U.S. investigators believe the U.S. soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians split the slaughter into two episodes, returning to his base after the first attack and later slipping away to kill a

He is accused of the kind of crime that makes people shiver, the killing of families in their own homes under cover of night, the butchery of defenseless children. Under normal circumstances, American

On a winding road of wood-frame homes tucked amid towering pines, Robert Bales was the father who joined his two young children for playtime in the yard, a career soldier who greeted neighbours warmly