Family, friends of Fort Bragg soldier at a loss

<p>FORT BRAGG — Family members and friends of Jacob Gregory Swanson on Wednesday were not willing to accept the preliminary conclusion by the Sheriff's Office that the Iraq war veteran had shot his sometime-girlfriend to death and then turned the gun on himself.</p><p>Most of them don't believe he shot Amy Rochelle Salo intentionally and some doubt he fired the gun.</p><p>“I think it might have been” an accident, said Gary Swanson, Jacob Swanson's second cousin and boss.</p><p>“It's just way out of character for that to happen” as portrayed by sheriff's officials, he said.</p><p>“I think everyone who knows him is baffled,” said Jason Rossetto, a longtime friend.</p><p>Mendocino County sheriff's deputies say Swanson, 26, a former Army paratrooper who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, shot Salo, 36, then turned the gun on himself sometime Monday afternoon.</p><p>Tracy Swanson said her son had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder while serving in the Army and was continuing to receive disability benefits because of the disorder. He served in the Army from 2001 until 2005, during which he spent a year each in Iraq and Afghanistan, she said.</p><p>Still, he seemed happy and optimistic just before the shooting, said family members, friends and co-workers at Swanson Grading Paving & Rock Co., where he worked as a truck driver.</p><p>Authorities said Swanson was found with a gunshot wound to the head in his living room. A handgun was found near his body, said Sheriff's Lt. Rusty Noe.</p><p>Salo, a personal trainer and instructor at a Fort Bragg gym and a mother of three children, was found in the bathroom. She had been shot in the face.</p><p>Salo and Swanson had an off-and-on relationship, Noe said. That relationship was sometimes volatile and bad for both of them, relatives and friends said.</p><p>Most thought the relationship had ended, but that is far from clear. On Monday morning, the couple appeared to be together and appeared happy.</p><p>Salo dropped off Swanson Monday morning at the former Georgia-Pacific mill site where he was working, said Fred Hollenback, who works the security gate there.</p><p>Swanson walked around her truck and gave her a kiss. She called him back and he kissed her again, Hollenback said.</p><p>At about noon, Salo picked him up for lunch and they seemed to be getting along fine, he said.</p><p>“Something don't fit,” Hollenback said.</p><p>Friends believe the two may have died within an hour of leaving for lunch because Swanson did not answer a call to his cell phone just before 1 p.m. Their bodies were found at 5 p.m.</p><p>Jacob Swanson's lifelong friends described him as honorable, respectful and generally easygoing and happy. When he moved out of Salo's house several months ago, he appeared to take it in stride, said Casey Ales, a friend since childhood.</p><p>“He was working things out and, from what I thought, moving on,” he said.</p><p>But he admitted that Jacob Swanson kept a lot of things to himself. Only a few people, including his mother, knew that he and Salo continued to see each other after he moved out of her home a few months ago. Salo's friends also believed she had moved on. They said she had begun dating a man in Chico.</p><p>It's unclear how much Swanson knew about her new relationship, but family members said there are indications he had some knowledge of it.</p><p>Swanson also kept his war memories to himself. He seemed only to have confided his struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder to his mother, Salo and friends who had served in the Army.</p><p>“I never saw it,” said Steve Colombi, a family friend.</p><p>Jacob's father, Greg Swanson, who lives in Phoenix, said he knew about the post-traumatic stress diagnosis, but said his son most recently appeared to be happy.</p><p>No matter what happened, his son was and is a hero, Swanson said.</p><p>“I'm proud of him and the man that he was,” he said.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Glenda Anderson at 462-6473 or glenda.anderson@</p><p>pressdemocrat.com.</p>