A U.S. Marine thought to have returned to California’s Camp Pendleton never arrived. He was found unharmed at a Texas rest area days later.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has taken Lance Cpl. Job Wallace into custody, Associated Press reported on Sunday. The 20-year-old was last seen leaving a friend’s house in Arizona on Monday and was due back at Pendleton after taking a three-day leave. In its statement, NCIS didn’t mention how Wallace was found or what he was doing.
But on Saturday, the Young Turks reported that the Marine abandoned his base and took heavy weapons to “get rid of child traffickers at the border,” per an internal FBI situation report obtained by the outlet. Wallace and his were apparently deployed at the border in September.
Wallace was supposed to return to Camp Pendleton on Sept. 17, but the report states that by the next day, an automatic rifle, an M14 rifle, a semi-automatic shotgun, and a pistol, all belonging to Wallace, were reported missing.
The FBI documents say that according to two separate informants, just before Wallace’s disappearance, he claimed that he was hearing voices: “Wallace indicated he has been dissatisfied with his life in the Marine Corps and had mentioned on multiple occasions his desire to travel to Mexico to ‘take out’ cartel members and traffickers,” the report says. It also notes that Wallace “has given away or abandoned several valuable personal items recently…[and] cleared all personal belongings from his room at Camp Pendleton.”
Wallace’s mother Stacy Wallace has told a different story. According to AP, her son loved the Marines and was excited to return to Pendleton since he had just been promoted.
TYT reports that the FBI document didn't speculate about Wallace’s motives, though his purported interest in “child traffickers” and “cartel members” echoes Trump’s views on immigration. Wallace’s mother shared on Facebook that the FBI closed their investigation since Job hadn’t committed a crime and is an adult.
