In April 2020, 20-year-old Texas soldier Vanessa Guillen went missing under mysterious circumstances. Nobody knew anything about her whereabouts for a few months.
Guillen’s bodily remains were discovered in July 2020 after the man who had murdered her died by suicide. Further investigation revealed that she was also sexually harassed during her time at the U.S. Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, which affected her mental health significantly.
More than two years later, on Friday, August 12, 2022, Vanessa Guillen’s family filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, seeking $35 million in damages. The lawsuit came after a three-judge panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided in San Francisco on Thursday, August 11, that an Army colonel could proceed with a lawsuit against a former Air Force General over a sexual assault allegation.
The Guillen family is seeking damages for their daughter’s sexual harassment, abuse, assault, rape, sodomy and wrongful death at the hands of the army.
“From October 1, 2019 to April 22, 2020, SPC. Vanessa Guillen suffered mental anguish, fear, emotional distress, physical injury, and death as a result of sexual harassment, r*pe, sodomy, and physical assault. Further Vanessa Guillen and her heirs have lost her livelihood and income to the date of her natural death.”
BREAKING: the family of slain Army Specialist Vanessa Guillen has filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the U.S. government. The lawsuit says Guillen was harassed at Fort Hood, and told her family she didn’t report it in fear of retaliation.
Natalie Khawam, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Vanessa Guillen’s family, said:
“This will be an opportunity for every victim to feel not only like they have a voice but that they can be made whole.”
Given the 9th Circuit’s favorable decision yesterday, we properly filed a lawsuit on behalf of Vanessa Guillen.
Vanessa Guillen’s case is a massive step forward for sexual assault victims in the military
In a profession that has historically been male-dominated, female victims of assault and harassment are silenced every day. Fear of retaliation haunts victims who are forced to keep quiet or face the wrath of such institutions.
Guillen was also forced into silence because she feared the consequences. The lawsuit filed by the Guillen family mentions at least two incidents of sexuall harassment faced by the young soldier at her base camp.
According to her sister Mayra Guillen,
“Prior to a Regimental Field Training Exercise in September 2019 a higher up solicited my sister to participate in a sex**l act, which she translated from English to Spanish a “threesome”…
The second incident occurred when Vanessa was conducting personal hygiene during the Regimental Field Training Exercise in the same time frame.”
These events severely impacted Guillen’s mental health, to the point where she had repeated thoughts about killing herself. Her cold-blooded murder shed light on the perilous environment in which women soldiers worked.
The tragic death of the Fort Hood soldier inspired the Military Justice Reform Bill, which will strip all authority from military commanders and will instead provide independent prosecutors with agency when allegations of sexual assault and other serious crimes are made.