Account of Tillman's Killing Is Challenged

At first, Pentagon officials said Tillman was killed by enemy fire. A month later, they said it was friendly fire, triggered by an enemy ambush. Today, more than seven months after Tillman died, even that amended Pentagon conclusion is contradicted by Afghans who were there the night of April 22.

Afghan police and militia commanders here, along with local residents like Jan, say U.S. Army Rangers overreacted to an explosion -- either a land mine or roadside bomb -- and fired wildly at Tillman and other Rangers. They say there is no evidence that insurgents opened fire in the remote canyon where Tillman was raked by gunfire from a section of his own Ranger platoon.

Tillman's parents say the military has deceived them and stonewalled their attempts to find out how their son died. Although the Tillmans believe the Rangers who shot their son had been fired on by insurgents, they also say the Pentagon has tried to cover up deadly mistakes and negligence that night.

"I'm disgusted by things that have happened with the Pentagon since my son's death. I don't trust them one bit," Mary Tillman said in a telephone interview last week from her home in San Jose.

Mary Tillman accused the military of burning her son's uniform and gear in an attempt to cover up the circumstances of his death. She said her son Kevin, a Ranger in the same platoon as Pat Tillman that night, was ordered to guard the shooting scene but was not told until later that his brother had been killed.

It was not until weeks later, Mary Tillman said, that the family learned that Pat had been killed by his fellow Rangers. Pat and Kevin Tillman both were members of 2nd Platoon, A Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, which was part of an elite group of U.S. forces seeking "high value" Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters near the Pakistani border.

Tillman's father, Patrick Tillman, said in a separate interview Friday that the family has been frustrated by what he described as deception and inconsistent statements by the Pentagon.

"The investigation is a lie," he said. "It's insulting to Pat."