The Tragic Case of Vanessa Guillén
20-year-old Vanessa Guillén, a small arms soldier at the Fort Hood military base in Texas, was last seen on April 22, 2020. Her family was the first to raise concern after not being able to contact her, and soon on, so did her Regiment. When Guillén wasn’t found at the barracks on April 23rd, her family took the initiative and decided to report her missing.
It took four weeks before a co-worker of hers, Aaron David Robinson, admitted to investigators that he saw Guillén before she disappeared. According to Robinson, on April 22nd, he was in the arms room where Guillén had been to retrieve some paperwork and the serial number for a .50 caliber machine gun that needed to be serviced. After that, he left and went home to his girlfriend.
Suspicion rose about his story and involvement in the case as time progressed. It wasn’t until June 30th, after a series of interviews with him and his girlfriend, Cecily Aguilar, that Aguilar admitted to assisting Robinson in the disposal of Guillén’s body.
She told investigators that Robinson came home to Aguilar and told her he’d “struck a female soldier in the head with a hammer multiple times at his arms room, killing her”. He then put her body in a box and drove to Leon River, about a 20 mile drive from Fort Hood. Robinson drove back towards Killeen, where he and Aguilar lived, and picked his girlfriend where he drove her to the river to dispose of Guillén’s body.
The couple reportedly dismembered the small arms soldier's body using a “machete type knife” and tried to burn her, but failed to do so. They then decided to bury her body along the river in three separate holes and covered it up.
Because of her confession that day, police immediately traveled to Leon River and dug up part of a body which was later identified as Guillén's. This gave authorities all the evidence they needed to arrest Robinson.
Sadly, before police could confront him for slaying Vanessa Guillén, he took his own life with a firearm. Because of this, Guillén’s family won’t be able to get proper justice for Vanessa’s murder.
Aguilar has been charged with 11 counts: one count of conspiracy to tamper with evidence, three counts of accessory after the fact, one count of destruction of records in a federal investigation, and four counts of false statements or representation. She could also face up to 20 years in prison for her involvement in the murder.
Since being arrested, Aguilar has admitted to a possible motive for the murder. As of this past May, court document files revealed that Robinson was worried about Guillén reporting him for violating the Army’s fraternization rule after she saw Robinson’s lockscreen on his phone depicting him and Aguilar. Aguilar, although estranged with her husband, was still married to another soldier who worked at Fort Hood.
Because of this, Robinson believed Guillén would report him and decided to kill her.
This confession left a bad taste in Guillén's sister, Mayra’s, mouth. She told ABC13 News Vanessa would never “meddle” in Robinson’s and Aguilar’s relationship by reporting him.
For as long as the case existed, the treatment Guillén’s family received has been bothersome. Before investigators discovered Vanessa’s body on June 30th, what law enforcement told her family wasn’t concrete when it came to updates. Their investigation into the man who assaulted Guillén wasn’t sufficient either.
This investigation was opened up by Guillén’s Regiment after her family revealed that Guillén was being sexual harrassed by her superior. Guillén initially told her mom months prior to her death, but didn’t want to report it because of the fear of the repercussions. But since she specified it was a superior of hers, it was clear it wasn’t Robinson.
This brings up the amount of sexual harassment against women in the military. In general, sexual abuse against women has been an ever growing problem, but especially in the military which is largely a male dominated field. Guillén didn’t report the harassment because of the fear of repercussions.
Later on, as a response, the army opened up a separate investigation into the Sexual Harrassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) program at Fort Hood. They have examined the current implementation of SHARP and assessed if it’s supportive of soldiers reporting cases of sexual harrasment and assault.
Still to this day, there has been no significant development in the case of who sexual assaulted Guillén. 450 soliders and civilians were interviewed, including people from Guillén’s unit about the case, but even then, that’s only about 1% of the 51,000 people who come to Fort Hood every day.
Although Aguilar remains behind bars, Guillén’s true killer and abuser haven’t been convicted for the crimes committed against her. Proper justice cannot be served for the young Latinx woman until then, and although Robinson can never be charged, there is still hope to convict her abuser in the future.
