![]() Knospler’s fellow Marines speak highly of him. “Are you in?”Īlmost 20 years later, Marzi is still impressed by the speed and timing of Knospler’s response. “We’re leaving in eight to 12 days,” Marzi told Knospler. They’d taken heavy casualties in Anbar Province, and Marzi was tasked with rounding up some battle-tested talent for the response. He had been home less than two weeks when his old team leader, Vincent Marzi, called. Knospler deployed to Iraq in 2003 and then prepared to process out of the Marine Corps stateside. Photo courtesy of John Knospler Jr./Facebook. “He spent eight years in Recon - you won’t find a Recon Marine who speaks ill of him.” Knospler served three tours in Iraq. ![]() “John is an impeccable human being,” says Mull, who still speaks to Knospler every week in prison. He was assigned to First Recon Battalion, where he served with his friend Stephen Mull. Knospler started his career as an accounting clerk before volunteering for and passing selection as a Reconnaissance Marine after the Sept. His father served in the Navy, and his brother would enlist in the Marines a year later - and would suffer a life-threatening grenade injury during the second battle of Fallujah. Knospler enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2000, contributing to a family tradition of military service. “I knew his brother had always wanted to be a Marine, but John had never spoken about it at all.” “I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Christensen says. Illustration by Lenny Miller/Coffee or Die Magazine. He surprised his mother when he told her he had joined the military. After high school, he gave college a try but dropped out after a semester and worked odd jobs laying tile and doing construction. At 13, he got in trouble for stealing from a Chinese restaurant with a group of friends. He also had a tendency to challenge authority. He did really well in school.”īut he didn’t always like school. “He played Little League, Pop Warner football. “He was very, very active,” says his mother, Patricia Christensen. ![]() Knospler grew up in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Everything you hear before and after is an attempt to villainize me.” “I was attacked by a violent felon who threatened my life,” Knospler says from prison. 11 in Casper will consider these new allegations and determine whether a new trial may proceed later this year. They also argue that an aggressive prosecutor may have presented false evidence, and their first defense lawyer asked the wrong questions.Ī preliminary hearing scheduled for Aug. But Knospler and his supporters think it was a legitimate act of self-defense. No one disputes that Knospler shot and killed Baldwin in the parking lot of Racks Gentlemen’s Club on Oct. Knospler is now serving up to 50 years in a medium-security Wyoming prison, and his last chance to argue for his freedom is only days away. Prosecutors disagreed, and a jury convicted him in the second-degree murder of 24-year-old unarmed local James “Kade” Baldwin. That’s what Knospler says happened, anyway. His maroon blood stained the fresh white snow by the time EMS arrived. The attacker stumbled back and collapsed, where he would eventually bleed out. The report of the pistol echoed through the cold night air, and a single round of. That’s when his window shattered as the assailant tried to punch his way in. The former Recon Marine-turned-MARSOC operator and Iraq War veteran reacted to the threat by turning the car on and attempting to get out of dodge.īut the snow was too slick, and the tires couldn’t grip the surface of the strip club parking lot enough to drive forward. was jolted awake in the driver’s seat by what sounded like someone trying to get into his car. It was just after midnight when John Knospler Jr. Too many drinks and a Wyoming snowstorm will make anyone reconsider driving home from the strip club.
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