The annual FBI Special Agent Memorial Service hit close to home for members of the Cleveland FBI on Tuesday as a beloved agent, Laurie Fournier, was honored.
Fournier was a member of the Cleveland FBI’s Evidence Response Team. She was among the agents sent to Shanksville, Pennsylvania to collect evidence from United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. Fournier spent days in a field where thousands of gallons of jet fuel burned debris.
“SA Fournier and many members of the Evidence Response Team searched a ten-acre field for ten to 12 hours a day by hand for debris, evidence and human remains,” Special Agent in Charge Stephen Anthony with the Cleveland FBI said.
Fournier was diagnosed a few years later with an aggressive form of melanoma.
“The government recently determined that Laurie’s cancer was directly related to her evidence-recovery work in Shanksville,” Anthony said.
“At least in my mind it started to answer some questions with the disease. She always questioned why she didn’t have a primary spot with the disease,” Mike Fournier, Laurie’s husband, said.
Laurie Fournier loved to travel, loved being an FBI Agent and deeply loved her boys.
Her husband and sons were at the service on Tuesday.
“It meant so much to me that she received the recognition for doing what she did,” Mike Fournier said.
Laurie Fournier will be honored at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.
