Fort Hood: The Vanessa Guillén case

Again and again, Vanessa Guillén told her fellow soldiers that she was “uncomfortable” with the platoon leader, and described him as “nasty”, “disgusting” and“a creep”.

Two soldiers warned the unit leadership about what was happening, but these officers failed to initiate an investigation. Neither did they take any action against the harasser, and they allowed him to mistreat Vanessa in public, holding her up as an example of misconduct.

Credits

Director: Jerónimo Andreu

Voice: Cecilia Suárez

Music: Camilo Lara

Audio design: Yago Mendívil

Original idea: Elena González

Production: Elena González / Gonzalo Ruiz de Villegas

Script: Jerónimo Andreu

Research and interviews: Damià Bonmatí / Juan Cooper

Digital: Malu Tabares / Pablo G. Batista

Visual design: Moncho Peche / Nacho López Fuentes

Executive producers: Toni Garrido, Gemma García, Luis Fernández

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On August 25, 2020, Bradley Buck, an employee of BNSF Railway, was working on some tracks at Temple. It was five thirty in the afternoon. It was very hot.

Bradley sees that some golf balls have been hit out of the course on the other side of the track. He goes to pick them up. Just then he spots something through the branches. It looks like a man. There is something round his neck. He has just discovered the body of Sergeant Elder Fernandes, who went missing five days previously.

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Vanessa Guillén spoke about the violence in Killenn with her mother. She didn’t like either the habits of her fellow soldiers or the leisure activities in Killeen.

The soldier-related crime that had the biggest impact in 2020, not counting the deaths of Vanessa Guillén and Gregory Morales, was that of soldier Brandon Rosecrans. Twenty-seven-year-old Brandon was shot four times and killed on May 18 in Harker Heights, 10 minutes away from Killeen.

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Vanessa Guillén´s family doesn’t believe Aaron Robinson was the only one guilty, and Gloria Guillén still thinks that the sergeant about whom her daughter spoke was behind all this.

22% of the soldiers at Fort Hood are Hispanic, a percentage disproportionate to their presence in the United States as a whole, which is 16%. Almost 70 years on, Vanessa’s disappearance rekindles the debate about the treatment of Latin soldiers.

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False clues start piling up in Vanessa Guillén’s case. First, authorities search for her cellphone. Then, following the directions of a sniffer dog, they look for her near a bridge on the Leon River.

Almost a year before Vanessa disappeared, in August 2019, another soldier, Gregory Morales, was declared a deserter. But his mother, Kim Wedel, never accepted that he disappeared voluntarily.

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Vanessa Guillén has disappeared. Her mother, Gloria, asks that Fort Hood’s gates be locked so no one can leave the base. She also tells high command what her daughter confided about a harassing superior: the man in the showers.

The Army questions two new witnesses who saw specialist Aaron Robinson leave the armory where Vanessa was last seen. He was carrying something large and heavy that got their attention.

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Vanessa Guillén arrives in 2019 at Fort Hood, Texas. Months later, her mother realizes Vanessa is hiding a secret and demands that she reveal it to her. We go inside the largest military base in the world to search for answers.

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