Guillén case takes another twist over confession
The woman accused of helping dismember and hide Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén's body last year is asking a federal judge to throw out her confession, saying it was obtained under illegal conditions.
Lawyers for Cecily Ann Aguilar say in court documents filed Wednesday in Waco that on June 30, 2020, a Texas Ranger interviewed her for three hours in a windowless room about her boyfriend's suspected involvement in Guillén's slaying. The lawyers state that the officers scoped her out at the Sunmart where she worked, followed the driver who picked her up and made a traffic stop, where they asked her to drive with them to the Army Criminal Investigation Command office on Fort Hood for further questioning. They said she was not under arrest.
It was the third time officials had interviewed Aguilar, 22, of Killeen, about the slaying. The defense lawyers say the investigators obtained a statement from her without telling her she had a right to a lawyer or reading her her Miranda rights. They also contend the officers seized her phone without a warrant or probable cause.
The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas did not respond to a request for comment.
Guillén's sisters said it's impossible for Aguilar to undo the harm they believe she and her boyfriend inflicted on her family.
“What's the point? She already confessed,” said the soldier's younger sister Lupe Guillén.
Vanessa Guillén, a Houston native, had been missing for months before her body was discovered by a search crew. Her family believed she'd been attacked as a result of sexual harassment, but an Army investigation found no link.
Her disappearance and gruesome death sparked a
reckoning in the Army and at Fort Hood about sexual harassment and assault in the military. Her family is advocating in Washington, D.C., for the proposed I am Vanessa Guillén Act, which would bring more protections for soldiers facing harassment and abuse.
Aguilar, whose estranged husband was a former platoon mate of her boyfriend, remains detained pending trial on charges she helped boyfriend Spc. Aaron Robinson dispose of the Houston soldier’s body last spring. She told investigators that Robinson bludgeoned Guillén at Fort Hood and then asked for her help burying her remains in a remote area 30 miles from the post. Robinson shot himself when police approached him on July 1.
Aguilar postponed a rearraignment scheduled for January. At this hearing defendants, typically have an opportunity to change their pleas from “not guilty” to guilty.” Her lawyers from the federal public defender’s office have asked the judge for an evidentiary hearing. They said in a court filing they want to suppress the evidence.
“The officers’ misconduct here was flagrant. It was the officers’ purpose to stop her and question her. They did so without lawful justification and the incriminating evidence flowed directly from this purposeful misconduct,” the pleading says.
“The totality of the circumstances indicates that the officers deliberately detained Ms. Aguilar and questioned her incommunicado. … The officers confronted Ms. Aguilar with her lies and the discovering of the body, and then encouraged her to tell them what happened to help herself — without ever explaining those statements could be used against her.”