A Marine corporal has been arrested and charged with murder after his lance corporal wife was found dead following their unit’s Marine Corps birthday ball.
Twenty-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Natasha Rivera was found dead on Nov. 3 at the Crystal City Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia, the Free-Lance Star reported. The couple had been at a Marine Corps birthday ball the night before.
Her husband, Cpl. Rodolfo Rivera, 24, was arrested on the scene. The county and NCIS are a conducting a “domestic-related homicide investigation,” according to Arlington County, Virginia, police. He is being held without bond.
Arlington Detective Jasmine Sean wrote in an affidavit for a search warrant filed in Stafford Circuit Court that Rodolfo Rivera had said he “drank to the point of blacking out,” and had “no memory of the night before," the Free-Lance Star reported. He had woken up in morning to find his wife dead beside him.
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The Marines lived in Stafford, Virginia, Task & Purpose reported, and were assigned to Headquarters and Service Battalion as legal services specialists at Quantico.
Natasha Rivera had just given birth in September to a boy, a source told Task & Purpose, and still was out on maternity leave. Both Marines were at their first duty station, and neither had deployed.
Rodolfo Rivera and his wife allegedly were the only people in the hotel room at the time. Sean wrote that Natasha Rivera had “injuries to her neck consistent with strangulation and bruising to her arms and face indicative of a ‘brutal’ beating,” the Free-Lance Star reported.
Rodolfo Rivera had mentioned having an anger problem, according the the Free-Lance Star.
“We are shocked and saddened by this tragic loss. Our deepest sympathies are extended to the Marines and families involved,” Maj. Ken Kunze, a MCB Quantico spokesman, told Task & Purpose in a written statement.
Andrea Scott is editor of Marine Corps Times.
