On Tuesday morning, remains that could belong to Vanessa Guillen, the 20-year-old soldier who went missing on April 22 after a sexual assault, were found just thirty minutes outside of Fort Hood.
At approximately 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, partial human remains were discovered by a man who was passing through the town of Little River-Academy in Texas.
The head of Texas Equusearch has suspended the search for Guillen until the remains are confirmed to be hers. Last week, a search party looked in that area, but the body was hidden in a shallow grave by the Leon River and was not detected.
After a confrontation with police on Tuesday, the soldier suspected in Vanessa Guillen’s disappearance, 20-year-old Spc. Aaron David Robinson, killed himself. Robinson left his base at Fort Hood and was found walking miles away from the base on the northeast side of the city. Killeen police, US Marshals, and the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force closed in before he shot himself and later died of the self-inflicted shot wound.
Another suspect, the estranged wife of a former Fort Hood soldier, was also arrested.
Before her disappearance, Guillen revealed to her mother that she had been sexually assaulted by a sergeant on the base. The investigation sparked a movement on social media with the hashtag #IAmVanessaGuillen that drew attention to others who have been victims of sexual assault while serving.
Military members are bravely sharing stories of sexual harassment using the hashtag #IAmVanessaGuillen. pic.twitter.com/JcOkeV8z00
— Investigation Discovery (@DiscoveryID) June 27, 2020
This is not a new thing, but it’s been silenced for so long. I was raped while on a Navy ship in the middle of the ocean. If I had reported it I was told they would throw me overboard and my body would never be found.That was 30 years ago.#IAMVANESSAGUILLEN
— Truddy (@truddy122) June 23, 2020
#IAMVANESSAGUILLEN
I served active duty as a jet mechanic.The men who sexually assaulted me are still serving in uniform today.
STATISTICALLY you are more likely to get raped by someone in the same uniform as you than you are to be shot at by the enemy. Read that again.
— SheCow✊ ✊ ✊ ✊ ✊ (@She__Cow) June 30, 2020
In the 2018 fiscal year, there were 20,500 reports of sexual assaults and rapes made by both male and female service members. Fifty-nine percent of women who were the victims of penetrative assault reported that they were assaulted by a person of a higher rank than that of their own.
The imbalance of power in conjunction with a fear of retaliation are only a fraction of reasons why those who experience sexual assault or harassment do not report it. According to a survey, victims who do choose to report were often faced discharged within seven months of their initial report.
The fear of inaction or an unfair process looms over the heads of many, which contributes greatly to the lack of reporting amongst victims. In the 2019 fiscal year, of the 5,699 unrestricted reports of sexual assault, only 138 were convicted of the 363 cases that were tried, which begs the question: why report to a system that continuously fails its victims?
