Jeremiah Holmes never got to see his mother’s killer brought to justice.

NORTH BERWICK (AP) – A New Hampshire Army National Guard soldier was killed in an explosion in Iraq when his vehicle ran over a roadside bomb, officials said Wednesday.

Specialist E-4 Jeremiah Holmes, 27, a member of the New Hampshire Army National Guard 744th Transportation Company from North Berwick, was killed Monday when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device and fell from a bridge near Balad, Iraq, the Department of Defense reported.

Holmes was in a convoy when the bomb detonated, knocking the tractor-trailer he was traveling in off a bridge, New Hampshire Gov. Craig Benson’s office said in a news release. The death was first reported by Foster’s Daily Democrat. The military notified family members of his death early Tuesday afternoon.

The 744th Transportation Company has 150 members and is headquartered in Hillsboro, N.H., with detachments in Claremont and Somersworth, N.H.

The unit was deployed for training in late December, and sent to Iraq in February for 18 months to support Operation Iraqi Freedom. Two other members of the unit were wounded in a similar incident about a week before Holmes was killed.

During the departure ceremony two weeks before Christmas, Holmes’ wife, Kimberly, held their infant son, Kaleb. When asked how she felt about his deployment, she told the newspaper, “Not good. I feel bad for the baby.”

Holmes, a 1994 graduate of Noble High School, was no stranger to tragedy. He was 13 when his mother, Sheila Holmes, 31, of Barrington, N.H., was murdered in Dover, N.H., in 1990.

Her death broke up the family, he said, and Holmes was raised by his grandparents in North Berwick. His four brothers and sisters went to two other families.

Holmes never gave up hope that his mother’s killer would be prosecuted.

“I’d like to see a little bit of closure for us,” he said two years ago. “You’re not going to forget about your mother, you’re not going to forget about your sister. You’re not going to forget the 12 years or how many other years it takes to find a conviction. Nothing will ever be closed totally.”

Holmes served on active duty from 1994 to 1999, when he joined the New Hampshire Guard.

A couple of years ago, Holmes and his wife bought a duplex a few houses down the street from his grandparents. Family members did not wish to talk to reporters, but neighbors expressed shock and sadness at his death.

‘Wonderful individual’

“Jay was just a wonderful individual, a keeper,” said Patsy Koelker, using the name everyone knew him by. “He was kind and caring,” she said, and if there was an errand to be done, he was “at the head of the line.”

Koelker and her husband Tom, who have seven children, were like surrogate parents to Holmes when he moved onto their street, she said.

“Jay was number eight. He was always here. Things we did, if we could fit him in the car, he went,” she said.

Koelker said everyone was thrilled when Holmes and his wife moved back to the neighborhood.

“He was so happy to be back on this street,” she said. His life was going well, and he enjoyed his job as a manufacturer’s representative that involved some day travel but allowed him to go home each night to the family he loved, Koelker said.

In addition, Holmes was reunited with all four of his siblings at a wedding a year or two ago, she said, and they had gotten to know each other.

Holmes and his wife had been selected by Foster’s Sunday Citizen for a series of stories showing how one family copes with a military deployment.

“I’m worried about losing my best friend and not being able to see the person Ive spent every day with for a year and a half,” Kimberly Holmes told the Dover newspaper in January. The day before her husband’s death, she was in the process of setting up a second interview.

Holmes is the sixth soldier with Maine ties to die during the Iraq conflict.

The others were Maj. Jay Aubin, a Marine helicopter pilot, who grew up in Skowhegan; Marine Cpl. Brian Kennedy, whose mother lives in St. George; Army Sgt. Daniel Cunningham of Lewiston; Marine Lance Cpl. Cedric Bruns, whose grandparents live in Bangor; and First Sgt. Christopher Coffin of Kennebunk.

Aubin was among first to die when the helicopter he was piloting crashed in Kuwait a year ago, killing 12 U.S. and British Marines. One of those aboard the helicopter was Kennedy.

Cunningham died last April when the vehicle he was riding in fell into a ravine, and Bruns died a month later in a collision.

Coffin died when his vehicle crashed, and the Army is investigating whether Coffin’s convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device.