Sister began to believe military helped Bennett fake his death

LAS VEGAS - A day after she was told her brother was dead, there was Arthur Bennett on her doorstep.

Linda Walker never quite believed the Marine's tale of the military helping him fake his own death, but when the charred remains found in her brother's Lake Mead trailer in February 1994 were identified as his, she began to believe his lie.

"Who do you trust? I was terrified. I'm told a medical doctor identified a body and that body is in my house," she testified Tuesday at Bennett's Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury, to determine if he should face a court-martial for alleged assaults on young girls in the early 1990s.

At her brother's urging, Ms. Walker of Norco, Calif., even attended Bennett's funeral. She asked to see the body, but said she was told to mind her own business.

"I was going to tell somebody he wasn't dead," Ms. Walker said.

Bennett, 45, was facing a court-martial on the sexual assault charges when he took a two-week leave in 1994.

During that time, Ms. Walker, who lived in Ohio then, said her brother called her and asked if she could help him get a birth certificate and once said: "If you hear things have happened, don't believe them."

Ms. Walker dismissed the talk as nonsense.

"I just thought he was losing it, that he was nuts."

Bennett traveled from Yuma, Ariz., where he was stationed, to Las Vegas and then disappeared after the trailer fire.

Ms. Walker testified that Bennett called her to tell her he was on his way to Ohio. The next day, another brother called Ms. Walker and told her Bennett had killed himself.

Ms. Walker wasn't sure what to believe. Late the next night, Bennett showed up on her doorstep with a scarf around his face. His face and hands were burned.

Then he told her an elaborate tale of the military helping him fake his own death because he was in a secret group. He said one of his friends was able to get a body from a San Diego morgue to put in the trailer before the fire, Ms. Walker testified.

Authorities have said they do not know whose body was found in the trailer. The remains were buried in a Boulder City veterans cemetery at a gravesite bearing Bennett's name.

Bennett moved in with Ms. Walker and her husband and stayed for three months.

Meanwhile, members of Bennett's family were able to collect a $200,000 government life insurance policy plus ongoing military benefits.

Bennett then moved to Hurricane, Utah, with his former wife and three daughters and changed his name to Joe Benson. He was accused of sexually assaulting three teen-age girls there, two of them his teen-age daughters. He was sentenced in May to three one-to-15 year prison terms on those charges.

He was then returned to Las Vegas, where he has been charged with murder, arson, kidnapping, insurance fraud, theft and sexual assault of a minor.

Earlier Tuesday, several girls told of the encounters they had with Bennett when they were as young as 6 years old.

The sex crimes are alleged to have taken place in Okinawa and Yuma.

A 16-year-old testified that Bennett would rub lotion on the backs of she and her sister, and two of his daughters, when the girls would visit the Bennett apartment at a base in Okinawa in 1991.

The witness said they would watch pornographic movies while they would lie on Bennett's bed, a mirror overhead.

Another girl, now 19, testified that Bennett drugged and raped her in Yuma in 1993 when she spent the night with his daughters at the Bennett home.

The Marine case involves charges of intent to rape, indecent assault with intent to rape, forcible sodomy, aggravated assault and desertion.

The hearing continues today.

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