With 'Partial Human Remains' Found in Texas, Family of Missing Soldier Vanessa Guillen Say They Believe She Is Dead

https://time.com/5862245/missing-fort-hood-soldier-vanessa-guillen-remains-found/

 Guillen’s family allege that the 20-year-old was sexually assaulted before her disappearance, and said Wednesday that a man they believed to be the perpetrator of that assault had recently killed himself. Fort Hood officials announced separately on Wednesday that one military suspect is dead after killing himself in Killeen, Texas; authorities said that as law enforcement agents, not including the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command Special Agents, tried to “make contact with the suspect, the suspect reportedly displayed a weapon and took his own life.” The deceased man’s name has not been released.

Natalie Khawam, the family’s lawyer, said they believe that the man had sexually harassed Guillen by walking in on and watching her while she was taking a shower in a locker room.

“How can this happen on a military base?” Lupe Guillen, Vanessa Guillen’s sister, said through tears.”They didn’t keep my sister safe.”

Khawam explained that Guillen did not report the sexual harassment to an internal agency because she indicated that “she was afraid to because the sexual harassment was coming from her superiors” and she worried about potential retaliation. “She wanted to have a career in the military and she didn’t want [this] to ruin her career,” Khawam said. (Guillen did, however, disclose the incident to her sisters, her mother, her friends and other soldiers on the military base, she said.)

What Vanessa experienced “was not an isolated incident,” Khawam says. “They are brave soldiers protecting us, and especially now, we need legislation.”

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who is an Iraq war veteran, also spoke at Wednesday’s event, saying that Congress has pushed the Department of Defense to adopt necessary for reforms for years, and while “some changes have been made,” they “have not gone nearly far enough.”

“What is happening here today is evidence of that,” Gabbard said.