The mother of Staff Sgt. Amy Seyboth Tirador, a Colonie native slain in Iraq in November, said Friday she believes military investigators are "leaning toward" ruling her daughter's death a suicide.

Tirador, 29, was killed Nov. 4, the victim of a gunshot to the back of her head while walking to an evening work shift on the U.S. military base Camp Caldwell in Kirkush, Iraq, near Iran.

The Army has attributed the fatality to a "non-combat-related incident." Tirador's mother, Colleen Murphy, said she suspects the investigation will find the bullet was self-inflicted.

"They seem to be leaning toward suicide in the questions that they have asked," Murphy said in a phone interview, referring to military investigators. She would disagree with such a finding.

"Amy -- in no way, shape or form -- took her own life," she said. "She was too strong a soldier and she had too much life to live ... no matter what pressures were on her, she knew how to deal (with them)."

Murphy said she has retained an attorney. She also said she would expand on her remarks at a news conference she plans on Feb. 4, the three-month anniversary of her daughter's death.

Tirador, a 1998 graduate of South Colonie High School, was the first female soldier from the Capital Region to lose her life in the Iraq war.

She joined the Army Reserves in 1999 and enlisted into active duty in 2001 as an Army combat medic.
Tirador met her husband, Michael Tirador, during her first overseas assignment in Germany. She won a Bronze Star during her second deployment for the rescue of a higher-ranked soldier during a combat situation.

In her last tour, Tirador was studying to be an Arabic linguist. At the time of her death, she was interrogating enemy combatants and interpreting interviews for Army intelligence at Camp Caldwell.

A spokesman for the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command could not be immediately reached Friday.