Pembroke father fights denial of daughter’s burial in veteran cemetery

A Pembroke father is fighting for change after his appeal to have his daughter buried in New Hampshire’s State Veterans Cemetery was denied. 

On May 9, Bill Byrne’s world shattered. His 26-year-old daughter, Army veteran Julia Byrne, and his 3-year-old grandson, Blake, both died in what authorities deemed a murder-suicide. Julia fatally shot her son before taking her own life.

In June, Byrne received a letter from the Shawn Buck, the director of the state’s veteran cemetery stating that if Julia were alive, she would have faced a second-degree murder charge making her “not eligible for interment.”  

When Byrne appealed the decision, New Hampshire National Guard Adjutant General David Mikolaities upheld Buck’s ruling.

For Byrne, the decision came as no surprise, but it still stung.

He said that the agencies had already made up their minds on how to handle cases like his daughter’s, and they weren’t willing to consider any other factors, like her struggle with mental health.

“It’s just the charge. That’s all they’re interested about. That’s their defensible position,” said Byrne. “They don’t care about what happened if she were alive, should be able to go to trial and bring up her mental state at the time.”

Before a federal law passed in 1997, veterans convicted of serious crimes such as murder or rape were still buried in veterans’ cemeteries nationwide.

For Byrne, comparing Julia’s case to those earlier instances feels impossible.

“Her case is completely different,” he said.

In a letter to Byrne’s attorney, Mikolaities acknowledged that Julia’s “mental health difficulties are well documented,” but still ruled that she is ineligible for burial at the state veterans cemetery in Boscawen.

Now, Byrne is taking the next step: he has requested a hearing with the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to present evidence about Julia’s mental state leading up to May 9.

After returning from her military service at Fort Bliss, Texas, in December, Julia, a single mother, had been receiving care since January at the VA Medical Center in Manchester.

She was seeking support for mental health challenges, including post-traumatic stress disorder, military sexual trauma, and non-military sexual trauma.

In the weeks leading up to the tragedy, Byrne said he noticed his daughter was struggling with paranoid delusions. 

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She had said that she was concerned that “people were tracking her, taking her property, and she believed that people were trying to take her son from her,” according to the appeal.

Julia attended therapy at the VA center intermittently and was marked as a “no show” for her April 1 appointment. 

The center attempted to contact her again on April 2, but never received a response.

On April 9, they closed her case.

John Formella, the New Hampshire Attorney General also provided a letter to inform Mikolaities prior to making his decision on Byrne’s appeal.

“I find Julia Byrne committed a (State) capital crime,” he wrote. “Ms. Byrne was unavailable for trial due to death.”

Byrne is pursuing this course so that future cases like hers take mental health into account, rather than being treated solely as homicides.

“They’re willing to sacrifice a few families, essentially to avoid future conflict,” Byrne said. “It’s really for the families.”

For Byrne, even if decisions change and he is allowed to bury Julia in the veterans’ cemetery, he might still choose not to move her there. But he said he would like to have the cemetery recognize her as a veteran with a flag every year.

“I think what hurts is how insignificant Julia seems to be to them as Army representatives, when she meant the world to me,” said Byrne.

If you need help

National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: If you or someone you know needs support now, call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.

NH Rapid Response Access Point: If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health and/or substance use crisis, call/text 1-833-710-6477 to speak to trained clinical staff.

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