BAD TEMPER

Report: Marine Colonel Accosted Church Choir Director, Intimidated Priest

“I feared for my life,” the priest said.

A Marine commander at a base in Quantico, Virginia, reportedly accosted a female choir director after a Catholic mass in January, looking at her with an “I will kill you face,” according to USA Today. Marie DeSilva, a 52-year-old church choir director, told the inspector general that Col. Joseph Murray gave her the “‘knife hand’ numerous times close to [her] face and chest” and had a “crazy look in his eye.” Murray also reportedly sent “Marine criminal investigators to interrogate a contract priest at his off-base home about a roster of parishioners” in October, with concerns that the roster contained sensitive information. Investigators concluded that there was no sensitive information within the roster, but the priest claimed that their visit was “designed to intimidate him.” Both incidents prompted “internal investigations” of Murray, who has since been cleared of wrongdoing. “No probable cause supporting any misconduct was found on the part of Col. Murray or the CID investigators,” a Marine Corps spokesman said.