Fort Hood soldier found dead behind barracks, investigation underway Officials identified the soldier as 26-year-old Spc. During the day, though, it was still hot enough that if you dropped a beer bottle, the contents appeared to dry on contact. If he killed himself, don't they want to know why?". FORT HOOD, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - U.S. Army officials at Fort Hood have identified the soldier who was found dead Saturday, Oct. 13 behind his company barracks. The soldiers said that Guillen's belongings had been found in the arms room, but otherwise she had left no trace. Hoover, Alabama. Jennifer Anthony Lovells sister, Temple Tx. Oct 13, 2021 An official Army photo of Spc. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our. Death Notices Famous Deaths Search Wednesday, March 01, 2023 Audrie Talmadge "A.T." Powell 10 hrs ago Services for Audrie Talmadge "A.T." Powell, 78, will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at Salado. Escorts should be arranged in advance to allow for coordination with the organization receiving coverage. Yes, simply click Add a photo located underneath the main photo of the obituary then upload the photos/videos you wish to share. Failure to comply could incur fines of hundreds of dollars or other, more severe social censure. I've even lost myself." Linda Schweers, whose specialist son, Justin, died in a car crash in June while suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, wanted me to "be careful of cartels," which she said ran the area. Amid all those other deaths, on June 21, 2020, a search party found the charred lid of a cargo box along the Leon River 20 miles east of Fort Hood. Atop these sedimentary layers of desecration, displacement, and disorientation, the War Department set out to build a base that would go on to serve as a footnote to nearly every war in modern memoryKorea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but also Grenada, Panama, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. There had been a few people, then it was a group run of 11. Call (254) 287-9993 or (254) 287-0106 to request a PAO escort. Mayra wept during the journey, already fearing the worst. During the run, Chee, who had no preexisting health conditions, collapsed. ", When I asked soldiers at Fort Hood what they thought was the matter on base, they mentioned "toxic leadership," a catholic term that seemed to encompass all: lack of care, general command climate, and so-called toxic masculinity. Next I passed Club Dreams, where Specialist Shelby Jones was shot, bled out, and died last March; then Guns Galore, where Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan purchased a semiautomatic pistol that he would use to kill 13 people in 2009. On June 30, a construction crew found shallow graves containing human remains that belonged to Guillen. They returned several days later to pour concrete over the remains. Fort Hood is a United States Army post located near Killeen, . When Ailina contacted the military police at Fort Hood, they told her that Fernandes was an adult, and that if he was missing, he likely didn't want to be found. Because what the military asks of its men and women is so antisocial, it must co-opt the rhetoric of the family. Two witnesses had seen Robinson roll a black cargo box out of the arms room and through the parking lot, where he loaded it into his car and drove away, contradicting an earlier affidavit from three soldiers who falsely claimed they had seen Guillen departing the arms room earlier. (He was found a day later.) Fort Hood informed Rodriguez that he had asked for this. And on June 19, skeletal remains were found in a field behind a cul-de-sac of a residential neighborhood in Killeen. That American imperialism is imploding, and the blast force radiates inward. Later the same day, at 8:30 p.m., Aaron Robinsons girlfriend, Cecily Aguilar, changed her story and told Army investigators that Robinson had confessed to her that he killed Guillen in the arms room, beating her to death with a hammer. I will tell you everything." The new family, like more than 70 percent of all Fort Hood service members, lived off post, but after two dead bodies were found on their street, they moved into base housing. A 214,968-acre installation, this is the only post in the United States capable of stationing and training two armored divisions. That an overwhelming majority of the towns economy comes from Fort Hood makes Killeen a kind of rentier state, in that most of its revenue comes through a foreign entity, which historically has led to the collapse of domestic industries, leading to increased dependence on a single source of income. Around the Guillen murals in Killeen and in Houston, I met people who had lost loved ones to the military, who felt harm done, who saw in Guillen a savior. My caution wasnt entirely unfounded. On March 5, 2020, Destanie Sawyers five-year-old daughter found her father, Specialist Christopher Sawyer, 29, after he had shot himself dead in the bedroom of their Fort Hood housing. Sergeant Brad Reynolds, 37, killed himself on May 16. Chris and Moses friends of Gregory Wedel-Morales at the site of his remains, Killeen TX. The military is necessarily an institution of state-sanctioned violence, where we teach our young to kill on our behalf in the name of ideologies such as patriotism or democracy. At first, Aguilar told investigators, they cut her up using a machete. Morta's death comes amid intense scrutiny of Fort Hood in recent weeks. The police too told Ailina that Fernandes was an adult and that they would not report him as missing. The base was named after John Bell Hood, a Confederate general from a family that enslaved people in Kentucky, who made his name by breaking a Union line at Eltham's Landing in Virginia and who, by today's standards, likely suffered from PTSD. Thirteen killed themselves. Later came Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese, who still run sushi and pho restaurants in Killeen. From here, wars are launched. September 10, 2020. On August 17, Sergeant Elder Fernandes, 23, disappeared. After 8 p.m., Guillens sister Mayra called the base. Fernandes was dropped off at his friends house the next day, never to be seen again. Yet instead of being taken into custody, Robinson was placed in a conference room on base, initially, it was said, for committing adultery, which is against the Uniform Code of Military Justice. After the public remonstrations began, Fort Hood launched something it called Operation Phantom Action, a weeklong retreat of sorts that was meant to rebuild trust between soldiers and the leadership. Is it possible Elder killed himself? After 10 torturous weeks and growing. (Fort Hood refused all official interview requests for this story, citing ongoing investigations. How had he managed to escapeand where had he gotten his gun? Reformers would say that the military had failed its men and women. The numbers are distressing. Soon after, the Temple police, who led the investigation, ruled Fernandes's death a suicide. Despite 10,000 hours of investigation and 300 interviews, much about Guillens death remained a mystery. The wave of pain went away as suddenly as it had come on but returned again, and again, and again, over the next hour. The next day, Wedel-Morales failed to show up for duty, and the day after that, he was classified as absent without leave, making him one of the thousand or so soldiers who go AWOL in any given year. THE GREAT PLACE. Joshua Diamond, 35, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Pfc. She doesnt belong to the Army anymore, AnaLuisa Tapia, a local organizer, told me. May Jeong has written an in-depth analysis of the rash of unexplained deaths at Fort Hood. By. Fort Hood also stated that it had completed an exhaustive search for Fernandes, and that it had interviewed all relevant parties, including the family. Killeen itself sits on an especially brutal stretch of central Texas, along the Balcones Fault, which separates the high plains of the Hill Country to the west from the grand prairies and limestone plains of the east, and along which runs Interstate 35. The tributaries that run through Fort Hood flow into the Leon River, where Guillen's remains were later found. SHARE. He wondered if it was something he had eaten and carried on with his shift. Rodriguez disputes this claim. "None of the messages added up, nor were they how he usually speaks to me," Rodriguez told me. On Wednesday, April 22, 2020, Guillen reported for duty at Fort Hood. That gun safety is a distant concern in a community where the Second Amendment tops the Maslow charts. The search party arrived at Fort Hood at 3 a.m. Guillens staff sergeant told the group to come back in the morning. Jef Rouner. When the family exhumed his body in November 2020 for want of a second opinion, the independent autopsy revealed that the bone had in fact gone missing.) That September, Wedel-Morales, who was from rural Oklahoma, was due to be honorably discharged from the military. It was unclear, in 2020, what American soldiers were fighting for. The additional scrutinythe congressional delegation visit, press toursmeant that soldiers had to work harder. The suicides, which reportedly jumped by as much as 20 percent across the military last year, work out to a rate of one soldier a month. The Lovell case was ruled an accident despite the fact that a rival clubs biker vest, or kutte, was found hanging neatly from a tree near the crash site, while his motorcyclemirror, taillightswas found intact. Basic details of the incident kept changing. = Link to a nongovernmental site. (Facebook) Two weeks later, Delacruz . Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. But advocates for. First it was a five-mile run, then it was a two-mile run. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. On May 11, however, Fernandes reported to Fort Hood abusive sexual contact from a staff sergeant, whom he alleged groped him in a supply room, according to the redacted military investigation report. Inside the rash of explained deaths at Fort Hood. (Penny says they met online.) And yet: The data is not really out of the ordinary for U.S. military bases. A small minority, which bikers call "one percent" groups, and which the Department of Justice calls by the regrettable acronym OMG, or outlaw motorcycle gangs, were the people Wedel-Morales had been hanging around with. Bill to attend technical school in Houston to work on wind turbines or oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana. Why hadn't the arms room been treated like the crime scene it was? Rodriguez sensed something was off. At first, Aguilar told investigators, they cut her up using a machete. He seemed weird, Rodriguez said. On the night of August 19, Wedel-Morales went out to Club Fuego, located in a desolate strip mall about 10 miles east of Fort Hood. Gloria had noticed her losing weight and pressed her for why. The new family, like more than 70 percent of all Fort Hood service members, lived off post, but after two dead bodies were found on their street, they moved into base housing. The area, east of Killeen, was built on 109,000 acres of high bluffs, ridges, sharp slopes, and mesa-like hills covered with mesquite and chaparral. I guess my point is, Rodriguez told me, if everything was fine, the way Fort Hood officials would lead us to believe, then why would this soldier, out of character, leave base without permission, and [why] did he not feel comfortable enough to call his captain or anyone on that base once he was arrested for speeding? On August 13, Staff Sergeant Bradley Moore died during a land navigation exercise on the base. In 2020 alone, 31. They married in May 2017, and he took her name with hyphenation. During the run, Chee, who had no preexisting health conditions, collapsed. The very next day, a Fort Hood investigation concluded that Fernandess charges of sexual assault were unsubstantiated. The murder of Vanessa Guilln, a 20-year-old United States Army soldier, took place inside an armory at Fort Hood, Texas, on April 22, 2020, when she was bludgeoned to death by another soldier, Aaron David Robinson.
