Missing soldier’s family slams Army’s efforts
Investigator says ‘foul play was involved’ but offers no other details as searchers continue efforts
FORT HOOD — The family of Pfc. Vanessa Guillén, a Fort Hood soldier missing for two months, angrily denounced the Army’s initial response to her suspicious disappearance after meeting with the post’s deputy commanding general and learning investigators believe her to be a victim of foul play.
“I begged them to go out to look for my daughter, and they didn't, they never did. I begged them to close that base, to investigate room by room, barrack by barrack, building by building,” Gloria Guillén told reporters Tuesday. “They never did.”
Flanked by a Tampa, Fla., attorney and a Houston congresswoman, Guillén’s family held an emotional news conference outside Fort Hood’s main gate after meeting with commanders and the Army Criminal Investigation Command.
Guillén, 20, of Houston, was last seen between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. April 22 in the parking lot of her 3rd Cavalry Regiment’s engineer squadron headquarters. Her car keys, barracks room key, ID card and wallet were found in an armory room where she had worked earlier in the day.
Search teams that have combed lakes, rivers and rugged rural areas from near Belton to Fort Hood now expect to find a body — not rescue her alive.
“I think right now we’re looking at recovery,” said Tim Miller, founder and director of Texas EquuSearch, a Dickinson-based organization that since late April has supplied volunteer searchers in the hunt for Guillén. “I’ve been wrong before
and I hope I’m wrong this time, but I don’t feel as though I am wrong.”
U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, said a CID investigator told the family that “foul play was involved,” but little was said about what might be done next. “They just said that they were going to keep investigating and that they’re looking at a number of things, but that’s all we could get out of them. But the fact that they’re saying ‘foul play’ now tells us a lot.”
Guillén grew up in southeast Houston, an area represented by Garcia, and graduated from Cesar Chavez High School. Records show she joined the Army on June 11, 2018.
Efforts to find her have become a national cause, prompting actress Salma Hayek to post a photo of the GI in civilian clothing with the message, “Bring Us Back Vanessa” in English and Spanish.
Garcia and the missing woman’s family met with Maj. Gen. Scott Efflandt a day after volunteers and Fort Hood investigators searched a stretch of river 23 miles to the southeast. Equusearch’s Miller said three dozen volunteers using sonar and other devices have scoured lakes on Fort Hood that are about a quarter of a mile from where she vanished.
Despite the search efforts, which began nine days after Guillén disappeared and have been conducted repeatedly since, Lupe Guillén told reporters that she no longer trusted the Army and believed her sister had been sexually harassed.
“My sister is not the first or the last victim. This is going to keep coming for other young women that are just trying to serve and protect the country, so I want justice and I want answers,” she said, sobbing.
“Someone kidnapped her and she’s missing after two months and she’s still not with me, and I want her, and I want her alive. Because she entered that base alive and I want her back like that, I want her alive, and I want her still with me.”
Initial searches included more than 500 soldiers per day who combed parts of training areas, barracks and other sections of Fort Hood. Helicopters from the 1st Cavalry Division have flown 100 hours on and off post.
The search Sunday and Monday, in an area by the Leon River south of Temple, was the fifth that had been done in parts of Central Texas in a 25-mile radius of the post, Miller said.
“We haven’t quit looking,” Fort Hood spokesman Tyler Broadway said.
Sexual harassment claims
The family has insisted that Guillén was the victim of sexual harassment by a sergeant who walked in on her as she showered. Lupe Guillén said Tuesday that 200 soldiers had gone missing at Fort Hood over the years, while another sister, Mayra Guillén, alleged on a Go
Fund Me page that the soldier was being held “against her will.” The page Monday reported raising $73,730.
Broadway, the post spokesman, said that 74 GIs had gone absent without leave since 2020 and that 53 of them had returned to duty.
He said he didn’t know if Guillén’s chain of command had been notified of a sexual harassment complaint before she vanished. The regiment’s commander, Col. Ralph Overland, ordered an investigation of the incident Thursday.
The allegation triggered a series of testimonials on the #FindVanessaGuillen Facebook page from women who said they had been targets of sexual harassment and sexual assaults while in the military.
One commenter, Meli Cordello, contributed $40 and said that as a veteran, she was sure Guillén had been sexually harassed, adding, “That type of unwanted attention happens all the time.”
Elizabeth Guillen donated $50 to the Go Fund Me site, saying she was a soldier at Fort Hood who had been confused with the missing woman when she used the Army’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention program, or SHARP.
“I too had a SHARP situation,” she wrote. “I know how scary and alone one can feel during a sexual harassment situation. I know the feeling of thinking you can fix it on your own ..... my heart goes out to the family of my sister in arms. I pray for her, and hope she is found soon.”
Pervasive problem
The problem has persisted for years throughout the services. Just last month, the Pentagon’s latest study on sexual assault and harassment revealed a persistent pattern of rising incidents.
The number of sexual assault reports in the armed services rose 3 percent last year, with the Air Force showing the sharpest jump — 9 percent — from the previous year, a continuation of a long-term trend.
The Pentagon said 6,236 reports were filed by service members in fiscal year 2019, which ended Sept. 30. It was 6,053 in 2018.
The family had many questions about what had happened, with Garcia saying no one had yet produced a timeline of events. The attorney, Natalie Khawam, said the family doesn’t know who Guillén was reporting to on the day she disappeared, but pointed to text messages that aroused their suspicion, containing the serial number of a weapon she was supposed to inspect.
“Why would she put that in a text message? That seems like it defeats protocol, so we’re wondering if he used her phone to text himself and make it look like she was working,” Khawam said. “That’s our suspicion; we hope we brought light to that. Why would you use your personal cell phone when you’re supposed to write things down in a book? … A lot of it doesn’t connect.”
In an emotional statement to reporters in Spanish, Guillén’s mother contended the Army hadn’t searched hard enough for her daughter.
The Army had to do more to find her, she said, adding, “I demand that they investigate their houses, their ranches, their rooms, their cell phones, that they take away (their cell phones) from them until they tell me where my daughter is!”
While the family made it clear they want a joyous reunion with Guillén, Garcia said they’re also beginning to grapple with the possibility that it isn’t going to happen.
“I think the family’s beginning to — I know the father today shared with me that he thinks something’s gone wrong,” she said of Rogelio “Roger” Guillén, who was at the post Tuesday but did not speak. “So I think the family is slowly beginning to wrestle with that, and I think it’s weighing on them very heavy.”