Rolling Stone Article

The current issue of Rolling Stone has a feature article on the death of Ryan Manelick, called "Death of a Contractor: Greed and Murder in Iraq's Lawless Desert." Ryan worked with Kirk for Ultra-Services. He was killed in December, 2003 just a day or two before he was supposed to leave Iraq for a holiday. His death is still unsolved.

Originally, the article was going to talk about Kirk as well. I did an interview by phone with the author, Daniel Halpern, way back in spring of last year. However, while he was still gathering information and doing research, we heard from the CID, and it was made clear that Kirk's death, despite the coincidence, was not related to the fraud investigation and Ryan's murder. I let Daniel know at once because I knew it would change how he wrote his article. Recently Daniel contacted me to let me know that Rolling Stone was going to drop Kirk's part of the story, and I told him I had expected something like that to happen, and understood why they made that decision.

I'm very glad that the Manelick family has this chance to get their story told. They have been dealing with the same stress and uncertainty, the frustration and pain that we have. They knew, at least, that Ryan had been killed, while for so long we didn't know even that. But they still don't know who did it or why.

Maybe this article will help somehow. Maybe someone somewhere knows something, and they will finally be willing to talk. Maybe it will just help for people to know that a bright, enthusiastic man, a father, a veteran, was killed on the streets of Iraq and no one knows why.

I haven't read it yet, so I can't tell you anything about it. But I will pick up a copy today, for Ryan, for his family.