Guardsman charged with killing separated Marine - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Guardsman charged with killing separated Marine

A 24-year-old guardsman in Waukesha, Wis., allegedly shot dead “his best friend,” a 23-year-old Marine Corps veteran, after the two argued during a night of drinking, according to local police.

Steven P. Osburn Jr., a specialist with the Wisconsin National Guard, was charged with intentional homicide in the Aug. 6 death of Zachary S. Gallenberg, formerly a Hawaii-based Marine corporal.

Police said Osburn shot Gallenberg in the chest outside Osburn’s home, where police discovered him bleeding and unresponsive. The first-degree intentional homicide charge can carry a life sentence. Osburn was being held in lieu of $500,000 bond at the Waukesha County Jail as of Aug. 18.

“It is an incredibly sad story, when you have two individuals with prior service and it ends as it has in this case,” said Capt. Dennis Angle, public information officer with the Waukesha City Police Department.

Gallenberg, who was discharged in March, was a corporal and field artillery cannoneer who deployed to Iraq twice, from March 2007 to October 2007 and from September 2008 to April 2009, according to Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs. His last duty station was 1st Battalion, 12th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

Osburn is an infantryman with 1st Battalion, 105th Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition Rear, at Reedsburg, Wis., according to Army Human Resources Command. He served in Iraq from May 2009 to January.

According to a criminal complaint, Osburn called police at 3:30 a.m. saying that he had been assaulted by his friend and if they did not respond, “he would kill someone.” Police officers were familiar with Osburn, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, the complaint states.

As police arrived, they heard a loud bang and cursing from the apartment. A woman, said to be a mutual friend of the men, who allegedly witnessed the shooting emerged from the apartment, “running in fear and desperation,” according to a police report.

When police found Osburn kneeling in the driveway of his home, he cursed at them and made obscene gestures. After he was taken into custody, he allegedly told police several times he “killed his best friend,” and that Gallenberg “had kept coming at him and attacking him,” according to the complaint.

The witness told police that earlier in the night she picked the men up from a local bar after Osburn had gotten into a fight, and the three continued drinking at Osburn’s home. During the evening, Osburn and Gallenberg were “bantering back and forth about their different military branches,” she said.

She told police that at one point, Osburn put his hands around her throat, sparking a physical fight between the men. She said that later Gallenberg, in an apparent attempt to make up with Osburn, followed him outside and gave him a bear hug. Osburn shoved him off and shot him, she told police.

Osburn told police a different story. He said after he and Gallenberg fought, he grabbed his .45-caliber handgun from his bedroom, went outside and called police.

When Gallenberg followed him, Osburn “stated that he brought the gun up and said stay away, that he was scared,” and that he had “no options and shot once.”

DISCUSS: THE SHOOTING