged check and two cases of possession of a controlled
substance, records show. Her longest stay in jail was in 1986 when she was
sentenced to five years in prison for the forged check convictions,
according to court records.

The accident was reported about 10:40 a.m. Tuesday in the 5800 block of
Belknap Street near Denton Highway.

The woman was driving a Nissan Maxima that rear-ended the motorcycle on
Belknap Street, police said.

"They were both traveling westbound when she came up behind him and hit the
motorcycle," Haltom City police Sgt. Eric Peters said today. "She pushed the
motorcycle for some distance."

When officers arrived, Stroud was found lying in the roadway, police said.
Stegall was in her car on the side of the street when officers arrived.

According to the Tarrant County medical examiner's Web site, Stroud died
about 2 p.m. Tuesday at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.

He died from multiple trauma and being run over by the car, the Web site
states.

A native of Hobbs, N.M., Stroud had lived in Bedford for 20 years and he had
worked in Southlake, Kuhlman said Wednesday.

His funeral is Monday in Hobbs.

Just two weeks ago, Stroud and his family buried Stroud's 20-year-old son,
Lance Cpl. Johnathan Stroud, a U.S. Marine, who was killed July 30, in
Afghanistan, Kuhlman said.

DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR., 817-390-7763

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