Logan Melgar was a Staff Sargent with a Special Forces (United States Army) better known as the Green Berets. Staff Sgt. Melgar was remembered by family as a hero who earned numerous awards and commendations during his service.

Logan Melgar is originally from Lubbock, Texas. He attended Frenship High School in Wolfforth a suburb of Lubbock and graduated in 2001. He has a brother named Shawn Melgar.

Logan Melgar was a devoted father to his wife Michelle Melgar and two teenage sons aged 13 and 15 years old.

Logan Melgar graduated from Texas Tech University before enlisting in the United States Army in January, 2012.

Logan Melgar enlisted in the Army in January, 2012 as an 18X, the term for a United States Army Special Forces selection and training candidate. In 2013, he started his Special Forces training, and was assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) in 2016 based at Fort Bragg, NC, after he'd completed the Special Forces Qualification and Special Forces Engineer courses. Logan Melgar conducted two deployments to Afghanistan as an engineer sergeant while serving with the group.

According to military officials, at the time of his death Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar was part of a small team in Bamako assigned to help provide intelligence about Islamic militancies in Mali to the United States ambassador there, Paul A. Folmsbee, to protect American personnel against attacks. The sergeant also helped assess which Malian Army troops might be trained and equipped to build a counterterrorism force.

A Melgar family representative said:

Frenship High School and the Lubbock community honored Staff Sgt. Melgar and his family during the homecoming game on Friday, October 6 when the Frenship Tiger football team hosted Midland High School.

Many who knew Staff Sgt. Melgar described him as a soldier’s soldier — he deployed to Afghanistan twice on training missions between July 2014 and February 2016, according to his Army service record — and a devoted father of two sons, 13 and 15, who texted and talked via Skype multiple times a day with his wife while serving overseas.

Staff Sgt. Melgar is scheduled to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on November 20, 2017.

On June 4, 2017 at 5 a.m Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar was found dead in Embassy Housing housing he shared in Bamako, Mali with a three other American Special Operations forces troops. Two Navy SEALs from SEAL Team Six are being investigated as persons of interest in the murder. One of the SEALs under investigation was identified by The Intercept as Petty Officer, Anthony DeDolph who is a former professional mixed martial arts fighter.

Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar’s superiors in Stuttgart, Germany almost immediately suspected it was a murder, and dispatched an investigating officer to the scene within 24 hours, military officials said. Agents from the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command arrived soon after and spent months on the case before transferring it to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service on September 25, 2017. While no charges have been laid in Staff Sgt. Melgar’s death, which a military medical examiner ruled to be “a homicide by asphyxiation,” or strangulation, said three military officials briefed on the autopsy results. The two Navy SEALs, who have not been identified, were flown out of Mali shortly after the episode and were placed on administrative leave. Investigator have declined to provide the motive for the murder, “N.C.I.S. does not discuss the details of ongoing investigations,” Ed Buice, the agency’s spokesman, said in an email, confirming that his service had taken over the case on Sept. 25.

According to The Daily Beast, two special operations sources say, that Logan Melgar had discovered that the two SEALs, one identified as Petty Officer Anthony DeDolph, were stealing money from an informant fund. The fund had been created to pay informants who helped them gather intelligence local militants who were trending Islamic. The SEALS offered to cut him in, but Melgar declined, these sources said.

The SEALs told superiors that Melgar was drunk during combatives which are hand-to-hand fighting exercises. A source told The Daily Beast the SEALs filed at least one operational report about the incident and possibly two. At least one of the reports included an account that Melgar was drunk.

A former AFRICOM official who saw the autopsy report said no drugs or alcohol were found in Melgar’s system.

At least one source believes he did not drink alcohol at all.

A second former Africa Command official said Brig.

Gen. Donald Bolduc, then commander of Special Operations Command-Africa, was skeptical of the initial reports from the outset.

He alerted Army Criminal Investigation Command and told commanders in Mali to preserve evidence.

Melgar’s wife, Michelle, was also suspicious, three sources tell The Daily Beast.

She raised concerns about the cause of death and allegations of drinking, according to three people familiar with the investigation, including providing investigators emails sent by her husband about problems he was having with the SEALs.