One of two former U.S. Navy SEALs found dead on the Maersk Alabama was from San Diego County.
Jeffrey Reynolds, 44, of Fallbrook and Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, were found dead Tuesday aboard the ship berthed in Port Victoria in the Indian Ocean.
Reynolds, 44, worked for a Virginia Beach-based maritime security firm The Trident Group. He and Kennedy boarded the ship on Jan. 29, according to a spokesperson for the Maersk Alabama.
On Thursday, a company spokesperson said that drugs were found inside their room. Seychelles police have given no cause of death and said there was no evidence of physical trauma on either man’s body.
Residents of Fallbrook remember Reynolds as a terrific family man.
"Always smiling, always very friendly, always when he'd drive by, he'd always wave," said former next door neighbor Susan Evans. "Drove a motorcycle and he'd proudly ride that around the neighborhood. He was a family guy, just a really, really nice down to earth guy."
Evans said she was shocked and saddened to hear about Reynolds' death.
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"He has such a high-risk occupation that I was always kind of worried about him," she said. "So when I found out that he died somehow, I was really super sad."
On Wednesday, his ex-wife Jill Reynolds posted to Facebook:
He had accomplished things and lived far more than any man I know, Jeff served our country bravely and allowed us our freedom. What a great honor for him and a blessing for us.
According to the Associated Press, Reynolds enlisted in 1990. He was assigned to a West Coast-based special warfare unit until he was discharged in 2000. He had won two medals for good conduct while in the Navy.
The Trident Group released a statement Thursday that said the deaths were not “caused by operational activity.”
The U.S. Coast Guard has said it also is investigating the deaths.
The Trident Group was founded by former Navy SEALs and hires former special warfare operators to perform security.
The Maersk Alabama was the focus of a 2009 hijacking dramatized in the movie "Captain Phillips," a company spokesman said Thursday.
In 2009, Navy SEALs aboard USS Bainbridge shot and killed three of the pirates who were holding Capt. Richard Phillips in a lifeboat, bringing the five-day hijacking standoff involving the Maersk Alabama to an end.
The "Captain Phillips" movie starring Tom Hanks as Capt. Richard Phillips was released last year.
Kennedy, whose home of record with the Navy was Baton Rouge, La., enlisted in 1995 and completed his final tour of duty in 2008, according to a summary of his record provided by the Navy. Kennedy was assigned to an East Coast-based SEAL team, according to the record. Virginia Beach serves as the home of the Navy's East Coast SEAL teams.
