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AWOL Marine returned to Camp Lejeune
A Camp Lejeune Marine who broke out of custody and allegedly threatened to kill his estranged wife and her Michigan family was found Wednesday afternoon staying with a friend in Atlantic Beach.
Posted — UpdatedATLANTIC BEACH, N.C. — A Camp Lejeune Marine who broke out of custody and allegedly threatened to kill his estranged wife and her Michigan family was found Wednesday afternoon staying with a friend in Atlantic Beach.
Clenard Gee-Simmons, 21, fled from a low-priority lockdown unit at Camp Lejeune on Monday and made "credible threats" toward his 19-year-old wife and her family, who live in Pontiac, Mich., according to Michigan authorities.
On Tuesday night, Gee-Simmons called a Detroit TV reporter and said everything had been blown "out of proportion" and that he planned to turn himself in.
Within 24 hours, deputies with the Carteret County Sheriff's Office found him at an apartment complex on West Bogue Avenue, and he surrendered without a fight.
In an email to WXYZ Detroit reporter Jonathan Carlson, Gee-Simmons said he was not armed and was "nowhere near Michigan." He left base, he said, due to stress.
Gee-Simmons told deputies that he had planned on turning himself in Wednesday anyway.
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