The family of missing Private First Class Vanessa Guillen has called for Congress to launch an investigation into her disappearance. According to ABC 7, the family held a press conference Wednesday (July 1) and said that they believe the person of interest who committed suicide Wednesday morning was tied to Guillen’s disappearance.
On Tuesday (June 30), news surfaced that human remains were found in a shallow grave. Mayra and Lupe, Guillen’s sisters, said Wednesday that they will wait for the remains to be identified. “The human remains have yet not been confirmed and I won’t lose hope,” said an emotional Lupe.
“We need a Congressional investigation as soon as possible. They lied to us since day one, Fort Hood. They’re hiding,” said Mayra.
“There is still a lot of investigative work to be done and we ask for the public and media’s patience,” Chris Grey, the spokesman for Army CID said. “There are obviously pieces of information and evidence that cannot be shared with the public during an active criminal investigation. Doing so can seriously jeopardize the charging and successful prosecution of individuals. When important investigative information is prematurely released, criminals can and will destroy evidence, conspire to change their stories, build false alibis, etc.”
Before Guillen went missing, her family says she told them that she had been sexually harassed by one of the sergeants on her base. After she went missing, her identification card, wallet, car keys and room key were found in room where she was working that day.
The US Army Criminal Investigation Command released a statement as the family spoke in Washington. “The person who took his own life earlier today in Killeen after being sought by Killeen police and federal marshals was a soldier from Fort Hood and had fled the base earlier in the day,” the statement read. “A civilian has been arrested in connection with Vanessa Guillen’s disappearance. The civilian suspect is the estranged wife of a former Fort Hood Soldier and is currently in custody in the Bell County Jail awaiting charges by civilian authorities.”
Watch Guillen’s family make their emotional pleas below.