Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 4, 1993 TAG: 9312040224
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIGITTE GREENBERG ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: SAN DIEGO LENGTH: Long
Alton Grizzard, a friend who inspired, a quarterback who passed and ran for record after football record, was so sentimental he cried before playing in his last Army-Navy game three years ago. No one doubted the Navy SEAL commando would one day make admiral. Now he was consoling a friend upset about breaking her engagement.
George P. Smith, who crewed on the Navy sailing team, was about to take his first assignment aboard a nuclear submarine. He'd proposed to O'Neill a year ago and now was distraught over losing her.
At 1:45 a.m. Wednesday, all three bright futures were blown away by Smith's 9mm Ruger after Grizzard answered the door of O'Neill's barracks apartment.
She was 21. Grizzard and Smith were 24.
Smith pulled the gun out of his jacket and shot Grizzard three times. Blown backward by the bullets, he hit the bed then fell to the floor. Smith shot him once more, in the back of the head.
O'Neill screamed and crouched behind a chair. Smith strode to her side and shot her, also in the back of the head. He walked back toward the door and, without hesitating, put a bullet into his own head.
Inside the bloodied room, police found a 13-page letter from Smith, pleading with O'Neill to reconsider. Another letter to her was found in Smith's apartment, torn into tiny pieces. Police are trying to tape it back together.
These three young people had seemed to be the very definition of the American dream: exceptionally bright, remarkably athletic, superbly trained for success.
They had met years before, part of an insular world that only the extraordinary, the brilliant, can enter. They were midshipmen at Annapolis, Md.
David Lillefloren was there, too. He'd been Grizzard's best friend since they were 6 and played "pee wee" football together. He also knew O'Neill and Smith.
Military academy students live by strict codes, and their society is tight.
"You go to school there, and you go through something that not everybody goes through," Lillefloren said. "The camaraderie is unbelievable."
Even after graduation - Lt. j.g. Grizzard in 1991, Ensign Smith in 1992, Ensign O'Neill this past May - their paths stayed close. Their final days were spent at Navy bases in San Diego. Grizzard had been there more than a year. O'Neill arrived in October, Smith just days ago.
Six feet tall and 200 pounds, the hazel-eyed Grizzard grew up in Virginia Smith Beach and excelled in the classroom and on the football field.
He was the Navy's all-time offense leader and held seven academy records. Today, Navy players competing in Grizzard's beloved annual Army-Navy showdown will wear decals with the name "Griz" on their gold helmets.
Grizzard took his math studies at Annapolis seriously, but his friends said he was always quick with an off-the-cuff quip.
He had long dreamed of joining a Navy SEAL commando team, a secretive amphibious group whose members are called to the world's worst trouble spots. In summer 1992, he joined SEAL Team 1 at the U.S. Naval Amphibious Base at Coronado, Calif., just across San Diego Bay.
He was assistant platoon commander and spent about three months doing reconnaissance missions in Somalia.
"I always thought we'd get the news someday that Alton had been killed doing something heroic for his country. I never thought I'd hear about him going like this," said Tommy Rhodes, Grizzard's high school football coach.
O'Neill's grandfather, 81-year-old Ed O'Neill, described her with one word: "Heaven."
"She was always with a smile, smart as a whip," he said, weeping, unable then to continue the O'Neill telephone interview from northeastern Pennsylvania.
She grew up in Kingston, Pa. - fresh-faced, enthusiastic, intelligent and modest. Many colleagues at Coronado never knew she had garnered 12 varsity letters for track and field events until after her death, when they read it in newspapers.
She set academy records running cross-country and in track and field. She majored in ocean engineering.
She was about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and slim. After work, she commonly ran up to 12 miles each day, her long, dark hair pulled back off her face.
O'Neill and Smith became engaged her senior year, but she did not want to be married yet, family and friends said.
"She broke up her engagement a month ago. She gave him his ring back," her grandfather said. "He was just a little too jealous. She would be out at the base talking to other fellows, and he would be jealous of that."
She had tried to break it off with Smith before, while still at Annapolis, said her friend, Richard Mach, a civilian Navy employee at Coronado. After this second breakup, Smith wouldn't stop pursuing her.
"He kept sending her flowers, calling her. I know she wanted that to end, but she never said she felt threatened," Mach said. "Her freedom felt good to her. She never had that at the academy."
Smith, meanwhile, apparently was ready for married life. His friends described the dark, handsome man as a levelheaded person who never lost his temper.
"I'm in a state of disbelief. I don't understand it," said Bruce Schmidt, a friend of Smith's since grade school. "It's totally out of character."
Smith, just over 6 feet tall, about 200 pounds, had played high school football in his hometown of Huntington Beach, Calif., and was voted lineman of the year and "best all-around" male student in 1987, his senior year.
He majored in electrical engineering. He graduated in 1992, attended submarine training school in Groton, Conn., and was due to report to a submarine squadron in San Diego the day after he killed himself.
Late Monday, Smith and O'Neill argued in the foyer of her barracks, witnesses told police. She was visibly upset.
Grizzard and O'Neill were not romantically involved, police said. Lillefloren said he talked just last week to Grizzard, who told him he'd run into Kerry O'Neill for the first time in a year.
Grizzard, said his friend, was simply the type who would have gone to O'Neill or even a stranger at a moment's notice, if he thought he could help.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB