fort hood deaths 2021 list

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. "You can find Osama bin Laden, but you can't find a soldier that went missing on your own base?" US Army Since then, Vanessa's family and their attorney Natalie Khawam have tried to shine a spotlight on a string of deaths at the central Texas installation. Fort Hood also stated that it had completed an exhaustive search for Fernandes, and that it had interviewed all relevant parties, including the family. The base saw 26 . 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." he asks, then answers. THE MURDERS AT FORT HOOD Remains of soldiers have been turning up around the Texas military base with terrifying frequency. 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. September 10, 2020. 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 wondered if it was something he had eaten and carried on with his shift. "She is now for the movement.". FORT HOOD, Texas - Fort Hood officials say they do not suspect foul play in the death of 26-year-old SPC Maxwell Hockin. (The police opened an investigation on August 19.) Also that year, Marine Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach was raped by her superior, which she reported. (Fort Hood) A soldier in the 1st Cavalry Division was found dead Saturday in his company area, according to a statement from. 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. 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. Fort Hood announced that Stump had crashed his car while driving under the influence, though a toxicology report proved inconclusive. In other battles, having lost the use of his arm and later a leg, Hood had to be strapped to a horse for combat. It rained that night, and the drive, which should have taken three hours, was slow going. The military is necessarily an institution of state-sanctioned violence, where we teach our young to kill on our behalf in the name of ideologies such as patriotism or democracy. Those remains, it turned out, belonged to yet another soldier, Private Gregory Wedel-Morales, who had gone missing the previous summer. 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 didn't want to be found. The discovery in 2020 of the dismembered and burned remains of Vanessa Guillen, a Fort Hood soldier who disappeared on April 22, 2020, sparked outrage from central Texas to . October 13, 2021 04:48 PM. Fort Hood also stated that it had completed an exhaustive search for Fernandes, and that it had interviewed all relevant parties, including the family. So when, the following spring, Fort Hood offered a $15,000 reward for information about Guillen, then raised it to $25,000 in June, Kim called to demand the same. THE GREAT PLACE. 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. On April 30, 2021, Fort Hood found that Guillen had indeed been sexually harassed by a soldier, but not Robinson.). All are former soldiers. She has become that complicated, indelible thing: a hero. First came the British and Germans. In 2009, Nidal Hasan was an Army major when he killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others in a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. Wedel-Morales was thrilled to become a father. Maxwell Hockin. And yet: The data is not really out of the ordinary for U.S. military bases. Without any sense of purpose, the suffering at Fort Hood had started to lose its meaning. "Give me the name and I will report the bastard," Gloria told her daughter, who refused to tell her mother more for fear of worrying her, and also, Gloria later suspected, for fear of reprisal. A small minority, which bikers call "one percent" groups, and which the Department of Justice calls by the regrettable acronym OMG, or outlaw motorcycle gangs, were the people Wedel-Morales had been hanging around with. It rained that night, and the drive, which should have taken three hours, was slow going. And so his disappearance was no surprise, his father told me. 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. Dozens of people were killed, died by suicide, or went missing from the Texas military base last year alone. 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. Within days of arriving at Fort Hood, Chee's clothes were stolen. Why was Robinson not put under watch? The base might have continued to devour its soldiers had it not been for a missing soldiers family whose rage, love, and devotion would attract the attention of the media, celebrities, and later the White House, sparking congressional and military investigations. (His son's alleged killer is in custody awaiting trial.) After he returned to Fort Hood, Rodriguez managed to get Casteel on a video call. Yes, simply click Add a photo located underneath the main photo of the obituary then upload the photos/videos you wish to share. Last December, a Special Forces soldier and an Army veteran were found dead at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where another soldier disappeared in May and was later found murdered. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Rosecrans, shot four times, was found three miles from his vehicle. . 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. Five were murdered. 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. That most soldiers enlist when they are still teenagers, their yet-unformed minds taught to kill. Fort Hood announced that Stump had crashed his car while driving under the influence, though a toxicology report proved inconclusive. The soldiers said that Guillens belongings had been found in the arms room, but otherwise she had left no trace. I will tell you everything, he told his mother. Garrison Policies and Regulations. He seemed weird, Rodriguez said. 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.) Anthony Nevelle Peak Jr. Hogan, 19, and Peak Jr., 21, were both killed in a. FORT HOOD, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - U.S. Army officials at Fort Hood have identified the soldier who was found dead Saturday, Oct. 13 behind his company barracks. Deaths of two female soldiers in Texas under investigation January 5, 2021 / 11:39 AM / CBS News Investigations are underway across Texas after two female soldiers were found dead on New. 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. Reformers would say that the military had failed its men and women. Traveling in the time of plague, trying to build rapport with people from six feet away, was enervating. But the only among the victims may be the institution that them all to kill. More than 2,200 trials over land rights commenced. The Army's own investigation found "major flaws" at Fort Hood, leading to the firing or suspending of 14 officials. (Fort Hood refused all official interview requests for this story, citing ongoing investigations. (According to Killeen police, no such vests were found at the scene of the crash. On most nights, I had nightmares. That gun safety is a distant concern in a community where the Second Amendment tops the Maslow charts. "For nothing.". The Idaho Murders, Part 1: How 4 College Kids Lived and Loved. The family began posting online about Guillens disappearance and distributing Missing fliers. There, Wedel-Moraless remains had been found, long ago decomposed in the Texas heat. If she wanted to pursue things further, they advised, she would have to file a missing persons report with the local police. That an overwhelming majority of the towns economy comes from Fort Hood makes Killeen a kind of rentier state, in that most of its revenue comes through a foreign entity, which historically has led to the collapse of domestic industries, leading to increased dependence on a single source of income. Give me the name and I will report the bastard, Gloria told her daughter, who refused to tell her mother more for fear of worrying her, and also, Gloria later suspected, for fear of reprisal. 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. The U.S. Army identified a soldier found dead behind his company barracks at Fort Hood last week as 26-year-old Spc. There were no Black residents in town until the early 1950s. The coming months brought the suicides of Staff Sergeant Richard Harrington, 45, and then Specialist James Green, 23. ), Wedel-Moraless death was not the first from the base that may have involved bike gangs. I played a small role in the story by providing some background information on Confederate General John Bell Hood.. Tributes.com is the online source for current local and national obituary news. Within days of arriving at Fort Hood, Chees clothes were stolen. 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. 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. The search party arrived at Fort Hood at 3 a.m. Guillens staff sergeant told the group to come back in the morning. By then, the Army, it seemed, had stopped providing Wedel-Morales with a sense of purpose, and he had turned to alternate sources of meaning, namely car and motorcycle clubs, and life beyond the base. Failure to comply could incur fines of hundreds of dollars or other, more severe social censure. Thirteen killed themselves. Military bases are the last piece of the homeland that soldiers see before they are deployed to fight and the first glimpse of home when they return. May Jeong has written an in-depth analysis of the rash of unexplained deaths at Fort Hood. 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. 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. A few hours later, Robinson, who had mostly been playing video games, escaped Fort Hood by car. 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. 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. 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. Wedel-Morales was thrilled to become a father. Women, who make up 17 percent of active-duty military, were doubly bereft, and the case files were awash with stories of the dead. That psychological trauma among veterans vastly exceeds physical wounds. Last December, an internal investigation found that Fort Hoods culture, environment, and leadership resulted in women feeling vulnerable and preyed upon, with no reliable recourse for their very real sense of duress. (Fort Hood contributed nearly $30 billion to the Texas economy in 2019, according to the Texas comptrollers office.). 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. 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. 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. His killers were never looked for properly and thus never found. 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. (Killeen Police stated they have no knowledge of anyone declining to investigate.) In 2018, a soldier was allegedly shot and killed in her front yard by her husband at Fort Campbell, in Kentucky, which also has one of the highest rates of suicide in the Army. Robinson gave Guillen the serial number for a .50 caliber machine gun that needed servicing. He had then driven the body to the Leon River and had come back to pick Aguilar up from the gas station where she worked on Veterans Memorial Boulevard, five miles east of Fort Hood. Robinson himself left soon thereafter, he would testify, to spend the night off post with his girlfriend. And so his disappearance was no surprise, his father told me. It was ruled a suicide until her father noticed her broken nose, black eye, loose teeth, and burns on her genitals. "None of the messages added up, nor were they how he usually speaks to me," Rodriguez told me. 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. The author knocks on the doors bearing the darkest symbols, behind which lie guns, ammo, antisemitism, antiabortion dogmaand a belief in the coming civil war. 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. 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. Escorts should be arranged in advance to allow for coordination with the organization receiving coverage. Fernandes was dropped off at his friend's house the next day, August 17, never to be seen again. Why had it taken forensics 72 days to conduct a search of the arms room? The rolling, semi-arid terrain is ideal for multifaceted training and testing of military units and troops. (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.). 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. A unique and lasting tribute for a loved one. Five were murdered. Fernandes transferred to another unit where he was called a snitch and worse. Chris and Moses friends of Gregory Wedel-Morales at the site of his remains, Killeen TX. In 2018, a soldier was allegedly shot and killed in her front yard by her husband at Fort Campbell, in Kentucky, which also has one of the highest rates of suicide in the Army. Oct 29, 2021. And on June 19, skeletal remains were found in a field behind a cul-de-sac of a residential neighborhood in Killeen. Also that year, Marine Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach was raped by her superior, which she reported. Fernandes wouldn't share much, nothing about what had caused him to be hospitalized, and said that he was using an insecure base hospital line. From here, wars are launched. 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. 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. But the only among the victims may be the institution that them all to. Since the beginning of the year, there have been 12 Fort Hood soldiers who have vanished, died, or, in one case, turned up dead after going missing last year. Victoria a friend of Gregory Wedel-Morales at the site of his remains, Killeen TX. But with each encounter, it was becoming clear that the military had not failed its soldiers at all. Hoover, Alabama. She had also missed her standing noon call with her fianc, Juan Cruz. Eleven of the deaths remain unresolvedsome legally; others for the victims' families. fort hood training calendar 2023 Ozempic (semaglutide) is a once-weekly injection that is FDA approved for use by adults with type 2 diabetes to control their blood sugar levels. 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. Eleven of the deaths remain unresolvedsome legally; others for the victims' families. 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. Maxwell Hockin. 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. Linda Schweers, whose specialist son, Justin, died in a car crash in June while suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, wanted me to "be careful of cartels," which she said ran the area. (On July 14, 2020, a federal grand injury indicted Aguilar on one count of conspiracy and two counts of tampering with evidence. There, Wedel-Morales's remains had been found, long ago decomposed in the Texas heat. The ancient Greeks wrote epic poems on the subject, the most famous of which is the Iliad. Basic details of the incident kept changing. Sgt. 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. 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.) Later came Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese, who still run sushi and pho restaurants in Killeen. The soldiers said that Guillen's belongings had been found in the arms room, but otherwise she had left no trace. They married in May 2017, and he took her name with hyphenation. On April 29, it was Private Joshua Barnwell, 19. 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. = Link to a nongovernmental site. ), On July 3, a fortnight after Wedel-Morales's body was found, Specialist Miguel Yazzie, 33, died at Fort Hood after his repeated requests to see a doctor were denied, according to Carma Johnson, whose brother died at Fort Hood. I felt a bad vibe there, Lupe says, referring to Fort Hood. 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. During the day, though, it was still hot enough that if you dropped a beer bottle, the contents appeared to dry on contact. (Among 1.29 million members of the U.S. military, 65,000 are immigrants, according to The Washington Post.) 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 she encountered Specialist Aaron Robinson, also 20 years old but a rank above. Spc. That September, Wedel-Morales, who was from rural Oklahoma, was due to be honorably discharged from the military. 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. Who were the soldiers who had testified to seeing Guillen leave the arms room the day she disappeared? 1st Class Calvin T. Rockward, 38, died during physical training Oct. 27, 2021. . Fernandes's family told me they have never been interviewed. A soft October wind carried the first chill of the season. Echovita Inc is a registered trademark. The back-to-back deaths come just four months after two congressional committees launched probes into the high number of deaths at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, in 2020, highlighted by the . He also wanted an education, and joining the Army he knew he could take care of all of that, his sister Carma Johnson says. Driving into Killeen last fall, what greeted me was a deer, roadkill, that had been severed in half. (Facebook) Two weeks later, Delacruz . March 1, 2023 (94 years old) View obituary. 20, 2021 FORT HOOD, Texas The death of Spc. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. 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. He got home around 2 p.m. and told his wife, Gloria, about the unusual aches. She pleaded not guilty. As distressing as the remains in shallow graves or the missing hyoid bone is the fatalism from soldiers and locals alike. Vanessa Guillen. 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 Killeen's seedy main corridor called Rancier, the same street where Specialist Freddy Delacruz, 23, was shot and killed last March. Texas Death Records Indexes, Obituaries and Cemetery Burials by County. 6 min read. Specialist Vanessa Guillens father, Rogelio, wondered if I shouldnt carry a gun. Five were murdered. Fort Hood might not even stand out were it not for a particularly bad year among many. Eleven of the deaths remain unresolvedsome legally; others for the victims families. 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. SHARE. In death, Guillen has become a kind of patron saint for all those who feel wronged by the U.S. military. 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. 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. 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 Schuettes own blood, and Schuette was found with nine stab wounds across his body, including his forearm and his left hand.

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