Fort Knox Soldier Charge with Murder

A U.S. soldier was charged in military court with murder and aggravated assault for the shooting death of a civilian employee at the Fort Knox military base in Kentucky, the Army said on Friday.

Sergeant Marquinta Jacobs, 36, was taken into custody in Tennessee on Thursday, a day after the shooting in a parking lot forced a temporary lock down at the base near Louisville.  A federal magistrate judge ordered Jacobs transferred to military custody on Friday and dismissed an initial federal complaint accusing the sergeant of murder. According to a Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit that was attached to the federal complaint, Jacobs argued with the victim, then shot him several times.

Jacobs is charged with killing Lloyd Gilbert, 51, who had worked for the U.S. Army Human Resources Command at Fort Knox since 2004 and had previously served as a human resources specialist in the Army. Army officials have said the shooting was not an act of random violence, but they have not disclosed a motive.

Jacobs will be held pending a military investigation similar to a civilian grand jury that will determine whether to proceed to a court martial, the Army said.

Jacobs enlisted in June 2004 and has been assigned to Fort Knox since October 2009, the Army said. He fled in a pickup truck, which he left at his house near the base, then rode off on a motorcycle that was found more than 100 miles away at his mother’s house in Portland, Tennessee, the affidavit said. He was taken into custody in Portland.

The shooting on Wednesday evening at Fort Knox, home to more than 40,000 U.S. military personnel, family members and civilian employees, came less than two weeks after a U.S. Marine shot dead two colleagues at a Virginia base.