fort hood deaths 2021 list
Texan sentenced to 20 years following drug-related death of Fort Hood soldier. Sewell is the latest soldier to disappear from the base after a series of soldiers disappeared in the past few years. 60.2 (births per 1,000 women 15-44 years of age) Teen Birth Rate. 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. Texas as of 9 July 2021; some devices had already been sold and shipped. 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. Chee, like Yazzie, was a member of the Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation community, and was new to the base. Specialist Justen Ogdens death in July 2017 was ruled a suicide, but the suicide note Fort Hood produced as evidence did not match his handwriting, according to his mother, Toni. There, Wedel-Morales's remains had been found, long ago decomposed in the Texas heat. 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. Why hadnt the arms room been treated like the crime scene it was? PUBLISHED 10:53 AM CT Mar. ", When I asked soldiers at Fort Hood what they thought was the matter on base, they mentioned "toxic leadership," a catholic term that seemed to encompass all: lack of care, general command climate, and so-called toxic masculinity. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Specialist Justen Ogden's death in July 2017 was ruled a suicide, but the suicide note Fort Hood produced as evidence did not match his handwriting, according to his mother, Toni. The 2020 numbers add to ongoing mysteries, including a 2016 case where a corpses hyoid, the U-shaped neck bone typically examined to determine whether strangulation has occurred, was missing. The Montreal Mafia Murders: Blood, Gore, Cannolis, and Hockey Bags, Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 2. The first week I spent in Texas that October, 22-year-old Lucas Hicks-Mack went missing on base. Fort Hood is a United States Army post located near Killeen, . (There was also literal toxicity on base in that some of the mold-infested barracks where soldiers lived were technically condemned, according to Maureen Elliott, a military spouse and a housing advocate.). 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. (Penny says they met online.) The disappearance of Vanessa Guilln, a 20-year-old soldier at the sprawling Texas Army base of Fort Hood last April, captured headlines across the world. The next day, Wedel-Morales failed to show up for duty, and the day after that, he was classified as absent without leave, making him one of the thousand or so soldiers who go AWOL in any given year. "From the age of 18, the only thing I knew how to do was kill people," Ring wrote on the website of his father's veterans' rights organization. Toxic leadership is nothing new. Women, who make up 17 percent of active-duty military, were doubly bereft, and the case files were awash with stories of the dead. No skid marks were apparent, nor did anyone hear the crash. 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. Creating an obituary on Echovita is free. (Among 1.29 million members of the U.S. military, 65,000 are immigrants, according to The Washington Post.) 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. By then Wedel-Morales had grown distant from his family in Oklahoma, who had not been told of the marriage. (His sons alleged killer is in custody awaiting trial.) Who were the soldiers who had testified to seeing Guillen leave the arms room the day she disappeared? = Link to a CAC-required sites . Fort Worth (817) 293-8477 Laurel Land Funeral Home and Cemetery 7100 Crowley Road, Fort Worth . He wondered if it was something he had eaten and carried on with his shift. This was true of many I met at Fort Hood, including press officer Major Gabriela Thompson, my tour guide on base, who told me she joined to pay off her student loans: "It was my ticket out," she said, echoing other soldiers' sentiments about how the military had rescued them from hardscrabble existences. Terrie Boley, whose daughter Candance became addicted to crack cocaine while serving at Fort Hood and was murdered in a motel room in 2011, told me not to drink the water. On April 29, it was Private Joshua Barnwell, 19. Last year, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers died or went missing. Texas Death Records Indexes, Obituaries and Cemetery Burials by County. Fernandes wouldnt share much, nothing about what had caused him to be hospitalized, and said that he was using an insecure base hospital line. He had messaged his sister beforehand to tell her something felt off. The coming months brought the suicides of Staff Sergeant Richard Harrington, 45, and then Specialist James Green, 23. "And how well will that look on your resume? 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. As publication approached, it stopped responding to emails pertaining to both specific questions about individual cases as well as broader queries about the base.). In 2007, also in Iraq, Specialist Kamisha Blocks 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. The plan, Wedel-Morales told anyone who would listen, was to use the G.I. Inside the rash of explained deaths at Fort Hood. That gun safety is a distant concern in a community where the Second Amendment tops the Maslow charts. 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. 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. They returned several days later to pour concrete over the remains. Hockin was found dead behind his company barracks. The next day, Wedel-Morales failed to show up for duty, and the day after that, he was classified as absent without leave, making him one of the thousand or so soldiers who go AWOL in any given year. The stories are gruesome, then heartbreaking, then beyond belief. He died in 1879, leaving a troubled legacy that is only now beginning to be questioned. The soldiers said that Guillen's belongings had been found in the arms room, but otherwise she had left no trace. 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. Thomas Berg, whose son Private Brandon Rosecranss Jeep was found burning in May, told me not to go out after dark. First it was a five-mile run, then it was a two-mile run. The story appears in the July/August 2021 issue of Vanity Fair.I enthusiastically recommend this article. From this inauspicious start, Killeen grew into a proper military town and is now home to six strip clubs, 18 pawn shops, 35 dollar stores, and 38 tattoo parlors. Oct 29, 2021. The sense of dehumanizing alienation soldiers complained about was not a symptom of a malfunctioning system, it was its original design. 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. Despite 10,000 hours of investigation and 300 interviews, much about Guillen's death remained a mystery. None of the grunts I spoke to was surprised by the number of casualties. "None of the messages added up, nor were they how he usually speaks to me," Rodriguez told me. When Ailina contacted the military police at Fort Hood, they told her that Fernandes was an adult, and that if he was missing, he likely didnt want to be found. Spc. ), Wedel-Morales's death was not the first from the base that may have involved bike gangs. And so his disappearance was no surprise, his father told me. Five were murdered. Rodriguez sensed something was off. Last year, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers died or went missing. In a press statement, Fort Hood officials said Hockin, 26, was initially found unresponsive outside of the barracks and was subsequently pronounced dead. But advocates for. The circumstances are so strange and awful that fully understanding the events can be difficult. 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.) And being mission-ready, the perpetual vigilance it requires, ensures a kind of endless possibility of war, which in turn justifies the $740 billion annual defense budget. These figures eclipse American casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq in the same year. 5.2 (infant deaths per 1,000 live births) Life Expectancy (at Birth) 76.5 years (2020) Marriage Rate. The 20-year-old small arms specialist, then a private first class, was supposed to be off that day, so she showed up in civilian clothesblack tee, purple leggings, and a fanny pack. Without any sense of purpose, the suffering at Fort Hood had started to lose its meaning. They married in May 2017, and he took her name with hyphenation. When Elisabeth Finch met Jennifer Beyer in 2019, the two women forged a fiercely loyal friendship, and eventually got married. We believe that Every Life has a Story which should be told and preserved. The additional scrutinythe congressional delegation visit, press toursmeant that soldiers had to work harder. 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. Mayra wept during the journey, already fearing the worst. 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. The Idaho Murders, Part 1: How 4 College Kids Lived and Loved. As soon as I get out of the hospital, I will call you. The U.S. Army announced Saturday that a soldier was found dead in the . Jef Rouner. On April 30, 2021, Fort Hood found that Guillen had indeed been sexually harassed by a soldier, but not Robinson.). He also wanted an education, and "joining the Army he knew he could take care of all of that," his sister Carma Johnson says. WASHINGTON (AP) The Army said Friday that it has taken disciplinary action against 21 officers and non-commissioned officers at Fort Hood, Texas, in connection with death last year of Spc. Why was Robinson not put under watch? The wave of pain went away as suddenly as it had come on but returned again, and again, and again, over the next hour. I am astounded nobody is interested, the Fernandes family lawyer Lenny Kesten told me. Lenz was found dead at Fort Hood on Feb. 1. Maxwell Hockin. Nearly 200 miles away in Houston, Rogelio Guillen was entering his fourth hour of work at a nickel-plating factory when he felt a sharp spasm in his chest. Red White and Blue via The US Army is licensed with CC BY-ND 2.0. Their minds both turned to Vanessa, whose hourly texts to family members had gone silent. The police too told Ailina that Fernandes was an adult and that they would not report him as missing. From here, wars are launched. When his parents rushed to the hospital, they saw that Chee, lying unconscious, had bruises and scrapes on his chin and on both sides of his face. A soft October wind carried the first chill of the season. Last December, an internal investigation found that Fort Hood's culture, environment, and leadership resulted in women feeling "vulnerable and preyed upon," with no reliable recourse for their very real sense of duress. Morta's death comes amid intense scrutiny of Fort Hood in recent weeks. (The Boley case remains unsolved.) Later the same day, at 8:30 p.m., Aaron Robinsons girlfriend, Cecily Aguilar, changed her story and told Army investigators that Robinson had confessed to her that he killed Guillen in the arms room, beating her to death with a hammer. I felt a bad vibe there, Lupe says, referring to Fort Hood. In other battles, having lost the use of his arm and later a leg, Hood had to be strapped to a horse for combat. If she wanted to pursue things further, they advised, she would have to file a missing persons report with the local police. (Facebook) Two weeks later, Delacruz . Before Guillen, there had been Private LaVena Lynn Johnson, who was found dead in a tent in 2005 in Iraq. Frantic, she called around, to no avail. The search party arrived at Fort Hood at 3 a.m. Guillen's staff sergeant told the group to come back in the morning. It's possible. New Market, Alabama. Site Gregory Wedel-Morales' remains were found in Killeen, Texas. Stump was going 82 mph in a 30-mph zone, the investigation report said, and had hit a tree on a mound. The tributaries that run through Fort Hood flow into the Leon River, where Guillen's remains were later found. Killeen itself sits on an especially brutal stretch of central Texas, along the Balcones Fault, which separates the high plains of the Hill Country to the west from the grand prairies and limestone plains of the east, and along which runs Interstate 35. There she encountered Specialist Aaron Robinson, also 20 years old but a rank above. Even then, it was she who had to scare up the $3,500 in bail money, and after Fort Hood sent two officers to pick up Casteel, officials refused to share information with Rodriguez. Just before noon, Guillen left her keys, Army ID, and bank cards in one arms room and entered another adjacent arms room, separated by a hallway. Soon after, the Temple police, who led the investigation, ruled Fernandess death a suicide. His killers were never looked for properly and thus never found. A few days later, they spoke again, for the last time. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our. There were no Black residents in town until the early 1950s. Fort Hood also stated that it had completed an exhaustive search for Fernandes, and that it had interviewed all relevant parties, including the family. Despite 10,000 hours of investigation and 300 interviews, much about Guillens death remained a mystery. This memory now refreshed, Gloria began asking around for a name and soon learned it through Guillens friend: Aaron Robinson, the last person to have seen her daughter. 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. On August 17, Sergeant Elder Fernandes, 23, disappeared. She has become that complicated, indelible thing: a hero. Two days after Staff Sergeant Anthony Lovell, 40, disappeared in 2017, his body was found, eyes pecked clean, face split in half, in a creek off Killeens seedy main corridor called Rancier, the same street where Specialist Freddy Delacruz, 23, was shot and killed last March. His body was found nearly a month later, two miles from the barracks. On November 5, 2009, 13 people are killed and more than 30 others are wounded, nearly all of them unarmed soldiers, when a U.S. Army officer goes on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in central. A sergeant from Guillens division called it mandatory fun days. The additional scrutinythe congressional delegation visit, press toursmeant that soldiers had to work harder. Escorts should be arranged in advance to allow for coordination with the organization receiving coverage. 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.