KILLEEN, Texas — Authorities on Thursday released the names of two suspects — including a Fort Hood soldier who died Wednesday of a self-inflected gunshot wound — after both were tied to the disappearance of Spc. Vanessa Guillen.
U.S. Army officials at Fort Hood identified the soldier as 20-year-old Spc. Aaron David Robinson of Illinois. Hours later, United States Department of Justice officials identified the second suspect as Cecily Anne Aguilar, a 22-year-old Killeen resident.
Officials during a news conference at Fort Hood Thursday told reporters that Robinson ran away from his post Tuesday evening after reports that partial human remains were found near the Leon River in Bell County.
Local law enforcement later found Robinson in the 4700 block of East Rancier Avenue, east of Fort Hood near North Twin Creek Drive, where he pulled a gun and shot himself when confronted by Killeen police early Wednesday.
While Guillen’s family and their attorney, Natalie Khawam, say the remains found near the river are likely that of the missing soldier, U.S. Army officials at Fort Hood on Thursday said the remains had yet to be identified.
Special Agent Damon Phelps with the Army Criminal Investigation Command said earlier Thursday that a second suspect also was arrested this week, but he declined to release her name.
“Because she is a civilian in the custody of local authorities, Army CID will not be releasing any further information concerning her or her status at this time,” Phelps said, adding that no organization had yet been assigned to the woman’s case nor was anyone given the authority to release her name.
However, federal authorities on Thursday filed a criminal complaint against Aguilar in connection with Guillen’s disappearance.
The criminal complaint charges Aguilar with one count of conspiracy to tamper with evidence. According to the complaint, Robinson told Aguilar that he killed Guillen by striking her in the head with a hammer at Fort Hood on April 22.
Robinson further admitted to Aguilar that he moved her body off of Fort Hood to a remote site in Bell County, the complaint says. Aguilar is accused of helped Robinson mutilate and dispose of Guillen’s body, federal authorities say.
If convicted, Aguilar could face up to 20 years in federal prison and a maximum $250,000 fine.
More:Foul play suspected in Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen’s disappearance
Bell County Jail records online show Aguilar was charged Wednesday with tampering or fabricating physical evidence with the intent to impair a human corpse, a second degree felony. She was being held without bail.
Army officials on Thursday would not say whether Robinson and Aguilar knew each other, citing an ongoing investigation. However, officials did say the woman was a civilian and the estranged wife of a former Fort Hood soldier.
But Khawam publicly announced what Army officials told the family after the remains were located, according to Army Times.
Khawam said she was told Robinson and his unnamed girlfriend, who United States Department of Justice say is Aguilar, were having an affair and that he called the woman to confess he had killed Guillen with a hammer.
Khawam said Robinson hid Guillen’s body in a Pelican case — a hard-sided, watertight storage case in common use in the military — stored in the armory room before later dumping her body near the Leon River.
“At first they tried to set her on fire, but she wouldn’t burn,” Khawam told Army Times. “Then they dismembered this beautiful U.S. soldier’s body with a machete. She needs to be brought to justice.”
Guillen, a 20-year-old Houston native who received her rank of specialist on Wednesday, was last seen between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. April 22 in the parking lot of the Regimental Engineer Squadron Headquarters where she worked at Fort Hood, officials said.
Phelps said, as reported previously, Guillen’s identification card, wallet and the keys to her car and post apartment were later found in the armory room where she had been earlier in the day.
However, Army officials on Thursday would still not release a timeline of the events before and after her disappearance, citing an active investigation. Officials also would not say whether Guillen’s supervisors tried to check in with her at any point during the day after she was suspected to have been abducted.
Guillen’s family, joined by friends and strangers in the Killeen community, worked tirelessly to demand justice and a thorough search for the missing soldier. Those efforts gained national and even some international attention in the past months.
The family have maintained that Guillen was sexually harassed by superiors at Fort Hood. Those claims even sparked a viral hashtag called #IamVanessaGuillen on social media, which many soldiers have used to share their stories of sexual harassment and assault on military installations.
Khawam earlier this week said a man at Fort Hood had walked in on Guillen while she was showering naked. Khawam said the family revealed those allegations to investigators late last month.
However, Maj. Gen. Scott Efflandt and Phelps on Thursday said there is still no evidence linking sexual harassment to Guillen’s disappearance.
Phelps said hundreds of acquaintances and friends were interviewed and “there is no allegation whatsoever that she’s been sexually assaulted or harassed and any hint of information that was sexual harassment was completely looked at without any credible information.”
Efflandt on Thursday added that he personally invited a team to the post earlier in the week to inspect its Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention program, or SHARP.
The inspection’s goal is to examine how the program runs and whether leadership is supportive of soldiers reporting sexual harassment and assault, officials said in a statement Wednesday. The team also is charged with “identifying any potentially systemic issues with the SHARP program at Fort Hood, as well as any resource constraints.”
In addition to finding remains at the Leon River, officials also recovered the remains of another Fort Hood soldier, Pvt. Gregory Morales, right outside the post in Killeen last month.
Morales, a 24-year-old who also used the last name Wedel before his marriage, was last heard from Aug. 20. He was scheduled to be discharged from the Army within a couple of days of his disappearance, Fort Hood officials have said.
Fort Hood officials suspected foul play in the disappearances of both Morales and Guillen, but said they did not believe they were linked.
Fort Hood is the largest active-duty armored unit post in the U.S. military, according to the post’s website. Nearly 40,000 infantrymen, cavalrymen, tankers, engineers, mechanics and health care professionals work at Fort Hood, which is nicknamed “Great Place.”
The post straddles Bell and Coryell counties across 340 square miles of arid scrubland. Soldiers can and have disappeared, and it can take a while to find them, even when foul play is not suspected. In 2007, a 25-year-old soldier was found dead of dehydration and hyperthermia four days after he disappeared during a solo training exercise testing on map-reading and navigation skills.
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