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hey everybody welcome back to our podcast this is murder with my husband i'm peyton moreland and i'm garrett and he's the husband i'm the husband okay first of all it has been forever since we've recorded it feels like i was gonna say it might not feel weird to you guys but it feels weird to us just because we haven't recorded in about two and a half weeks i think just two yeah two weeks well i guess it's not that long but it feels like a long time but it does feel good to be back
It really does. I was getting very anxious. I'm so actually excited to be sitting down here and recording again. Okay. Speaking of which, we do have a couple things we need to talk about. A couple announcements real quick. We talked about it last week, but I did just want to remind everyone about our online live episode that is happening at the end of July. We did one a couple months back. It was probably like
Five months or six months ago, right? It probably was. You're probably right. Anyways, we just sit down. We record an episode live. You guys can tune in online. So kind of virtual. There's a live comment feed so we can talk to you guys while we're doing the episode. It's really fun. Like last time we got to talk to everyone.
And I'm so excited to be doing another one. You can buy tickets now. There's going to be a link wherever you're listening or watching. And if you can't watch on the actual date, then actually it's going to be available for replay for five days after. And it's a live. We do it once. So we're not going to be posting it anywhere else. It's just going to be for that episode. And we're super excited. They're really fun.
And then just another quick reminder that we have staple merch available right now. These are pieces that we are going to keep around for a while, but then we also have our exclusive drops coming up, um, that we put a lot of energy into designing and I'm really excited for the summer one we have coming up. I think you guys are really going to love the designs we chose for our next exclusive drop. So stick around for that. But if you need some, now these are available.
at the link in all of our social media bios, and also it's attached to the episode notes. And the last reminder is we are what we did. We started a newsletter. The first one that we sent out had some glitches, but that's okay. We are still learning and we're getting better. But if you're interested, please sign up. There's going to be links everywhere. And we're going to be writing just some true crime updates and some updates just on murder with my husband in general. And we're going to be sending it out once a week.
It'll definitely be a good place to go if you are looking for case updates that we've covered in the past that now have new information. If you are just wanting to check into Garrett's 10 Seconds and see a little bit more about what he's... Well, I guess both of us are doing. And then also we will be kind of covering what's happening right now in true crime news over on our newsletter. So yeah, you can just sign up for it. It comes out once a week. It's totally free. So yeah, check it out. All right, Garrett, what is your 10 seconds? So...
Wow, this is great. I feel like I have a lot of things to talk about, but I do not want to take too much time. So a couple of things. We were in Europe. That was super fun. I won't talk too much about that, but Peyton and I had a good time. I mean, everyone was commenting that they wanted you to talk about. We went to Greece, Rome, Venice, and Scotland, and they were all amazing in their own ways.
Um, we had a lot of fun. We kind of just did a bunch of the touristy stuff, obviously wandered around. The water in Greece was amazing. It felt so good. Um, we got tan. Well, I don't know. My tan goes away pretty quickly. So, uh, Rome was super, Rome was so hot. It was, it was like a hundred plus degrees and it was super hot, but it was still super fun. And then Venice, I liked Venice a lot. It was just crazy to see how everything's just built.
Around water. Around water. I don't know how to explain it. It was. You hear about it, right? But then it doesn't even really sink in until you're there. So Venice was great. Scotland was beautiful though as well. We had a great time in Scotland. I think it felt good because we came from like Italy, which was a hundred degrees. We went to Scotland, which was 60. So mentally as well, we were like, oh, this feels so good. Yeah. But Scotland was really pretty. Got poured on. It was so fun. We got poured on. We had a great time. Toured some castle.
It was, we were there for about seven days. Yeah. So we weren't gone, I would say, for a super long time. But it was a great trip. We had a really good time. Yeah. And the last thing before we get into the story is the HOA did fine us again. I would just like to say that. I know. We thought we would be slick, leave them out for two days. They would get put in after two days. Nope. No, they, I'm pretty sure they're just watching. They have a drone just hovering our house and watching us.
but you know is what it is good old hoa i don't know i saw your guys's comments last time so if you have any other suggestions you know go ahead and leave them listen here's the thing we are leaving our trash cans at the side of our house which we're not supposed to do so we are breaking the rule but you know i don't care i don't even care i don't even know what else to say
I think we made him mad. If anyone from the HOA is listening, you are welcome on this podcast at any time. There probably won't be a seat for you, but you are welcome right in between us. You can stand the whole hour. You can stand the entire time. You can explain. Next to my trash can. You can stand next to my trash can.
Last thing. I know I said last thing last time, but last thing is the food. And I thought the food everywhere was really good. The food in Greece just felt super clean and healthy. And then the gelato in Venice, Payton loved. It was so good. And the fish and chips in Scotland. I love fish and chips. So I'm probably not hard to please with fish and chips, but...
They were good. Okay, let's just get into this. A reminder that our case sources are always linked in the episode notes, but the case sources this week are New York Times, abcnews.go.com, ABC 13, The Washington Post, usatoday.com, kwtx.com, armytimes.com, kbtx.com, abc7chicago.com, kcntv.com, kdhnews.com, crimeonline.com, heavy.com, military.com, and conandaily.com.
All right, so our case this week begins on September 30th, 1999 in Houston, Texas. Vanessa Guillen was born this day to her loving parents who were originally from Mexico but started their family in Texas. Vanessa was raised in Houston with her five siblings. She was always known as a smart and athletic girl participating in track, cross-country, and soccer. She was also a member of the
She attended Hartman Middle School, and then she graduated high school in 2018 in the top 15% of her class. Vanessa had dreamed of serving in the military from when she was a young girl, so much so that growing up, one of her favorite toys was playing with her brother's toy gun and pretending she was in the military. So after high school at the age of 18, Vanessa fulfilled her dream by enlisting in the Army. She was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas.
Her job was as a small arms repair soldier. Fort Hood Army Base is located in Central Texas and is 60 miles north of Austin and 50 miles south of Waco, Texas.
Fort Hood is enormous. In fact, according to Military.com, it is the largest and most populated U.S. military installation in the world. Wow. Shout out to anyone who's there. Right. Founded in 1942 as Camp Hood, Fort Hood covers 340 square miles or 214,968 acres. And it became Fort Hood, a permanent army installation in 1951.
Nearly 40,000 soldiers work at Fort Hood. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the population of Fort Hood is 36,257 active duty military. Wow. And then there's 416,358 retirees, survivors, and family members. And then 10,000 civilians and contractors. So it's like, I mean, it's big. It's big.
An interesting fact about Fort Hood is actually that there has been a huge push to get it renamed in recent years because it was originally named after Confederate General John Bell Hood. So the name has now been used kind of as a political tool in local elections. So if you've heard of it, that's probably why. Okay, so back to Vanessa, who's just joined. Sheik
quickly fell into military life, but still actually made the three-hour one-way drive home every weekend to see her family. She's only 18 at this point. That's kind of like you.
That's true. I did leave at 18 and then would drive home. And during these home visits, Vanessa ended up telling her family that although she loved serving, the military life at Fort Hood was not going as she had expected. In fact, she told her family that she was being sexually harassed by a superior at Fort Hood. Okay.
Devastated, she explained that the reason she hadn't reported yet was because other women had actually filed complaints against this same sergeant, but that these complaints had been dismissed.
No one believed them, and if they did, they didn't really care. But she was defeated. She was telling her family members how hard it was. Vanessa's mother encouraged her to report the harassment anyways, but Vanessa said she was afraid of the consequences that might come if she did. It wasn't a fair fight, and reporting through the correct channels historically wouldn't work. She left the conversation by telling her family that she would just handle the issue herself and
but it didn't take away from the traumatic experience and the hurt that she was feeling. By March 2020, a man named Juan Cruz, who Vanessa had been dating, actually proposed to her and she said yes. Was he also in the military? No. Okay. The couple had met at a quinceanera, but the date of exactly when kind of seems to be unclear across all sources, but that's where they met and they fell in love. And one thing that stood out about the couple was how...
playful Vanessa and her fiance were, and that they would always do this thing where she would carry him on her shoulders because she was that strong. She even asked him to allow her to carry him around during COVID when all of the gyms were closed so that she could use his weight to give her a good workout while doing her squats. Can you carry me?
Definitely not. In fact, the only reason I'm even noting this is so everyone can understand how physical and fit Vanessa was. That she had training. She was strong. Yeah.
Yet you're listening to this podcast so you know bad things still happen. On April 19th, Juan, Vanessa's fiance, saw her for the last time. Vanessa slept at his home but had to get up at around 5 a.m. the next day to head back to Fort Hood. He remembers her giving him a kiss before leaving and then he never saw her again.
Vanessa then made her way back to Fort Hood and began working. Two more days would pass of normal life, Vanessa going about her normal duties. Then on April 22nd, 2020, Vanessa Guillen was seen alive for the last time around noon. The day started as any other. Vanessa had told her friend from Fort Hood named Tay Hightower that she was working a half day and could go hiking with him in the later half of the day.
So basically she tells him, yeah, let's go hiking. I'm only working a half day today so we can go after work. Vanessa texted Tay that morning and actually sent him a screenshot of the weather app that showed it was supposed to rain that day. So they were kind of going to need to watch the weather before hiking. He would never hear from her again after that.
Around 6 p.m. that day, after several unanswered texts and calls from a no-show Vanessa, Tay Hightower, her friend, decided to start looking for her. He made his way to her barracks, but she wasn't there. He was walking around base. He asked Vanessa's roommate if they had seen her at all that morning, and they claimed they hadn't. He went back out to the parking lot, and that's when he made the devastating discovery that Vanessa's Jeep was parked in the parking lot. Wow, okay. Tay
began to worry. It was not like Vanessa to just not show up to pre-planned events, to not even send a text or answer any calls, and now she's nowhere to be found, yet her car is still in the parking lot.
He decides to get a hold of Ryan CJ Landy, who's another friend and fellow soldier of Vanessa's. Tay tells CJ that he thinks Vanessa is missing. So CJ and Tay then take CJ's car out and about to begin searching the entire base, which like I said, was a huge job because this base is basically a city in and of itself.
They went to the track where Vanessa liked to run, but she wasn't there. They checked at the motor pool, which was the building that Vanessa worked in to make sure she hadn't accidentally got locked in. But there was no one there either. While friends CJ and Tay were out searching for a missing Vanessa, her family back home was also simultaneously growing concerned.
Vanessa talked to and texted them every day and they hadn't heard from her. And so at this point, have they reported it to the police or anyone? I guess would it be the military police? Yeah, no, they haven't reported it yet. Okay. I mean, because technically Tay got a text from her that morning, but they don't know where she's been since. So it's been long, but not that long enough. Yes.
So Vanessa's family also noted that Vanessa hadn't posted on social media for hours, which again was very unlike her. So they kept calling and doing what they could from afar, but it was no use. Do you know what social media platforms she was posting on? I don't, but like I said, it is 2020. So I'm going to assume Snapchat, Instagram, just your usuals around 10 PM that night.
Tay Hightower had talked to everyone around Fort Hood and had somewhat pieced together Vanessa's day since he had last got the text from her, the weather screenshot. And that was how he and CJ discovered that every sign pointed to the fact that Vanessa Gee and their friend was most likely last seen with another soldier named Specialist Aaron Robinson. Yep.
Okay. So CJ discovered that Vanessa was reportedly last physically seen at Fort hood in the parking lot of her squadrons headquarters. There's gotta be, I know I say this all the time, but there's gotta be cameras everywhere. And I'm sure you're going to talk about it, but I have no doubt in my mind. There has to be cameras. I,
I am assuming there's no cameras in the buildings, like inside the buildings, maybe in parking lots and whatnot. - Oh, maybe because of like security because you're in a- - Military base. And because they were never brought up in the case. Like there was no footage ever brought up. - Well, if anyone knows anything about cameras over there- - Maybe why they wouldn't have had any inside. - Let us know. - I mean, I do know that the stuff she was working in probably was pretty confidential. - Yeah. - I'm gonna assume.
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Which is why I'm saying it was probably pretty top secret and confidential. And,
and she was not seen after that. And they figure out that the last time she was seen was she was heading over to this building. So who is specialist Robinson? Specialist Aaron Robinson is a soldier from Illinois. He joined the army in October, 2017 as a combat engineer. And according to Conan daily.com Robinson served in Iraq for several months in 2018.
Robinson was then stationed at Fort Hood. He worked in the building that was adjacent to the building where Vanessa worked. He was a specialist, which would be one level above Vanessa in seniority. And his building is the last place Vanessa was seen alive. And he was, I assume, the same superior that was sexually harassing her, correct? No one knows at this point. Okay, got it.
According to ABC News, the witness who last saw Vanessa that morning was Army Major General Donna Martin, who was later interviewed by 2020. According to her, Vanessa had reported to work that morning and then went missing. Her workstation was at a place called the Motor Pool. Vanessa later went to the arms room where she left various important personal items there, including her bank card, her ID, her car keys, and the keys to her barracks.
before she went to a different arms room, the one controlled by Robinson. The reason they don't think she made it back, all of her stuff was still there. The room where Vanessa worked was right next to the building where Robinson worked, like I said.
So essentially, if it's not clear, Vanessa was last seen leaving her building to go to Aaron Robinson's building and then she was never seen again. And all of this was pieced together by her friends, CJ and Tay, the same day she went missing. Around 10 p.m. that night, after figuring all of this out and Vanessa still missing, Tay found specialist Aaron Robinson's number. So he gets through the grapevine and he finds his number. And he calls him to ask about Vanessa since the trail basically ended with him.
According to Tay, Aaron Robinson answered and acted like he had just woke up. Like he was sleepy and he couldn't think very straight. He even got upset with Tay for the call and said, everyone keeps blowing up my phone and it's annoying. Even though a soldier is missing. A fellow soldier is missing. Leave me alone. I don't really care. Right. So Robinson told Tay that he saw Vanessa that day, but they didn't even talk. Like he said nothing to her. He's like, I saw her. We were just working. She got the stuff. She left. So
So also around this time, Cruz, Vanessa's fiance, and Myra Guillen, who is Vanessa's sister, decided to drive together all the way to Fort Hood to look for Vanessa themselves. So her family back home has no idea what's going on, but they too haven't heard from her. So they're like, that's it. We're getting in the car and we're driving to the base and we're going to find her.
Still nothing about getting the police involved at this point? Nothing yet. Okay. So they didn't arrive until after midnight on what was now April 23rd, 2020. When they arrived and asked to speak to people in charge, a staff sergeant told them to come back in the morning.
So her family arrives. They're like, hey, we haven't heard from her. We just got here. She's not at her barracks. Like, we don't know where she is. And they're like, oh, just come back in the morning. We'll see what we can do. On the morning of April 23rd, at the urgency of Vanessa's friends and family, her military unit reports are missing.
Fort Hood notifies the military police, who then call the local police, who then in turn bring in the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Command. Oh, dang. I feel like that's a big deal, right? Or no? It is. It is. But I mean, a soldier went missing on her own base. Yeah, so obviously. So it's a disappearance that they're like, this is weird. Vanessa Guillen is officially a missing 20-year-old soldier who seemingly vanished on the Fort Hood Army base.
April 23rd, CJ, her friend, notices military police presence at Fort Hood, and he's not the only one. News spreads about Vanessa's disappearance, and with that comes rumors about what might have happened. Wild rumors that did not help the case at all. Cruz, her fiance, begins driving around and posting missing person posters all on the outskirts of Fort Hood, but he's not allowed to do any of that on the actual base just because of laws.
It didn't take long for investigators to also notice that the trail ended with Specialist Aaron Robinson. And so they too questioned him about his and Vanessa's interaction that day. When questioned, Specialist Robinson told authorities that Vanessa did come over to his building, like everyone had said, and he gave Vanessa the serial numbers and the paperwork that she requested. And that was the last that he...
He saw her and he thinks that after that she left and he believes she then went back to the motor pool where she works. Police discover that at 10:23 AM, the day she went missing as part of her job, Vanessa sent a text message with the serial number of a gun
And I'm not sure if this was her last text, but according to usatoday.com, her last text ever sent that day was to Robinson. So it would make sense that this serial number was to him and that this was the last text she ever sent.
After this, it was widespread that Robinson might have been the last person to see her. And so ABC News reported a superior asked him in front of everybody about his last interaction with Vanessa. And Robinson was like, oh, I kept it professional. Didn't say much to her at all. So in front of everyone, his superior confronts him in front of all of his fellow and says, why are police investigating you? Where did she go after you saw her? And he's like, it was I.
She just came in. I kept it professional. And then she left. But this stands out to CJ because if you remember the night before, Robinson had told him that he didn't say anything to her at all. Oh, that's right. But now he's telling his superior, no, we did talk. But it was very professional. It was just work-based conversation.
By the next day, April 24th, Vanessa was still missing and nothing more had really been discovered since CJ and Tay's initial investigation. Like all police found was the same thing they found. Robinson was still the last to have seen her and then boom, she's gone.
There was a common complaint about Robinson's attitude during the time that Vanessa was missing. Everyone was saying that he was rude, he was uncooperative, and he seemed as if her disappearance and his involvement was an inconvenience to him. Robinson also at some point reportedly laughed in the face of one of Vanessa's sisters when she was asking him again about the last time he saw her. So she's just trying to get more answers. Like, please, did you see anything? And he was so annoyed with her that he laughed in her face. 100% guilty. There's...
I'm just saying there's no way he's not guilty. So actually many fellow soldiers became frustrated at this point with the investigation because they believed that Robinson's attitude and his nonchalant answers proved that he had something to do with this. Yet it was taking over the news and taking over the base. Like all work was stopped until they could find Vanessa. And they're like,
Come on, you guys. It's him. It's him. It's right in front of us. 100%. A news release was sent out by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command asking for help in finding the missing soldier, Vanessa Guillen. Thousands of soldiers participated in the search on the base. That's so awesome. They searched Fort Hood, which, as noted, is a very large area. They searched the barracks, various buildings at the installations, along with lakes, trails, fields, and training grounds.
The army officially listed Vanessa Guillen as AWOL. Now, according to ABC7 Chicago. Isn't that a negative connotation? Like AWOL means you've like taken off because you don't want to like be part of the military anymore. I have no idea. So the actual definition is just abstinent without leave.
So basically leaving without permission from their superior. Correct. That's what I understand. Which does feel like it holds a negative connotation. Yeah. That's why I asked. And I could be wrong, but I'm, I'm pretty sure that's what it means. Okay. Well, she's officially listed as that because she's missing. Okay. According to ABC seven, Chicago.com, there was not a missing soldier protocol in place at this time, because you have to think about how strange this is. Shouldn't Vanessa basically be in the safest place? Yeah.
Like it's not like the enemies broke in and targeted her. This isn't battlefield we are talking about. The only suspects are really those around her, but that would mean other army members. So this is kind of baffling.
On the same day, police actually interviewed Robinson again, and he explained to them that after Vanessa left his arms room, he left work and spent the night off base with his girlfriend, a woman named Cecily Aguilar. Now, investigators got in contact with Aguilar, who confirmed Robinson's story, but this is when things turned a little messy.
Cecily Ann Aguilar was born in Michigan in 1998 and in 2018 she was married to a man named Keon Aguilar.
Keon was a soldier at the time and had been stationed at Fort Hood. According to ConanDaily.com, Robinson moved in with Keon and Cecily in December 2019. At some point while living with the couple, Robinson and Cecily would begin an affair behind Keon's back.
In February of 2020, Kian and Cecily would separate, although still legally married, and Robinson and Cecily would move in together, still dating, obviously. And isn't that illegal? I mean...
in the matter of that they're on this military base. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure it's fraternization, which basically means you're having a relationship with someone that you're not supposed to be with. And this could be grounds for like discharge. Yeah. In the military. I do know that it's like a punishable. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So yeah, he's, he's basically started a relationship with a fellow soldier's wife.
And now they've moved in together, even though those two are not legally divorced. Two months later, Vanessa would be last seen heading to Robinson's building. And then he would leave work, go off base and sleep the night at Cecily's home. And she backed this story up.
As this is all happening on base, according to usatoday.com, a group of law enforcement agencies, including the Belton Police Department, the Belton Fire Department, and Texas Department of Public Safety, search an area along the Leon River based on where Vanessa's cell phone had pinged.
So at this point, they've got her cell phone records and they've discovered where her cell phone last pinged. And it was off base, roughly 20 to 25 miles away. They found nothing. But cell phone records show Vanessa's cell phone was in this area the day she went missing.
I want to make a note here that the investigation was kind of hampered in the beginning due to conflicting information provided by various witnesses, including Robinson himself, who I feel was trying to throw suspicion off of him. So I've outlined the story in a very factual way, but there was other incorrect things being thrown around in the midst of everything I've been telling you. But like I said, they were incorrect, so I really haven't included them. But just understand if you feel like it's kind of moving slow, that's why.
Someone mistakenly reported Vanessa as being present at 4 p.m. that day. So after she left his building. Also, some witnesses said they saw Vanessa leave the arms room where Robinson was and then go back to the motor pool area where she worked. All of this turned out to be not accurate. But because of this, Robinson wasn't looked into very heavily at first because police were kind of working under the assumption that maybe she had left his workplace. And
And then further complicating the investigation was COVID restrictions. We are in the middle of COVID at this point, like right at the beginning, right when everything was heating up. So people weren't out and about as much as they ordinarily would be. And so it was more difficult to even find eyewitnesses. All of this was kind of happening.
On April 26th, a Facebook page called hashtag find Vanessa Guillen was created, listing Vanessa as a missing person, including photos and information about her. The Facebook page read, how did she disappear on base? She did not just vanish. Vanessa needs to be found. She is serving her country. She is supposed to be safe while doing this. Not to go backwards for a second, but did he not get in trouble for this affair?
No one knows about it yet. Got it. It's a secret. Okay. Okay. You know about it as a listener, but in the storyline, no one knows about it. And I will say this was actually probably around the time when this Facebook page was created was around the time when I started seeing Instagram stories going around for people to keep their eye out for her and that she was missing. Yeah. The next day, the army offers a $15,000 reward for information leading to the whereabouts of Vanessa. Okay.
We don't really hear any more updates on the case until May 15th, when according to usatoday.com, Myra Guillen, Vanessa's older sister who lives in Houston, says she and her family have yet to receive any information regarding the disappearance.
Myra says because she and her family are not allowed on base to help search, all they can do is hand out flyers in the surrounding community and wait for answers, but no one's talking to them. At this point, protests will erupt over the Army's callous treatment of Vanessa's family, that they're not including them.
which will help open eyes to the toxic culture towards like women in general. And we will see this whole in the army and we will see Vanessa's case kind of shift into this kind of protesting for women.
Finally, on May 18th, 2020, there was a break in the case that focused most attention in the investigation back onto Robinson. Authorities interviewed two witnesses who report that they saw Robinson pulling a large, tough box with wheels that appeared very heavy in weight out of the arms room, the same room where he worked the day Vanessa went missing.
Based on this eyewitness information, authorities ask Robinson for permission to search his cell phone. Robinson consents to the search, which basically obtaining consent means authorities don't have to get a search warrant. Law enforcement wants to find out if Robinson had some type of relationship with Vanessa and thought the cell phone records would help figure, you know, would help them figure this out. I will say here, there was no relationship between Vanessa and Robinson. Okay.
Robinson's cell phone history log showed that he and Cecily, his girlfriend, who was still technically married to another past soldier at the time, had called each other an unusual amount of times on April 22nd and 23rd, the days that Vanessa went missing. The calls had gone into the morning as late as 3.30 a.m.
It'd be so weird if she was involved as well. It wouldn't make any sense why. Right. Why? It's not like it's the love triangle. Okay, let me guess. Your medicine cabinet is crammed with stuff that does not work. You still aren't sleeping. You still hurt and you're stressed out.
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She said again, she was with Robinson all night on April 22nd. According to the criminal complaint, she was asked why Robinson would call her after midnight if he was sleeping at her residence with her. She stated that, oh, she just could not find her phone. And so she had Robinson call her phone to help her find it.
Fair enough. Me and you do that all the time. Like we'll be together. I lose my phone. You call it. Except this statement is inconsistent with the lengths of the phone calls in the middle of the night. Oh, because they're like minutes long. Right. Robinson called Cecily several times throughout the night and the calls after midnight were for lengths greater than one minute. Okay. Which if you're making a phone call to find a phone, you're not just going to sit there. Right. Right.
Cecily was then interviewed by authorities again after this. The criminal complaint doesn't make clear whether this interview was also on May 19th, so I'm not sure when she provided this next statement. However, during this re-interview, she admits to lying in her previous statement. She now says that she and Robinson did leave her house, but that it was just so they could take a long drive and look at the stars. As soon as you start lying, it's over. It's over.
The second you change your story. You just look so suspicious and the police are like, all right, something's going on here. And they knew. They knew it wasn't adding up. So they kept bringing her in in hopes that eventually she would feel pressure enough to change. And she did. Oh, yeah. She's for sure going to rat him out. So she now. I say rat, but I mean, she should. Yeah. I don't mean it in a negative connotation. Or confess. Yeah. Yeah.
While interviewing Cecily about the night Vanessa went missing, police were still going over the rest of Robinson's cell phone records. And that's when they discovered something crazy. Robinson's cell phone pinged near a bridge in Belton, Texas, off base and away from Cecily's home around 2 a.m. on April 23rd. His phone then moved north along the Leon River and remained in that area for two hours.
hours in the middle of the night. Remember who else's phone last pinged near the Leon River? That's so crazy. This puts both Robinson's and Vanessa's phones in the same area in the middle of the night after she went missing. Now, I don't know what police were still working on at this point. It's possible navigating with, you know, through the military police could be difficult, but either way, neither Robinson or Cecily are arrested at this point.
I personally think that police just wanted to find remains before arresting, which makes sense from a closing a case point of view. Like it's really hard to close a case without a body. I guess I'm trying to think too.
When they found her pings, wouldn't they have gone and tried to find his pings right away? And when they saw them close together, like, hey, something's going on here. Like, why did it take an extra month or two weeks, whatever it was? So they would have needed a warrant. Okay. They didn't have enough to get a warrant. They eventually asked and he eventually said yes. So that, I mean, they're working around all of these laws. Surprised he said yes. Right. Right.
But I mean, I guess if you say no, right, it makes you look guilty. They'll find a way to get a warrant anyways. So at some point in early June, Vanessa's mother, Gloria, went to the news media again, this time to say that her daughter had told her that she was the victim of sexual harassment, but that Vanessa never reported it because she was afraid of negative consequences in the form of retaliation. So up until this point, Vanessa's family has kept this to themselves.
But then when they felt like police still weren't informing them, the military still wasn't involving them in her, their daughter's investigation, they decided to come forward with this information to the media. These allegations to the news media during the press conference triggered the case of Vanessa's disappearance to receive national news coverage. Women in the military being sexually harassed and unable to report or be taken seriously is headlining news. And it had happened before. Glow,
Gloria also told reporters that she felt she and her family were not receiving adequate information from the army about Vanessa's disappearance. Everything was being kept hush hush. Everything I'm telling you now was not being openly communicated during the investigation. They had been told nothing.
On June 12th, 2020, hundreds of people gathered at the entrance to Fort Hood to protest the Army's handling of Vanessa's disappearance and just the situation in general. So this really took on a life of its own. A week later, according to USA.com, law enforcement finds skeletal remains in a field in Texas while searching for Vanessa.
However, these remains belong to a different soldier, Private Gregory Morales, who went missing in August 2019. Investigators say they don't believe the two cases are related. Oh, they've got, I mean, I don't know. Well, so this brings me to the phenomenon of other missing persons being found while searching for a highly prioritized missing persons case. And this will always devastate you. Yeah, like what happened...
Yeah. What happened to him? What's going on here? Right. And I think it, I actually think it was around 10 bodies that were found while the nationwide search for Gabby Petito took place. Yeah. I remember that. How are there that many unfound missing people and how can we finally get enough resources to search for one person and 10 people be found? Yeah. How is that even possible? It's pretty crazy. It's heartbreaking and it's devastating. Yeah.
On June 21st, based on the results from Robinson's cell phone location pings, authorities from various law enforcement agencies searched the site in Belton, Texas, near the Leon River. Remember, they've already searched this once and found nothing. According to the criminal complaint,
A burn site with disturbed earth was identified. What appeared to be the burned remains of a plastic tote or a tough box were found nearby in an area where Robinson's phone pinged. The soil beneath the burn site had an odor of decomposition. However, no remains were found.
The pile went three feet deep into the ground. Authorities brought in a cadaver dog, which according to ABC News, signaled that a body might have been thrown from there into the water and then the box was burned. Got it. So at this point, Vanessa had already been missing for two months and they just found...
basically a burn site near where his cell phone pinged the man she was last seen with but still nobody yeah finally on june 30th 2020 authorities find some answers at about 1 p.m partial human remains are found by some construction workers who were working on a fence next to the leon river so it wasn't even found by police
They had noticed a horrible smell in the location. According to the criminal complaint, authorities searched the area and identified scattered human remains that appeared to have been placed in a concrete-like substance and buried.
Most of the remains were still buried, but some hair was visible sticking up out of the ground. Although investigators couldn't definitively confirm that day that the remains were Vanessa's, they and Vanessa's family were sure, particularly because the hair matched Vanessa's hair. And who else is going to be found right in the area where his cell phone was pinging?
But Vanessa's fiance, Juan Cruz, would find out via Twitter that her remains had been found. That's horrible. Horrible. Authorities believe that wildlife had likely partially dug up the remains, which had been buried under concrete, which was how they were even found in the first place.
According to a quote in the U.S. Sun, Tim Miller said, it appeared he buried her, put lime on her, mixed up concrete, poured that over her, then put dirt over her and then rocks and some more stuff. How does he do all this without anyone noticing? Well, he's in like wild terrain. I mean, he's near a river. There's trees around. So it's not like he's just, you know, in the city. But also, I mean, this is loud stuff we're talking about. Like, yeah, and long period of time.
Yeah, it's kind of mind blowing. Right. So sadly, due to the manner of death, Vanessa's teeth had been too badly damaged to confirm that it was her. So they ended up having to confirm identification through hair strands. It appeared that she had been beaten to death with a hammer. Oh, so she wasn't even shot or anything. No. He beat her to death. Right. And I mean, I don't need to go into detail, but I just said that her teeth were so badly damaged. So it's awful. Yeah.
Based on this discovery, authorities interview Cecily yet again. She initially lies to authorities. No, no, I stick to my story. But then she finally confesses to her involvement in helping Robinson dispose of Vanessa's body. So she not only says Robinson did it, she says I helped him hide the body. She admits that Robinson picked her up either late on April 22nd or early in the morning on April 23rd at the gas station where she worked.
Robinson told her that he had killed a female soldier earlier that day by hitting her in the head multiple times with a hammer. He said he did it in the arms room on Fort Hood property. Oh, so he did it in the room. He killed her on the Fort Hood base in the arms room.
Like where he works. That's so crazy. He told Cecily that he then placed the female soldier's body into a big box. And after picking her up at the gas station, Robinson then drove Cecily to a spot near a bridge by the Leon River. According to the criminal complaint, Cecily saw that a box with wheels and handles was already at this site. So messed up all of this. Right. Robinson walked Cecily over to the woods and opened up a box with
um and then that's when she saw a dead female inside of the box and at a later date she would identify this dead female as vanessa guillen's body cecily told authorities that she and robinson then dismembered vanessa's body they used various weapons to do this horrible deed including a hatchet or an axe and a machete how could she do that right like i get he killed her but then how could she go and help do this i don't know
She said that they tried to burn the body, but they were unable to burn it successfully. Cecily told investigators that they placed the body in three separate holes and covered up the remains. Cecily confessed that Robinson and her then got themselves hairnets, gloves, and concrete and went back to do a better job of burying the body.
Based on Cecily's confession and the cell phone location records, authorities believe that on April 26, in the midst of the investigation, Robinson and Cecily had returned to the site along the river where they had buried Vanessa's remains. They dug her up, tried to burn the remains again, along with the hairnets and gloves, and rebury the remains, this time in the concrete.
They then burned the clothes they were wearing that night back at their home. Cecily admitted to authorities that she had lied when she previously said all they had done was go out and take a long drive to look at the stars on the night of April 22nd to the morning of April 23rd. She agreed at this point to cooperate with investigators completely abandoning Robinson. So this is insane and it's not even over.
it's not even over because while all of this is happening, Robinson was being kept in confinement at a conference room in his barracks at Fort hood. So he's still on base.
Robinson wasn't told that he was being held as a suspect in Vanessa's murder. Instead, authorities told him he was being held for violating COVID protocols. Soldiers were given the job of keeping watch over him to make sure he didn't escape. So his own friends were put in charge of watching him in this room. Robinson was allowed to talk on the phone during this confinement with Cecily, who by now had been arrested and was cooperating with authorities, but Robinson didn't know this.
These calls were being monitored and recorded by investigators. During these calls between the two, Robinson didn't deny what they had done. He then texted Cecily photos of the news articles. Yeah, he still had his phone. Texted Cecily photos of the news articles that laid out how human remains had been found. He said to her in a later call monitored by law enforcement, baby, they found pieces. They found pieces. Oh my God. He's referring to pieces of Vanessa's body. Yeah.
That same day on June 30th at around 10 p.m., Robinson was on the phone with his mother and was heard saying, don't believe what you hear about me. After this phone call, Robinson escaped. He...
What do you mean he escaped? He ran away from the fort, ran away from his fellow soldiers and escaped. There's no way someone let him go. There's no way he just, oh, just got out of there while everyone's watching him. Well, now that he had heard that Vanessa's remains had been found, he was desperate to get away. Someone guarding Robinson chased after him, but Robinson made it to his car and drove away off base. Oh, someone turned around or just like...
Close their eyes. I'm not going to blame someone else, but there's, I am going to blame someone else. I don't know. You don't think he could escape? Yeah. I just feel like he couldn't have. I guess people do escape prison though. All the time. Well, not all the time, but it happens. It is possible. Again, this story is still not over because a little over two hours later after midnight, now on July 1st, 2020, Robinson was found in the middle of a street by law enforcement who'd been out searching for him.
He was found walking about 10 miles from Fort Hood. When Robinson was confronted by law enforcement in the street, he pulled out a pistol and took his own life in front of them. Oh my gosh. Robinson was pronounced dead at the scene at 1.17 a.m. How'd he get a gun? And
And why did it take two hours to find him only 10 miles away from the base? A criminal investigation by the army would look into it. So after this happens, the army launches a criminal investigation into basically the police themselves about how this could even have happened.
On July 2nd, a criminal complaint is filed by the FBI against Cecily. While murder cases are typically state, not federal cases, her tampering with evidence is a federal criminal case because the underlying murder would be a federal since Vanessa's murder took place
on federal property, a military base. A week later, according to USA.com, Vanessa's family attorney announced the proposal of a bill named I Am Vanessa Guillen, which if passed would help protect military victims of sexual harassment and assault. According to a New York Times article dated April 30th, for months,
activists, politicians, and Vanessa's family called for an investigation into Fort Hood, the nation's third largest army base. On July 10th, 2020, the secretary of the army ordered an investigation into Fort Hood's command culture after a year of violent deaths, suicides, and complaints of sexual harassment on the military base. So Vanessa was not the first. And when Vanessa's family finally called attention to it,
And the army conducted a investigation. They discovered that really, really bad stuff had been happening at Fort hood. As a result of the report on the investigations finding that was released on December 8th, 2020 army officials at Fort hood were either fired or suspended, including several high ranking leaders.
The investigation found major flaws at Fort Hood and a command climate that was permissive of sexual harassment and sexual assault. During a press conference, Vanessa's family's attorney said that the murder shocked our conscience and brought attention to deeper problems, both at Fort Hood and within the U.S. Army as a whole. On July 30th, 2020, the Guillen family met with the president of the United States to further change how women are treated in the U.S. Army. Wow.
The case currently doesn't have a trial date for Cecily. She hasn't been tried yet. For
Four previous trial dates have been set and continued, which means canceled or postponed, based on a variety of motions that have been filed. According to kdhnews.com, 122 court filings have been made, and there have been many hearings, including a detention hearing, a preliminary hearing, and hearings on all motions that have been filed, but Cecily has not been tried and has been in custody since the time of her arrest. So that's the case.
That is what happened. Yeah. Except we're missing one thing. Why? Why did this happen? There was no love triangle. I mean, I can assume why.
Why do you think? He was sexually harassing her and she didn't want to sleep with him. I mean, that seems like the obvious. It does seem like the obvious answer. You're wrong. Okay. What is it? So just last month, the Texas Department of Public Safety released a 60 plus report, which provides additional information as to the motive behind Vanessa's murder, which up until last month had been a mystery. Wow. Like up until May 2020 had been a mystery. Okay.
Robinson's motive had to do with his relationship with Cecily.
Oh. Oh.
Yeah.
Holy crap.
Robinson then hid Vanessa's body in the large case, stored it to the side of the armory room, then left the base to buy supplies. He returned that evening, cleaned everything up, and took the case to the Leon River area where he then picked up Cecily, took her there, and everything else ensued. Which makes sense why Cecily got involved now. Right, because she would be in trouble as well. Correct. But here's the thing. This means...
that his military career was more important to him than someone else's life. Oh, yeah. I mean... That's disgusting. If he's going around sexually harassing girls as well, it's... Right. Which he did. He had other complaints that he had sexually harassed other people. Obviously, he didn't really care about other people. But I do want to note here, some sources say he was...
the superior sexually harassing Vanessa and other sources say he wasn't. So I didn't include that, but he does have official documented claims of sexual harassment against him. So it's not like he just
he's in the clear. No, he was doing this to other women as well. We just don't know for sure if it was Vanessa. And I don't know if Vanessa's family has ever come out and said who, or if she even told them, I do want to say though, if this relationship was such a terrible secret that he was willing to murder someone with a hammer, then,
in order to keep it from getting out, then why on earth did he have a photo documenting this relationship on his cell phone lock screen? I was just going to say that. Why is there photos of them? Maybe he just figured no one knows. No one's going to know who she is. But she did. But still, why would you do that? Right. I'm also surprised that Cecily's...
I guess husband never reported it. Keon. Keon, but maybe he just wanted to stay out of it, you know? He's a former soldier. So yeah, he technically could have reported and got them in trouble. He was probably just like, I'm moving on. Maybe, yeah. Okay. So that's the case, but I do want to end with this. Due to public outcry as a result of this case, military reform is in the making right now for women.
The I am Vanessa Guillen bill is one of the biggest military reforms in history, according to Vanessa's sister. She says it's so important because it will bring the help my sister never obtained. It will bring the voice my sister never had. This bill will basically make it easier for women to report and it be taken seriously.
On April 19th, 2021, the army announced that one of the gates to Fort Hood will be renamed the Vanessa Guillen Gate in honor of her. Again, this is from Vanessa's sister. A lot of people said positive and negative stuff about the gate, and I myself have said it as well.
It had to take my sister's life for us to realize the bigger issue. Sexual violence is not an issue. It's an epidemic inside the armed forces and she had to die. She had to be murdered and dismembered and burned in order for us to realize that this has been happening for decades.
And that's what I want to end with. That is the case of Vanessa Guillen. So crazy. I do remember actually not knowing any of these details, but I saw a couple Twitter posts and I saw a couple Instagram posts about it. I didn't do any research into it.
That's crazy. And it's everything her sister said. Yeah. Reform is always good. Progress is always good. But when it comes at the hands of someone having to be murdered for us to make the change, it's devastating. And it doesn't provide closure for the family. I can't believe he just killed her. And I also can't believe that she just helped. I know. What? Not even just helped like
bury the body or anything, but dismember the body. That is disgusting. That's horrible. It's awful. It's horrible. All right, you guys, that is our episode for this week. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening. We love you guys and we will see you next week with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.