Spc. Sarah Beckstrom was killed and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe critically wounded in a shooting in November 2025. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to 17 counts, including first-degree murder, in a new federal indictment handed up by a grand jury in Washington, according to gdelt. Lakanwal had previously pleaded not guilty in January to nine charges related to the same incident.

President Donald Trump declared a crime emergency for the District of Columbia on August 11, 2025, according to wvmetronews.com. Five days later, Governor Patrick Morrisey deployed members of the West Virginia National Guard to support operations in Washington, D.C., according to wvmetronews.com. The deployment continues beyond September 10, 2025, according to wvmetronews.com. A court case in Kanawha County has challenged the governor’s authority to deploy the National Guard to Washington, D.C., according to wvmetronews.com. Judge Richard Lindsay heard about an hour of argument on October 24 in that case, according to wvmetronews.com.

Sarah Beckstrom graduated from Webster County High School in 2023, according to westvirginiawatch.com. The distance from Webster County High School to Grafton, West Virginia, is about two hours by car via Cowen, Birch River, and U.S. Route 19, or two and a half hours via Hacker Valley, French Creek, Hodgesville, Philippi, and up, according to westvirginiawatch.com.

George Washington traveled across the Allegheny Mountains to command the French to withdraw from the Ohio region claimed by King George II, according to mountvernon.org. The western borders of Virginia and the Ohio River Valley were controlled by various Indigenous groups including the Cherokee, members of the Iroquois Confederacy, Shawnee, Oneida, Ojibwe, Odawa, and Algonquians, according to mountvernon.org. Washington's band of soldiers fired the shots at the Jumonville Glen Skirmish that triggered the Seven Years' War in North America in 1754, according to mountvernon.org. Washington began surveying in the Shenandoah Valley when he was twenty-one, according to mountvernon.org.