She was calling a friend from the barracks room of Jermiah Copeland, a fellow sailor at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia.
asserted
She → call → Virginia
They had spent the evening together, kissing and drinking, and now Resendiz, 21, needed to leave.
asserted
Resendiz → spend → evening
It was the last time anyone would hear from her.
asserted
anyone → hear → her
When Resendiz’s friend arrived at the barracks 15 minutes later, the pair was nowhere to be found.
asserted
pair → arrive → barracks
“The Navy failed her,” Resendiz’s mother, Esmerelda Castle, told The Intercept.
asserted
mother → fail → Intercept
After her daughter’s disappearance, friends and family spent a week scrambling to find Resendiz.
asserted
friends → spend → Resendiz
Castle found the Navy’s reports in that time unclear, delayed, or downright false.
uncertain
reports → find → time
A first-of-its-kind Intercept investigation has found critical shortcomings in the U.S. military’s procedures for documenting and preserving records of homicides that result from domestic abuse, including intimate partner violence.
asserted
that → find → violence
The Pentagon’s mandated reports to Congress appear to substantially undercount these killings, omitting nearly half of cases.
asserted
reports → mandate → cases
In the six years before Copeland’s murder of Resendiz, the Pentagon recorded 41 domestic abuse-related homicides committed by service members.
asserted
Pentagon → record → members
The Intercept identified nearly twice as many: at least 73 potential cases involving 79 victims — almost all of them women — during the same period.
asserted
all → identify → period
Reports for fiscal year 2025, when Resendiz was murdered, are due in November.
asserted
Resendiz → murder → November
The Intercept examined publicly available news articles, obituaries, court records, memorials, and other data to investigate the specifics behind the Defense Department’s numbers.
asserted
Intercept → examine → numbers
Reporters also used data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request on Army noncombat fatalities to match names, because some news coverage did not mention the victims’ and alleged perpetrators’ military service.
asserted
coverage → use → service
A killing qualified for the dataset if it occurred in fiscal years 2019 to 2024; if the perpetrator was a member of the military at the time of the crime; and if the case involved a homicide.
asserted
case → qualify → homicide
The database only includes cases where a victim of the violence had dated or was in a romantic relationship with the suspected perpetrator, and it includes multiple women living abroad who were foreign citizens dating American troops.
asserted
who → include → troops
In the fiscal years since the second Trump administration took power, The Intercept found at least 10 service women or women working for the Defense Department have died from intimate partner and domestic violence, six of them killed by male co-workers.
asserted
six → take → workers
An additional 10 civilian women have been killed by male military personnel in intimate partner violence-related homicides during the same period.
asserted
women → kill → period
A Pentagon spokesperson acknowledged The Intercept’s queries about the discrepancy in homicide rates but did not respond to detailed questions before publication.
“At this moment in our country’s history, I am afraid these numbers are going to increase even further,” said Jacquelyn Campbell, a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Nursing who has been studying domestic violence in the military for decades.
asserted
who → acknowledge → decades
“We need primary prevention for everyone in the military and their partners.”
asserted
We → need → military
The findings come in the wake of President Donald Trump’s August announcement of a Military Spouse Commission, led by Jennifer Hegseth, the wife of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other high-level military leaders.
asserted
findings → come → Hegseth
The commission’s mandate is to guide policy around issues affecting military families.
asserted
mandate → guide → families
Though intimate partner violence and spousal abuse have concerned military family advocates for decades and thousands of new cases are reported each year, the commission does not mention the issue as one of its areas of focus.
asserted
commission → concern → focus
The Navy and DoD have said in public statements and communication with members of Congress and Castle that while “proper procedures were followed” following the death of Resendiz, they have identified several processes that require further review.
asserted
that → say → review
Copeland killed Resendiz on May 29, 2025.
uncertain
Copeland → kill → May
In the days after Resendiz’s disappearance, her friends filed missing person reports and called Castle in Texas, who in turn called the Navy.
asserted
who → file → Navy
None of them knew that Resendiz was dead.
asserted
Resendiz → know → them
The Navy’s official timeline of events says it did not start investigating her disappearance as a crime until a missing person’s report was filed on the 31st, and that Castle did not reach out until that day.
asserted
Castle → say → day
Phone records she shared with The Intercept and members of Congress show she started calling on the 29th.
asserted
she → share → 29th
“I was told she was found, and that the original missing person’s report was exaggerated,” Castle recalled.
asserted
Castle → tell → ?
“I didn’t think for a second that the Navy would lie to me.
asserted
Navy → think → me
Technically, Resendiz had been found — a Navy chief searching for her had seen Resendiz’s body packed under the covers in Copeland’s bed around 10 a.m. on the day of her disappearance.
asserted
body → find → disappearance
They assumed she was asleep, according to evidence later revealed during trial.
uncertain
she → assume → trial
But as Castle tells it — including in a congressional inquiry she wrote requesting a deeper investigation— a Navy chief claimed on the phone to have spoken to her daughter in Copeland’s room.
asserted
chief → tell → room
“He had Angie wrapped up in a blanket on his bed,” said Castle.
asserted
Castle → have → bed
And they just turned their backs and left.”
asserted
they → turn → backs
Killings in the 1990s on bases such as Fort Campbell made national headlines, leading Congress to establish the Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence in 2000.
asserted
Killings → make → 2000
Campbell, the nursing professor, was part of the effort, which issued over 200 suggestions for improvement by 2003.
asserted
which → issue → 2003
“Most of the recommendations we made a long time ago were never implemented,” she said.
asserted
she → make → recommendations
For one, she’d repeatedly requested better recordkeeping.
asserted
she → request → recordkeeping
…and 159 more, not listed.
The Aporia
