Vanished: Foul Play

This is Deborah Roberts here with another weekly episode of our latest series from 2020 and ABC Audio, Vanished.

What happened to Vanessa?

Remember, you can get new episodes early if you follow Vanished, What Happened to Vanessa on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.

Now, here's the episode.

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On June 19, 2020, almost two months after Vanessa Guillen's disappearance, TV viewers around Texas hear some startling news.

We have some breaking news.

Fort Hood Criminal Investigation Division have found skeletal remains in a field in Colleen.

Human remains in a field not five miles from where Vanessa was last seen alive.

Vanessa's sister, Myra Guillen's phone, rings.

It's someone from Fort Hood.

They called me and they said we found human remains.

Those remains, they were badly decomposed.

It appeared they'd been out in that field for a while, longer than the roughly two months Vanessa had been missing.

The Army investigator told Myra it likely wasn't her little sister.

As it turned out, the remains belonged to another Fort Hood soldier, one who had also gone missing.

The soldier was Army Private Gregory Morales, who had gone missing in 2019

eight months before Vanessa.

When he disappeared, the Army listed him as AWOL.

But now, authorities believe something quite different happened.

An examination of Gregory's remains leads them to suspect foul play.

Private Morales was discovered while the Army was searching for Vanessa, and their stories contain unmistakable echoes of one another.

Two young soldiers who chose to serve their countries, who hoped that service would lead to a better life.

Both went missing while stationed at Fort Hood.

But more than that, both their disappearances raised significant questions about the Army's handling of missing soldiers.

And around the same time time they find Gregory, authorities have a breakthrough in the search for Vanessa.

From ABC Audio in 2020, this is Vanished.

What happened to Vanessa?

I'm John Quinones, ABC News correspondent.

Episode 3:

Foul Play.

The story of Private Gregory Morales begins some 400 miles north of Fort Hood, just outside Tulsa in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.

Gregory's personality was very carefree.

His mother, Kim Weedle, always wanted to help people.

Always grew up knowing he wanted to be a soldier.

His grandfather fought at Vietnam.

His dad was in the Gulf War.

That was what he was supposed to do in his mind.

That was his job, to carry on

the family job.

Gregory, like Vanessa, had a sense of duty that led him to enlist.

And Kim says, Gregory knew that enlisting could open up opportunities for a young man eager to explore what lay beyond Oklahoma.

He also wanted to travel and, you know, the military, come join us, see the world.

And he did get to see Korea and Kuwait and Texas and Missouri after leaving South Korea and returning to the U.S.

Gregory surprises his mom at the school where she teaches he did one of those that you see on the internet all the time I mean I just cried the rest of the day one day in late summer 2019 Kim got a phone call from Fort Hood They're calling me asking if I know where he's at.

Have I heard from him?

Telling me he's gone AWOL.

They can't find him.

Army officials listed Gregory as AWOL.

Well, that was the same designation applied to Vanessa Guillen when she went missing.

It's worth taking a closer look at that acronym, AWOL.

It stands for absent without leave.

The Army has changed its approach to AWOL in recent years, but when Gregory and Vanessa enlisted, here's what it meant.

If a soldier isn't where they're expected to be and they are not on some approved leave, then after a while, usually 24 hours, they could be designated AWOL.

If a soldier is AWOL for long enough, usually 30 days, they can be listed as a deserter, and desertion can be a serious crime.

Deserters may face prison time, dishonorable discharge, and the loss of pay and military benefits.

30 days after he disappeared, Gregory Morales was listed as a deserter.

To Gregory's mother, Kim, her son deserting didn't make a lick of sense.

I immediately jumped to, you know,

he's getting out in a couple weeks.

Why would he go AWOL?

I mean, that would be throwing everything away.

Gregory was in the final stages of being discharged.

His mother wondered, why in the world would he take off now?

At the time, the Army's general practice was to designate missing soldiers AWOL unless there was clear evidence that the absence was involuntary.

Something similar happened in Vanessa's case.

Instead of looking at the facts, they defaulted to what they always defaulted to, which was AWOL.

That's Chris Swecker.

He spent 24 years working for the FBI.

He retired as the assistant director of of the Bureau's Criminal Investigation Division.

In the aftermath of Vanessa's disappearance, the Army appointed Swecker to lead an independent review of the command climate at Fort Hood.

Swecker and four other committee members authored a report 136 pages long.

It was released in late 2020.

and its findings were often quite critical of Fort Hood.

The Independent Committee's report suggests some answers to a question at the core of this story.

How does someone go missing on a military base?

I asked Swecker specifically about the Army's decision to label Vanessa AWOL.

Army officials say the leadership in Vanessa's unit determined that her absence was likely not voluntary.

But on April 24th, her status was changed to AWAL because they didn't have sufficient evidence that her absence was involuntary.

Aren't those statements contradictory?

Those statements are entirely contradictory.

We attributed that to a lack of protocols, lack of any protocol whatsoever to deal with missing soldiers in the first 24, 48 hours.

There was no missing soldier protocol?

No.

You know how it is in the Army and the military, there's a protocol for just about everything.

So every company commander were sort of left to their own devices to make a decision, a judgment, if you will, about suspicious circumstances or an involuntary absence.

The Independent Review found that Fort Hood officials did not take steps law enforcement usually takes in the first 24 to 48 hours after a disappearance, like entering Vanessa into a national missing persons database.

In a separate internal report, the Army maintained that Vanessa's AWAL status was an administrative matter that did not impact their efforts to find her.

But that internal report also found, quote, The Army's policy requiring an AWAL duty status sent the wrong message and created an inaccurate perception that she, Vanessa, had voluntarily abandoned her her unit.

In late 2020, the Army announced a new policy for missing soldiers.

Under the policy, commanders may list an absent soldier as AWOL only if there's a preponderance of evidence that their absence is, in fact, voluntary.

Without that evidence, a soldier who has been absent for 48 hours is designated missing.

And at that point, the Army says it will contact the soldier's family and and provide them with a liaison for the remainder of the investigation.

But back in 2019, before this new policy was devised, Gregory Morales was not listed as missing.

He was listed as AWOL.

His mother Kim says that after the Army applied that designation and later, after Gregory was labeled a deserter, the search effort seemed lacking.

It was just a battle after that to get anybody to pay attention.

They didn't want to listen.

He's a grown man.

He probably just took off.

Army officials told us that they did search for Gregory Morales after he went missing.

And back in 2020, the Army announced a reward of up to $25,000 for credible information relating to his death.

and later increased that reward to $50,000.

Authorities tell ABC News that Gregory's death remains under investigation by the Killeen Police Department.

It is being investigated as a murder.

As the months went by, and my students, every once in a while, just come in, have you heard anything today?

Do you know anything?

And

oh, it was hard.

I mean, to sit there and just cry in front of your students.

It's very hard every day to go in thinking about that.

A few weeks after Gregory's remains were discovered and authorities came to suspect foul play, the Army changed his listing from deserter to active duty.

In July 2020, Gregory was buried with full military honors.

When they discovered his body,

we actually did a rosary and we prayed for him to be with heaven.

Vanessa's sister Lupe, along with the rest of the Guillen family, mourned the loss of Gregory Morales.

It's impossible to know when or if Gregory's remains would have been found if a search for Vanessa hadn't been underway.

What was clear was that the stories of these two young soldiers had become permanently and tragically intertwined.

Gregory's best friend came up to me at the protest and gave me a big hug.

He's like, this hug is not for me, it's from Gregory for everything that you're doing.

And I'm like, well, tell him that I'm grateful that he gave his life, that he's a hero.

Still, the discovery of Gregory Morales' remains doesn't bring the Guillenns any closer to finding Vanessa.

By this point, it's been almost two months since she went missing.

Her family has been protesting.

The army has been searching high and low.

And still,

nothing.

But then,

as often happens in cases like this, the slow drip of progress becomes a flood.

Leads build upon leads.

One break creates another.

And in the waning days of June 2020, the truth is uncovered.

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June 22nd, 2020.

It's been 60 days since Vanessa disappeared.

Over those two months, Vanessa's friends and family have grown frustrated with Ford Hood's CID investigators.

We spent hours and hours at CID.

They just kept harassing me, harassing the people that I'm friends with.

Fellow soldier Tay Hightower was one of Vanessa's closest friends on base.

Remember Tay was among the first people to notice Vanessa was missing.

They had plans to go hiking that day.

They were

asking questions, have I ever found her attractive, have I ever liked her and stuff like that.

And then they were like, maybe you did go hiking with her, and maybe you did actually rape her and leave her out there.

And that's probably what happened to her.

And they were just trying to see my reaction and how I reacted.

And I was like choking out.

I didn't know how to like react to it.

Back in 2020, Army officials defended CID's investigation.

So there are a lot of leads, and there are a lot of other things that are going on during this time, as you can imagine.

That's then Major General Donna Martin.

We heard from her in the previous episode.

When we spoke back in 2020, she was the commanding general of CID.

So we've interviewed over 300 soldiers in the unit.

We've conducted cell phone searches.

We've conducted a lot of investigative activity.

In 2021, an internal Army assessment called the search effort for Vanessa immediate and well-coordinated.

But that independent review we mentioned earlier had a different take.

As we looked harder at CID, we realized that these were fairly new agents.

That's former FBI agent Chris Swecker again.

The independent review committee he led scrutinized CID and its practices, and they came away unimpressed.

They call themselves special agents, but they're one, two years out of their training academy at Fort Leonard Wood.

So you're basically, my analogy was staffing the New York Field Office of the FBI with brand new agents out of Quantico.

You can't operate that way.

The committee's review found that in 2020, the number of CID agents actively working cases at Fort Hood was 35.

So, how many of those special agents had more than two years of investigative experience?

Well, it turns out, only three.

At a base that's home to tens of thousands of soldiers, just three CID agents had more than two years of experience.

Remember, Fort Hood CID was responsible for serious complex cases, including sex crimes and suspicious deaths.

And yet, the Independent Review found that CID was essentially a training ground where agents were constantly transferring in and out.

Swecker says the review found that the lack of experience had consequences.

What we saw were many missed opportunities in the early stages of the investigation.

In any missing person case, the first 48 hours are absolutely critical.

So

things like when do you enter them into the National Crime Information Center, NCIC, as a missing person?

Be on the lookout.

When do you ping their cell phone?

That's become a very important investigative step.

Again, within 24, 48 hours.

She wasn't entered into the NCIC system, and the cell phone ping didn't take place until about 36, 36, 48 hours later.

As it turned out, cell phone pings would prove crucial for investigators, but not pings to Vanessa's phone.

No, these pings would lead investigators to someone else, someone they were already familiar with.

Again, then-Major General Donna Martin.

Where we get our real,

I guess, first break is from the analysis of the phone cell data.

Specifically, Aaron Robinson's cell phone data.

In May 2020, he had handed over his phone voluntarily when asked by CID agents.

Remember, specialist Aaron Robinson is believed to be among the last people to see Vanessa.

The morning of April 22nd, he was working in the arms room where Vanessa went just before she vanished.

And two witnesses said they saw Robinson put something in his car.

It was a tough box, a large plastic storage box on wheels.

Then in June 2020, investigators pursue a new lead.

They learn that the night after Vanessa went missing, specialist Aaron Robinson's phone pinged somewhere unexpected.

Investigators determined that Robinson's phone was in Belton, Texas, by a bridge near the Leon River at around 1.59 a.m.

Authorities say Robinson's phone remained in the area for about two hours, during which it seemed to move north along the Leon River.

Remember, Robinson's alibi was that he was at home with his girlfriend.

But this location near the Leon River, where investigators say his phone pinged, it's some 20 miles east of where he said he was.

For investigators, that cell phone data doesn't just call Robinson's alibi into question, it gives them a new place to focus their search, the site of that ping.

And by this time in the investigation, the team of searchers had come to include a local legend.

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You know, my

Tim Miller is known all across Texas for finding people.

Tim found his calling through tragedy.

His own daughter, Laura, was kidnapped and murdered in 1984.

She was just 16.

In 2000, Tim started Texas EquaSearch, Equa as an equine, because originally its search and rescue efforts were mostly done on horseback.

Today, EquaSearch uses more sophisticated technology, including sonar and drones.

In June 2020, Tim's team heads to Belton, Texas, to the area where investigators determined Aaron Robinson's cell phone was pinging on the night in question.

When we were searching, we found this burn pile.

A burn pile.

The charred remains remains of something.

And on that burn pile there was a tap about maybe 30% that did not burn

of a tough box.

The partially burned lid of a tough box.

It matches the description of what witnesses say Robinson was loading into his car that day.

Here's Coy Murphy, who was then part of the EquaSearch team.

We have a probe and we probed the burn pile and the probe went down easily.

That indicates freshly dug dirt.

The search team is convinced something has happened here.

They dig and dig, but they recover no remains.

But even so, members of the search team feel close.

The cell phone data, the softness of the soil, the partially burned lid of a tough box.

Was it possible that the truth could be close at hand?

We really felt

from our experience of looking for missing people,

we really felt that she was there.

While the search continues, investigators are looking closely at Aaron Robinson and at the woman who had gotten close to him.

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What brings investigators to the banks of the Leon River are cell phone records, specialist Aaron Robinson's cell phone records.

And authorities had noticed something else in those records.

The night after Vanessa went missing, Robinson had placed multiple calls to his girlfriend.

One of these calls was as late as 3:30 in the morning.

Remember, Robinson's alibi was that he and his girlfriend were at home.

So, why all the calls to someone who was supposedly with him?

That question leads investigators to 22-year-old Cecily Aguilar, Robinson's girlfriend and a key person in this story.

Everyone who knew her at school knew how big her heart was and how big of a sweetheart she was.

This is Cecily's friend, Aaron Clough.

Yes, another Aaron.

Aaron Clough says she watched Cecily go through some ups and downs in her love life.

Aaron says that one day Cecily was working her job at McDonald's when a customer in the drive-through complimented her hair and makeup and asked for her number.

And she said, you know what?

I said yes.

That flirty customer was Keon Aguilar.

Soon after, Keon and Cecily got married.

They moved to Texas.

And in 2019, Aaron says they were living together on Fort Hood, where Keon was stationed.

That's when Cecily's friend Aaron says Specialist Robinson moved in with them.

She was just like, this is Keon's friend.

He's cool.

You know they're pretty good friends they're in the army together Aaron Clough says that Cecily told her she and Kian were having issues in their marriage and eventually it reached a breaking point she was tired of it she was done and she wanted to leave and leave she did but not alone

she had told me when she moved out of Keon's house that Aaron had came with her and they were dating.

Cicely and I talked about how it would look her moving out to get her own apartment and then her husband's friend moving in with her.

And she always said, you know,

there is no changing the situation.

You can't help who you like.

So investigators interview Cecily.

The obvious question is, if her boyfriend Aaron was at home with her the night of April 22nd, then why did he call her several times?

Cecily tells investigators that she misplaced her phone and that Aaron was calling it so she could find it.

That sounds believable enough, but if it were true, then why were the lengths of those after-midnight calls longer than a minute each?

Cecily Aguilar would eventually change her story, and then she'd change it again.

But that would come later.

Meanwhile, around this time, Vanessa's family is observing a somber occasion.

Two months have officially passed since Vanessa disappeared.

On June 23rd, the family heads to Fort Hood for a meeting with Army leadership.

Here's Vanessa's sister, Myra.

It was

useless.

All they did was show me a map and the areas where they supposedly searched.

And

I was like, you brought me in to see a map.

Myra says in that meeting, Army officials sometimes declined to answer questions, citing the ongoing investigation.

The Guillen family attorney, Natalie Kawam, was also in the meeting.

Not only they were not being transparent, they were being very elusive about it.

And that's not how you handle a missing person case.

Also at this meeting is Texas Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia.

Garcia says she heard that Guillenns were struggling to get answers from Army officials and that she wanted to make sure they were kept in the loop.

Garcia recalled an exchange from that meeting that she says troubled her.

I was really taken aback by a comment that one of the investigators made when we asked the question about the

sexual harassment issues, because her response was something like, well, we really didn't look at that because that's misconduct.

It's really not the purview of the criminal investigation division.

Now, wait a minute, what do you mean you're not going to look at sexual harassment?

I mean, that could be the reason for her disappearance.

It could be a motive.

In July 2020, Army officials said that, quote, all sexual harassment allegations are being investigated in this case, as they are in every other instance.

In any event, the Guillenns leave that meeting frustrated.

And as they walk toward the gates of Fort Hood, their frustration finds an audience.

Good morning or good afternoon.

Thank y'all for coming this morning.

Every media outlet from Texas, I mean, all the big media outlets were there at Fort Hood.

Steve Campion was there that day.

He was one of the reporters waiting outside Fort Hood.

Steve and the rest of the press were there to hear from the family, from their attorney, and from a sitting congresswoman.

At that press conference is when they finally used a term that I think got everyone's attention.

It was Representative Sylvia Garcia who used the term in question.

Two little words packed with grave significance.

They are using the words now, foul play, and they are looking at potential criminal activity having occurred.

Army investigators suspected foul play.

This was the first time that had been announced publicly.

But what exactly foul play meant in this case remained unclear.

Garcia said Army officials remained tight-lipped about certain details, citing the ongoing investigation.

Later in that press conference, Vanessa's mother, Gloria Guillen, rises to speak.

As she steps in front of the cluster of microphones, she looks tired.

She sounds a little worn down,

like two months of searching for her daughter have taken a toll.

But soon, any trace of weariness quickly vanishes.

You did not need to speak Spanish to understand this mother's pain.

La quiero vida, she says.

I want her alive, alive,

alive.

I want her because my daughter came in alive.

Because God God forbid if my daughter is found dead, then we demand this base be shut down.

A few minutes later, Vanessa's sister Lupe speaks.

I demand justice and I demand answers because clearly, after two months, they're searching my sister like if she was dead.

She's not dead.

I know it because she's my sister.

The Guienne family's pain, the clarity of their message.

It seems to go through those news cameras and come out the other side

like a lightning bolt.

For reporter Steve Campion, it was Gloria and Lupe in particular that stuck with him.

Those are the two moments that I think really catapulted that story at this particular moment.

Everyone started paying attention, right?

You couldn't not pay attention.

In the days after the June 23rd press conference, Vanessa's story stays in the news.

There is a steady drumbeat of local coverage.

Wednesday's search brought them to this undisclosed location in Bell County.

And reports running on national broadcasts.

The investigation into Vanessa Guillen's disappearance is still ongoing.

As the search for Vanessa enters its third month, the attention on the case had never been greater.

The Guillen family and their allies had burst into the national conversation.

Their story, their pain, had resonated with millions of Americans.

And then,

one week later.

We're uncovering stunning new details in the search for private first-class Vanessa Guillen.

Remains were found yesterday, and then more of them today near the Leon River in Bell County.

More remains are discovered.

Are they Vanessa?

That

next time.

Vanished, What Happened to Vanessa is a production of ABC Audio and 2020, hosted by me, John Quinones, produced by Shane McKeon, Nancy Rosenbaum, Sabrina Fang, and Nora Ritchie.

Fact-checking and production help from Audrey Most Tech and Annalisa Linder.

Tracy Samuelson is our story editor.

Our supervising producer is Sasha Aslanian.

Music and mixing by Evan Viola.

Special thanks to Katie Dendos, Janice Johnston, Denise Martinez-Ramundo, Natalie Cardenas, Rachel Walker, Brian Mazurski, and Michelle Marculus.

Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming.

Laura Mayer is our executive producer.

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