The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the death of a Marine corporal in Cuba from non-combat injuries, officials said Thursday.
Lt. Col. Rob Dolan said in a statement to Stars and Stripes that Cpl. Santiago Llanes was found unresponsive in his barracks room Sunday and pronounced dead at the scene.
Llanes was assigned to Marine Corps Security Force Company in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He served as an assistant administrative chief and joined the Marine Corps in 2022.
“I can confirm that NCIS is conducting an investigation to determine the facts surrounding the death of Marine Cpl. Santiago Llanes, as we do in response to any non-combat, medically unattended deaths of Department of the Navy service members,” NCIS spokeswoman Meredith March said in a statement to Stripes.
Llanes’s remains were transferred on Wednesday to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, in a ceremony to honor the fallen known as a dignified transfer.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
