Spc. Megan Lynn Touma

Pregnant Army Dentist Murdered By The "Zodiac" Killer

This case riveted me when I saw it on Nancy Grace. I was grabbed by the horrible details: another woman in the Military dead, another pregnant woman murdered, no cause of death, no suspects, no clues.. and the most fascinating part: The Zodiac symbol scrawled in lipstick on the mirror and a cryptic letter to the Observer a few days later.

I have always been rather taken with the Zodiac killer and the mystery that surrounds him. So many murders, times and places, none of it making sense to me in a star chart. Frustrating, to say the least. And now after many books, movies and attempted charts later, I think there was more than one person who was the "Zodiac". Black Magic was hinted at and the costumes and symbols mirror costumes and symbols in Magical traditions. I personally think it was a cult. But I guess we'll never know for sure.

So my ears perked up when I heard the word "Zodiac" and saw the cryptic symbol scrawled on the mirror. There's something about lipstick on a mirror. Remember the "Lipstick Killer"? "Help Me. I can't stop"? And the "Redrum" image in the movie "The Shining". Creepy stuff. Makes my skin crawl. And so I couldn't resist taking a closer look at the murder of Megan Lynn Touma.

FROM DISCOVERY.COM:

The case officially began on Saturday, June 21, 2008 when a maintenance man at the Fairfield Inn by Marriott, located in the 5000 block of Morganton Road in Fayetteville, North Carolina complained to an assistant manager about a foul odor emanating from the vicinity of Room 143. When the assistant manager investigated, a "Do Not Disturb" sign hanging on the room's door was observed. It was approximately 11:25 a.m., and since the registered guest's checkout time of noon was fast approaching after a more than week-long stay, the assistant manager entered the room. There was no longer any doubt about where the foul odor was coming from. The body of a young woman, whose demise was not immediately known, was found in the bathtub of the motel room.

According to a Fayetteville police affidavit for a search warrant, the room was registered to Spc. Megan Lynn Touma, 23, an Army dental specialist who was being reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, located a few miles slightly northwest of Fayetteville, from the U.S. Army Dental Clinic in Bamberg, Germany. She had arrived in Fayetteville on Thursday, June 12, and had checked into the motel a short time later after turning down Army accommodations. She was last seen on that same day at Fort Bragg at a day's end formation.

Although the police affidavit mentioned that the bed in the room had been pushed a small distance from the wall, according to the Fayetteville Observer, and that the nightstand and lamp next to it were awry, there was no mention of a struggle having occurred there. Keys belonging to a 2008 Trailblazer that had been rented from Enterprise Rent-A-Car were found lying on top of the dresser. Aside from what was contained in the public information document, including the fact that the cops were looking for items such as weapons, articles of clothing, cellular telephone, digital camera, computer, and so forth, the police played it close to the vest and were not releasing additional information at that time. They had also instructed motel employees not to talk to the press.

According to Fort Bragg officials, Touma apparently was divorced, but information about her former husband was not released. It was possible, said an official, that she may have been recently engaged to be married again, but no substantiation of that possibility was released. Maj. Angela Funaro, public affairs officer for the base's 18th Airborne Corps, told reporters that Touma was born in Seoul, South Korea, but had also resided in Cold Spring, Kentucky. She had joined the Army in 2003. Shortly after joining, she had been stationed at Fort Drum, New York, until being sent to Germany in 2005.

By the time that she arrived at Fort Bragg, she was 7 months pregnant.

It appeared that Touma had been dead approximately two days by the time her body was found, and the condition that her body was in due to decomposition made it difficult to immediately determine how she had died.

AND FROM LOCAL STATION WRAL.COM:

Fayetteville, N.C. - Police on Saturday were investigating the death of a woman whose decomposing body was found at a Fairfield Inn off Skibo Road, near the Cross Creek Mall.

Officials said the woman appeared to have been dead for about two days, and the state of her body made it difficult to tell how she had died.

The body was found about 11:30 a.m. Police did not release other details.

This case does not give me an exact date or time of death but the coroner says she had been dead about two days. So I rectified the chart in the way that I normally rectify birth charts to find the time of conception and came up with an interesting angle. From all aspects and positions I found, it looks to me that she was killed on the morning of June 19 between the hours of 9:30 and 11:30 am. That's what I see in the stars. So I felt comfortable with this method of "guessing" and decided to give a analysis based on what I found. The chart for that time period exactly describes a probable act of violence so this is the time period I used.

Leo is rising and Aquarius is falling in my first chart. The Sun is in the eleventh house in Gemini, disposed of by Mercury, also in Gemini, in the tenth house. Boy is this a fact! Two people were actually killed this time, her and her child. She may or may not have been pregnant with twins, which would make the chart even more interesting, but none the less, there were two victims in this case. She and her child could be seen as "twins" or, at the very least, two people. Mars in Leo is right on the Ascendant, so she was faced with an aggressor at this time. Someone confronted her in a violent fashion. Whether she was struck, shot, stabbed, or simply grabbed and forced in some way, it is not clear. But it was one of these acts that Mars describes. Saturn in Virgo is looming in the dark background of the first house, waiting for the turn of the dial.



Aquarius rules the seventh house and seems to do so in a lot of these charts. Aquarius rules the unexpected, the unpredictable, all surprises, good or bad. Uranus is sitting ominously in the eighth house, disposed of by Neptune in the seventh, positioned tightly conjunct to the North Node. This is a typical aspect I see in many murder charts. It means there is a "date with destiny" so to speak. Neptune points at the unknown and the secretive. Combined with unpredictable Uranus, these planets create an energy which allows unexpected events occur in secret. This implies darkness and events behind the scenes. All of which conspire to make it hard for police to shine a light on events as they occurred.

The most fascinating aspect of them all in this chart is the inconjunction between Uranus in the eighth and Mars in the first. An unexpected act of violence causes death. That's what this tense and violent aspect describes. Mars, the marker of violence and aggression, is also close to exactly opposite Neptune, the planet of mystery. Megan had no idea what was happening. She may have walked into her hotel room and been ambushed. Or perhaps she was jumped in the hallway. It happened close to her front door (Mars on the Ascendant) and was a total sneak attack.

One last interesting aspect I must point out in the 10 am chart before I move on to the next is the opposition from Venus in the eleventh to Moon in the fifth. Venus rules womanhood and it is in the sign Cancer, the traditional sign of the mother. The Moon, the natural ruler of Cancer and also a symbol for motherhood, is in the fifth house of motherhood. I don't think the chart needs to tell us over and over again that she is pregnant. I think it is showing me that her pregnancy had everything to do with her murder this day. Whoever killed her was concerned about the baby. Since no one sliced her open and took the baby (or at least this hasn't been reported), then I can assume they simply did not want her to give birth.



In the next chart, a few things stare at me. Neptune has moved into the sixth and Mars is in the twelfth, still in close opposition. This moves things into a different light. Did he poison her? Drug her? Did they do toxicology or was that something they didn't suspect? It looks like some sort of medicine was involved and maybe this was used in hopes it would be considered a suicide. Uranus in Pisces in the eighth house of death is afflicted by an inconjunction to Mars and a square to both Pluto and the Sun. I don't think she died in the bathtub. I think she was killed first and then the scene was staged. Neptune is trine the Sun in Leo so this killer wanted to draw attention to what was done here, wanted to create a real "scene" and the use of the Zodiac symbol was intentional. Neptune is also sextile to Pluto so the killer does not want to be caught. However, this person also wanted to be talked about, to be noticed. I hear there were letters written to the police. Somebody saw the Zodiac film and got carried away. Remember Danny Rolling and the "Excorcist 3" movie? Sometimes art does influence life.. and not always nicely.

The scariest thing in this chart for me is the approach of the Midheaven towards Caput Algol. CA is a violent fixed star in the sign Taurus and it has been present in a lot of murder charts I've read. It was in this aspect during the Gainseville murders, the Chi Omega murders and in seven other charts I've done on people and children who were abducted and later found brutally murdered. The sum effect seems to be to not only instigate the violence but to also make it a headline. The tenth house is the home of public recognition and fame. Charts with this configuration end up with famous murders. When this case is done with, it will be a part of something larger. I am not sure what yet.




In the chart I did for the day they found her there were interesting points to be noted. Virgo was rising and Saturn was right behind the Ascendant. Mercury was placed in the tenth house and this simply means that they found her and they were searching the hotel room, studying it. The Moon is now in Aquarius and sits conspicuously in the fifth house. Her pregnancy would be a huge feature in the finding of her body. Whether it was the fact that she was pregnant that caused someone to check on her or not, the baby was a big deal to those who found her. The Moon is now exactly inconjunct Saturn, so it is known that the baby is dead. The Sun has moved to the first degree of Cancer and is closing a tight inconjunction with the Moon, as well. This same Sun position puts it close to Venus in Cancer, the symbol of motherhood. This configuration points at either her current partner or ex husband. Venus and Sun conjoined in the tenth house represents a public union, commonly known as Marriage or Engagement to be married. It really looks to me like this person, the murderer, was someone she knew well. And it also seems like he was there that morning, watching the cops. The chart says this and it's since been reported by police that the killer claimed exactly this in his letter to the Observer. Read the report in the on ABCnews.com at this link: http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5268227&page=1. And at CNN.com at this link: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/29/pregnant.soldier/

I just do not believe from the charts that I see here that this person was a "serial killer" or a stranger to Megan Touma. I believe she let him in, he surprised her and killed her, staged a scene and tried to ruse the police with a letter and a symbol he'd seen in a movie. This person definitely targeted Touma and stalked her because the letter had been written days before the murder and post dated for 3 days after. So he planned the whole thing over time. All of this looks suspiciously like someone who knew her well, had in investment in her, and did not want her to have the baby.

Anyone having any information on the death of Megan Touma, please call the Fayetteville PD at (770) 461-4441 or (770) 460-4247.

NOTE: THIS CASE HAS BEEN UPDATED BASED ON NEW INFORMATION. TO READ THE CURRENT REPRISE, GO TO Megan Touma Reprise


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