Oct 29, 2021. The death was ruled a suicide despite the fact that the blanket stuffed around the window to hold the pipe in place had been doused in Schuette's own blood, and Schuette was found with nine stab wounds across his body, including his forearm and his left hand. But as Beyer would soon realize, Finchs past wasnt what she claimedand Beyers own difficult history was up for the taking. More than 90 lawmakers earlier this month called for an independent review of how the Army handled the disappearance of Spc. Schuette's body was returned to his family "wrapped like a mummy." Before Fort Hood was built, the land was used for grazing by some 3,000 farmers and ranchers, according to Gerald D. Skidmore, a Killeen historian. Also that year, Marine Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach was raped by her superior, which she reported. She had also missed her standing noon call with her fianc, Juan Cruz. On Wednesday, April 22, 2020, Guillen reported for duty at Fort Hood. There had been a few people, then it was a group run of 11. Club Fuego where Gregory Wedel-Morales was last seen, Killeen Tx. Failure to comply could incur fines of hundreds of dollars or other, more severe social censure. When Ailina offered the Fort Hood authorities the contents of her sons car, including a laptop, iPad, and external hard drive, they declined to investigate further. (Marine Lance Corporal Riley Schultz's death on March 15, 2019, at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, was also ruled a suicide, despite his hyoid being broken. His wife, Christal, was denied her husband's mobile phone, the final investigation report, and even his corpse, until Texas Congressman Ron Wright stepped in on that front. The very next day, a Fort Hood investigation concluded that Fernandess charges of sexual assault were unsubstantiated. In death, she is no longer a daughter or a sister or a partner. From here, wars are launched. The first week I spent in Texas that October, 22-year-old Lucas Hicks-Mack went missing on base. After 10 torturous weeks and growing. And on June 19, skeletal remains were found in a field behind a cul-de-sac of a residential neighborhood in Killeen. The 2020 numbers add to ongoing mysteries, including a 2016 case where a corpse's hyoid, the U-shaped neck bone typically examined to determine whether strangulation has occurred, was missing. And how well will that look on your rsum?, Im 21 now, and let me tell you. Many complained specifically of being made to cut grass to ready for such official visits. Within days of arriving at Fort Hood, Chee's clothes were stolen. It was a "heartrending, searing experience," central Texas historian Gra'Delle Duncan said, "leaving lifetime marks on all, and actually killing some" from the psychic devastation that followed. Texas as of 9 July 2021; some devices had already been sold and shipped. CID and Homeland security believe the NVGs were stolen from shipping . Traveling in the time of plague, trying to build rapport with people from six feet away, was enervating. Texas Death Records, 1890-1976 includes scanned copies of the death certificates Texas Death Records, 1977-1986 includes digitized copies of the death certificates; not yet complete. It's possible. 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. Guillen's youngest sister, Lupe, made me promise to stay at the Marriott, a hotel she considered safer than the rest. Many complained specifically of being made to cut grass to ready for such official visits. The corpse had been dead for a while, though it was impossible to determine exactly how long. The plan, Wedel-Morales told anyone who would listen, was to use the G.I. Visit this link to create a free obituary then read the advantages of creating an obituary on Echovita and either click Start now or Create an obituary for your loved to begin. As distressing as the remains in shallow graves or the missing hyoid bone is the fatalism from soldiers and locals alike. He ultimately murdered her when she was eight months pregnant, then set her on fire before fleeing to Mexico. Fort Hood Commander Removed After Deaths, Disappearances - Peoplemag May Jeong has written an in-depth analysis of the rash of unexplained deaths at Fort Hood. 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. (On July 14,2020, a federal grand injury indicted Aguilar on one count of conspiracy and two counts of tampering with evidence. Before Fort Hood was built, the land was used for grazing by some 3,000 farmers and ranchers, according to Gerald D. Skidmore, a Killeen historian. In 1941, Private Felix Hall was lynched by fellow soldiers, at Fort Benning, Georgia. It installed 35 firing ranges, 18 chapels, three bowling alleys, and 1,384 barracks that would house, at its peak, 95,000 soldiers, the most densely populated military base, at a cost of $35 million. Traveling in the time of plague, trying to build rapport with people from six feet away, was enervating. The exact cause of Hockin's death remains unclear . Sergeant Brad Reynolds, 37, killed himself on May 16. Eleven of the deaths remain unresolvedsome legally; others for the victims' families. A few hours later, Robinson, who had mostly been playing video games, escaped Fort Hood by car. A soft October wind carried the first chill of the season. They are part of Killeens population of 151,000, many transient and very young, two thirds of whom have military ties. He told his sister there were three white soldiers who did not like him. On August 28, Chee was called into a training run. Last year, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers died or went missing. Not long after Fort Hood opened, soldiers began bringing home souvenirs in the form of war brides. Eventually Fernandes rang from the Army hospital. The sense of dehumanizing alienation soldiers complained about was not a symptom of a malfunctioning system, it was its original design. Thirteen killed themselves. In 2007, also in Iraq, Specialist Kamisha Block's death was ruled an accident by a single shot of friendly fire before the family received the body and saw that she had five gunshot wounds, including one to the head. He died the evening of September 2. They pointed glumly to past cases, some of which there were public records for and others I could find no traces of in the official files. One of the first times she stepped onto the base, a rosary she had been carrying in the palm of her hand tore apart, its beads scattering over the concrete ground. The Armys own investigation found major flaws at Fort Hood, leading to the firing or suspending of 14 officials. That most soldiers enlist when they are still teenagers, their yet-unformed minds taught to kill. A few days later, they spoke again, for the last time. 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. 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. Fort Hood might not even stand out were it not for a particularly bad year among many. Lenz's mother, Margie Taylor, said her son loved children and looked forward to having a family of his own one day. Thirteen killed themselves. Memorial that now stands at the site Vanessa Guillen's remains were found in Killen, Texas. Five were murdered. That morning, Guillen had left her third-floor barracks and headed downstairs to her work station at the motor pool, a vast garage for military vehicles. The rolling, semi-arid terrain is ideal for multifaceted training and testing of military units and troops. His body was mostly intact but for his hyoid, which was never found. If he killed himself, don't they want to know why?". 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. After he returned to Fort Hood, Rodriguez managed to get Casteel on a video call. Fort Hood announced that Stump had crashed his car while driving under the influence, though a toxicology report proved inconclusive. He also wanted an education, and joining the Army he knew he could take care of all of that, his sister Carma Johnson says. From the age of 18, the only thing I knew how to do was kill people, Ring wrote on the website of his fathers veterans rights organization. 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.) Despite 10,000 hours of investigation and 300 interviews, much about Guillen's death remained a mystery. For nothing.. Since being stationed at Fort Hood in November 2016, Wedel-Morales had frequented the Dollhouse, a strip club not far from where his remains would eventually be found. The small Texas frontier town was also a hotbed of Klan activity, according to Texas historian Gene Preuss of the University of Houston, so much so that when trains stopped in Killeen, Black passengersrelegated to colored carsknew to pull down their window shades to avoid a pelting with rocks by locals. He got home around 2 p.m. and told his wife, Gloria, about the unusual aches. Most of the groups were aboveboard, even as they were ruled by certain strictures for meeting attendance, dress code, and how to appropriately signal respect. Everything we know about the 16 soldier deaths at Fort Hood this year (The person who called in with the tip declined to collect the reward. Basic details of the incident kept changing. Fort Hood had refused to list him as missing, and it was only after his then fiance, Paradise Rodriguez, posted a video on Facebook that an officer at the parish jail saw it and got into contact. "What on earth are you training for?" What is behind the violence and tragedy at Fort Hood? Curiously, a few hours after the officers picked up Casteel, he went silent online. Casteel had told Rodriguez "he was getting away from the abuse.". Last year, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers vanished or died, including 13. It installed 35 firing ranges, 18 chapels, three bowling alleys, and 1,384 barracks that would house, at its peak, 95,000 soldiers, the most densely populated military base, at a cost of $35 million. (Facebook) Two weeks later, Delacruz . 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. Ad Choices. Rodriguez disputes this claim. Inside Fort Hood's multiple strange deaths and the Army's apathetic -. Vanessa Guillen and a number of other soldiers at Fort Hood sparked outrage across the country, leading to an independent review of the command climate and culture on the military post. Those remains, it turned out, belonged to yet another soldier, Private Gregory Wedel-Morales, who had gone missing the previous summer. It is unclear if Killeen even bothered to visit his namesake town, which, by the early 1880s, comprised 40 people living across 360 acres, mostly working in the two cotton gins, two gristmills, and two saloonsit had the most saloons, gamblers, and shootings per capita in Bell County, according to historian Martha Bowmer. Sewell is the latest soldier to disappear from the base after a series of soldiers disappeared in the past few years. (Fort Hood does not count Moore in its official casualty list, as he was a member of the National Guard.). U.S. ARMY INSTALLATION MANAGEMENT COMMAND Red White and Blue via The US Army is licensed with CC BY-ND 2.0. The pursuit of happiness, or simply stability, will invariably lure people to the American military, which may be why the undocumented, the indigent, or those with a criminal record are overrepresented in its ranks. The figures coming out of the deaths at Fort Hood are depressing, as reported in Vanity Fair. It was unclear, in 2020, what American soldiers were fighting for. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. 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. Frantic, she called around, to no avail. Deaths of two female soldiers in Texas under investigation Today, Reform Austin is attempting to put the entire chain of events into a concise timeline for our readers. Why hadn't the arms room been treated like the crime scene it was? There was a deep cut above his left eye, and cuts all over his legs. He refused to send a selfie or get on a video chat and began using a strange and unfamiliar speech pattern. Hazel Buck Blackwell, whose family lost their farm, homestead, barns, orchards, and adjoining land when the base took over, said the closest thing might be the unexpected death of someone you loved very much. It was a heartrending, searing experience, central Texas historian GraDelle Duncan said, leaving lifetime marks on all, and actually killing some from the psychic devastation that followed. A few days later, they spoke again, for the last time. At first, Aguilar told investigators, they cut her up using a machete. Within days of arriving at Fort Hood, Chees clothes were stolen. Chee had joined the military in part to support the young family he was starting with his high school sweetheart turned fiance. A sergeant from Guillens division called it mandatory fun days. The additional scrutinythe congressional delegation visit, press toursmeant that soldiers had to work harder. October 13, 2021 04:48 PM. Army investigating after soldier, 26, found dead in latest in string of unexplained deaths at Fort Hood barracks Fort Hood officials have not released the cause of death for Maxwell. Washington CNN The Army announced Tuesday that 14 senior officers will be punished following a probe that was initiated after the murder of a soldier and several other deaths at the Army's. The coming months brought the suicides of Staff Sergeant Richard Harrington, 45, and then Specialist James Green, 23. On most nights, I had nightmares. Drugs suspected in case of two Fort Bragg soldiers found dead in barracks Beyond the base, gas station attendants and restaurant servers, many of whom were veterans or had ties to the military, all seemed resigned to certain fates. In the same week, Private Edward Casteel, who had been missing from Fort Hood since October 6, was found in a parish jail in Louisiana, arrested after a high-speed chase. Shelby Tyler Jones, 20, was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound at 3:45 a.m. Sunday, March 1, 2020, outside of a convenience store on Fort Hood Street. This memory now refreshed, Gloria began asking around for a name and soon learned it through Guillen's friend: Aaron Robinson, the last person to have seen her daughter. THE GREAT PLACE. The first week I spent in Texas that October, 22-year-old Lucas Hicks-Mack went missing on base. Fifty six . Find an obituary, get service details, leave condolence messages or send flowers or gifts in memory of a loved one. The vast emptiness that is most of the state can make you feel inconsequential, as if you could disappear and no one would know you ever lived. 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. Army Disciplines 21 at Fort Hood in Probe of Soldier's Death Guillen confessed that she was being harassed by another soldier. (Ring returned to base of his own accord later that day.). The Times found 159 noncombat deaths of Fort Hood soldiers since the beginning of 2016, which included seven homicides and 71 suicides. As of October 20, 2022, 70 of 70 Fort Hood Independent Review Committee recommendations have been addressed by the U.S. Army's People First Task Force. 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. 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. Later came Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese, who still run sushi and pho restaurants in Killeen. This negates civic participation, as the state no longer needs to collect taxes and thus stops serving the people, who in turn have no need to pressure the government for anythingthe very dynamic that continues to play out in oil-rich Gulf states. 22.4 (births per 1,000 females 15-19 years of age) Infant Mortality Rate. There she encountered Specialist Aaron Robinson, also 20 years old but a rank above. During the day, though, it was still hot enough that if you dropped a beer bottle, the contents appeared to dry on contact. Sergeant Brad Reynolds, 37, killed himself on May 16. In 1941, Private Felix Hall was lynched by fellow soldiers, at Fort Benning, Georgia. That September, Wedel-Morales, who was from rural Oklahoma, was due to be honorably discharged from the military. The Army's own investigation found "major flaws" at Fort Hood, leading to the firing or suspending of 14 officials. Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now. Ive even lost myself. (Ring returned to base of his own accord later that day.). Why had it taken forensics 72 days to conduct a search of the arms room? But when Kim called the police, they dismissed her, telling Kim that her son probably just "took off." On April 30, 2021, Fort Hood found that Guillen had indeed been sexually harassed by a soldier, but not Robinson.). Copyright 2023 Echovita Inc. All rights reserved. Staff Sergeant Devin Schuette was found dead in his pickup truck, fitted with a hose running from the exhaust pipe to the cabin, in January 2016. Most of the groups were aboveboard, even as they were ruled by certain strictures for meeting attendance, dress code, and how to appropriately signal respect. Women, who make up 17 percent of active-duty military, were doubly bereft, and the case files were awash with stories of the dead. The 2020 numbers add to ongoing mysteries, including a 2016 case . Four days later, an anonymous tip directed investigators to an urban prairie at the end of a residential street where Penny Morales used to live. The day after Guillen disappeared, Private Gavin Chambers, 21, died on base. At least 159 Fort Hood soldiers died out of combat between 2016 and last year, including seven homicides and 71 suicides, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Driving into Killeen last fall, what greeted me was a deer, roadkill, that had been severed in half. When Kim called Fort Hood inquiring after her son, she was told the case was the remit of the Killeen Police Department as Wedel-Morales had gone missing off base. Alabama Obituaries - Latest Obituaries in Alabama - Echovita 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. Wedel-Morales was thrilled to become a father. 16 Apr 2021 Military.com | By Matthew Cox The Army 's People First Task Force on Friday unveiled sweeping actions underway to transform the service's sexual harassment and assault prevention. They returned several days later to pour concrete over the remains. The U.S. Army announced Saturday that a soldier was found dead in the . At 9:30 p.m., Mayra, Cruz, Guillens other sister Yovana, and Yovanas boyfriend set out for Fort Hood. Ever since returning from a deployment to Iraq in February 2019shipped off two months after basic training for a nine-month tourRing had become withdrawn, developed a drinking problem, and had been arrested for drunk driving. ", "I'm 21 now, and let me tell you. There was a deep cut above his left eye, and cuts all over his legs.
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