As I laid out here and here, there seems like there’s a discrepancy between the numbers and sexes of victims listed in Robert Bales’ charge sheet and those listed in public accounts. Whereas accounts like WSJ one report there were 8 male and 8 female victims, the charge sheet lists 10 female and 7 male victims.
I thought I might have found the source of the discrepancy–confusion about the sex of Ismatullah Wazir. Whereas WSJ lists Ismatullah as a 13-year old boy, Al Jazeera lists Esmatullah as Wazir’s daughter, not son. I believe Ismatullah is a male name, and Wazir has referred to losing multiple sons in the attack, so I suspect Ismatullah is male. But if the government treated Ismatullah as female, then the numbers might work out.
But they don’t. I asked Major Christopher Ophardt, a public affairs officer at Lewis-McChord if that was the source of the discrepancy. He said he neither has the unredacted version nor are names releasable. But he did say that the alleged murder victims consist of 4 adult males, 4 adult females, 3 male children, and 6 female children.
I don’t think that helps to resolve the problem.
Assuming WSJ’s report is correct but that Ismatullah was counted as female, here are the numbers:
Mohammed Dawood: adult male
Wazir’s family: mother, wife, sister-in-law (3 adult females); brother (1 adult male); 4 daughters plus Ismatullah (5 female children); son and nephew (2 male children)
Syed Jaan: wife (1 adult female); brother and brother-in-law (2 adult males); nephew (1 male child)
Which would be 4 adult females, 4 adult males, 5 female children, and 3 male children.
Now, as orionATL and others have reminded me, there’s one other unique claim of deaths (as I hope to show, I think the other stories intersect in a manageable way): that of Jan Agha, who described his father, mother, sister and–apparently though not explicitly–brother’s deaths to Reuters. Since he is 20, his siblings could easily be children. If his claims were added and Ismatullah were counted as female that woulds result in 5 adult male, 5 adult female, 4 male and 6 female children, which wouldn’t work either.
One other possibility is that Syed Jaan’s 6-year old niece, Zardana, who was shot in the head and was reportedly thought likely to die, has since passed away (although initial reports say that’s not how the number grew to 17), which without Agha’s claims and with Ismatullah counted as female would work out. Though one of the grievously wounded victims is a female child with a head wound, which could also be Zardana.
In short, the numbers still don’t add up.