VASS -- A month after his arrest on charges of deserting the Army in 2007, Martin Abel Poynter was subdued by Moore County deputies with a stun gun and was involuntarily committed for psychological evaluation, court and criminal records show.
On Thursday - four years after the Iraq War veteran was committed - Poynter shot and killed Moore County Deputy Rick Rhyne before turning the gun on himself. Rhyne was 58; Poynter, 33.
Documents with the Moore County Clerk of Court present a disturbing mental picture of Poynter, who served with Fort Bragg's 7th Special Forces Group.
But at least one person, who said he served with Poynter in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, described him as "a religious guy, very smart medic, very funny, outgoing, just an average, normal person." When he returned home from Iraq, however, Poynter began to suffer serious mental issues, said the colleague, who identified himself only as Frank.
According to the court documents, on April 19, 2007, a Moore County magistrate charged Poynter with deserting the Army and set his bail at $2 million.
That same day, the documents show, Army officials got Poynter out of the county jail and took him away.
It's not clear what the Army did with Poynter. The court records don't say, and officials at Fort Bragg won't talk about former soldiers.
But the next month, on May 29, Poynter's wife, Susan, filed a domestic violence protective order in an effort to keep her husband away from her and their four young children.
In the order, Susan Poynter wrote that "my husband is not mentally stable and I am afraid that he will become more violent as time goes on. I am also afraid that the regressive behavior that the children are exhibiting will grow worse."
For three months, she wrote, her husband had isolated her and the children in their home, at 753 Morrison Bridge Road near Vass.
"He is convinced that we are helping someone spy on him and has used the children to keep me hostage," Susan Poynter wrote. "He has become violent several times, once attempting to shoot my dog when he tried to protect me."
Children tormented
She wrote that her husband forced their oldest child to do pushups until he experienced muscle failure and to confess to being a spy.
The children suffered academically, Susan Poynter wrote, because her husband would not allow her to be alone with them. She said he threw away the children's school supplies, believing they "had been tampered with or planted to brainwash the children in working against him."
Court records show that Martin Poynter was involuntarily committed to the psychological ward at Fort Bragg's Womack Army Medical Center on the same day the domestic violence documents were filed. On that day, Moore County Sheriff Lane Carter said, deputies went to the Poynters' home with the legal papers to have him involuntarily committed.
When Martin Poynter came to the door, Carter said, deputies used a stun gun on him "because he took a stance against us in a defensive position." Carter did not elaborate.
A Moore County judge approved the protective order, saying Martin Poynter had returned from Iraq a changed person. The order required him to remain at least 1,000 feet away from his wife at all times.
On Oct. 3, 2007, about four months after her husband was committed to Womack, documents show that Susan Poynter made another attempt for a protective order. In it, she said doctors diagnosed Martin Poynter as suffering from "schizoaffective disorder, sexual addiction and emotional disconnect that hinders him from forming healthy emotional relationships with others."
Poynter's last days
Susan Poynter made more allegations against her husband - including that at different times he had held newly sharpened knives to the corner of her eye and her throat - and said she feared that he was about to get out of the hospital.
It's unclear what happened afterward. The documents show that Susan Poynter's motion for temporary custody of the children was dismissed on Nov. 15, 2007, because she failed to appear in court.
At some point, Sheriff Carter said, Martin Poynter left Womack and went back to live in Missouri, where his family is from. Documents indicate that he has family members in Higginsville and Corder, Mo. Law officers in those towns said they have never had any dealings with Martin Poynter there.
Carter said Martin Poynter and a brother returned to Moore County about two or three days before the murder of Deputy Rhyne.
At some point after his return, Carter said, Poynter called his wife's grandfather wanting to see his children. Carter said he was unsure whether Susan Poynter remains in the area.
"I think he was there to see the children, and he was going to see them no matter what," the sheriff said.
Deputies said Rhyne went to Poynter's home Thursday after receiving a trespassing complaint. While he was there, they said, Rhyne learned that Poynter was wanted on charges of failing to pay child support.
When Rhyne tried to arrest him, Carter said, Poynter shot Rhyne in the head and then turned the gun on himself.
A well-liked deputy
Rhyne, described as an affable law officer who went out of his way to help people, was the first Moore County deputy to die in the line of duty. He started working for the county in 2007, after serving 25 years as an officer and police chief for Foxfire Village, a small community in the county. When he retired from Foxfire, the village retired his badge and service pistol. Rhyne started his law career as an officer in Pinehurst.
