In May of 2005. LaVena was assigned to the 129 Corp Support Battalion and deployed to service a tour in Balad Iraq. On July 19, 2005, eight weeks after being deployed to Iraq, she was mysteriously murdered at the age of 19, eight days shy of her twentieth birthday. She was the first woman soldier and the first Black woman soldier to die while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. To this date, the cause of her death is still being questioned. News and the questions surrounding the cause of her death reached The United Kingdom in June of 2006. In lieu of it being over two and a half years since her death, her story is still heart felt by Missourians and other Americans all over this country, and is still news worthy and is now just reaching the national level.