Netflix has released the first trailer for the documentary about slain Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen, which is set to premiere on November 17, 2022. Christy Wegener’s film tells the story of a soldier who was brutally murdered on post and then buried in rural Bell County. Interviews with her sisters, Mayra and Lupe, her mother Gloria, her friends and boyfriend, as well as U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier and U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, are included in the documentary. “This was not one of those cases that the military could brush under the rug,” Speier says in the documentary’s trailer.
Guillen was discovered in a parking lot at squadron headquarters in Fort Hood, the Texas military facility where she was stationed, on April 22, 2020, around 10:30 a.m. The last time anyone saw her was then. Guillen’s sister, Lupe, claimed that Fort Hood staff members allegedly told lies to the family in response to their requests for information in the days and weeks that followed regarding Guillen’s disappearance and claims of harassment.
Guillen’s family claimed that there was a culture of neglect at Fort Hood and that she had been sexually harassed before she passed away. The documentary “takes a behind-the-scenes look at their relentless drive to change a deeply established, contentious military justice system” and “follows Vanessa’s sisters Lupe and Mayra as they carry her name from protests in the streets to the halls of power in Washington, D.C.” On April 22, 2020, another soldier, Aaron David Robinson, killed Guillen. Over a month went by before anyone found her remains.
There were serious command climate and cultural issues at Fort Hood, according to an independent Army investigation published on December 8, 2020. Guillen was subjected to sexual harassment, although not by Robinson, according to the study. But he had also been charged with sexual harassment. 14 troops were let off as a result of the Army’s inquiry into Fort Hood leadership, which was finished in April of the following year.
