Juan Cruz (3:46)

Something was wrong because I checked her social media. I was checking everything. I was like, man, hopefully she tweeted something or liking something. I was just checking, checking. But nothing.

John Quinones (3:56)

Juan reaches out to Vanessa's older sister Myra, asking if she's heard from Vanessa.

Myra Guillen (4:03)

And I'm like, well I haven't tried today. I've been really busy at work, but let me try. So I was like, let me call her, check up on her. And I called and I went straight to voicemail. So I was like, well, let me message her. Maybe the message just go through and nothing. And I know she doesn't turn off her phone.

John Quinones (4:20)

Vanessa's parents haven't noticed that she stopped communicating. They don't have any reason to be worried about Vanessa just yet. But around this time, her father Rogelio gets a sharp pain in his chest. Rogelio says he feels like he's running out of air, like he's about to stop breathing. Later, he'll look back at this moment as a bad omen. The moment when he had an intuition something was really wrong. Mayra has been waiting hours for her sister to get back to her. She decides she can't just sit around and wait any longer. So she grabs her purse, keys and an extra set of clothes and sets out for Fort Hood with one of her sisters and Juan to look for Vanessa. It's about a three hour drive from Houston. All night long, Myra keeps texting her sister. Her messages are short and they get more and more desperate. 8:35pm Hello? 11 p. Vanessa. 1:04am Bro. And more than 24 hours after her first text. I'm going to find you, I promise. Vanessa is one of six kids from a very tight knit family. While Myra, the oldest, sets off in the night to look for her, Vanessa's 16 year old sister Lupe is sleeping. But when Lupe wakes up the next morning, it's like a storm has blown through their small home.

Lupe Guillen (6:10)

I mean, I was like, what's going on? Like, why did my mom and my dad sleep in the couch. Why is my little brother sleeping in the other room? Why didn't my sister leave at almost midnight? What's wrong? Then I texted my other sister. She was like, don't tell them that I told you, but we think Vanessa's missing. And I'm like, how can she go missing on a military base? That's too ridiculous. Go find her. And better find her.

John Quinones (6:38)

Vanessa's family fears something is terribly wrong. Maybe she's been in some sort of accident. Their heads are spinning with questions. Where is Vanessa? Why aren't they hearing from her? Soon their worries go to a darker place. Had someone done something to Vanessa? Who would want to hurt her? And why couldn't the US Military find one of its own? From ABC Audio and 2020, this is what happened to Vanessa. I'm ABC News correspondent John Quinones. Episode one I'm gonna find you. A few days after Vanessa's disappearance, I was talking to my nephew in my hometown of San Antonio. And he asked me if I'd seen the local news reports about this young soldier who had gone missing. She was Texan, Tejana, Mexican American. Like my own family. She looked familiar. Vanessa was 5 foot 3 with a heart shaped face and long dark hair. She often wore it pulled back in a ponytail. She had tattoos on her left arm, including one of a cross with a flower in honor of her Catholic faith. I started doing some research and quickly realized Vanessa's story had a lot of layers. It happened on a military base and those are difficult places to get inside and report on. Her story gnawed at me. Why couldn't the military find a soldier on one of its own bases? It was just bizarre. So I started reporting on Vanessa's disappearance for 2020. And I discovered that as much as this is a story about Vanessa, it's also a story about her family's quest to find her. Her youngest sister, lupe, was only 16 at the time, but she became a forceful voice pushing for her sister to be found.

Lupe Guillen (9:00)

I believe she's still in there and she's suffering, but she's still alive. And I want her back like that. I want her alive.

John Quinones (9:06)

And eventually, the nation and even the world would take notice. People joined protests demanding more be done to find Vanessa. Artists painted murals with her face in cities all across Texas and in other places too. Wichita, Kansas. Los Angeles. Washington, D.C. why do we want Vanessa?

Lupe Guillen (9:30)

When do we want her? Now. Nemo saw Vanessa.

John Quinones (9:36)

Vanessa's story went viral on social media. How did one missing soldier become a movement well, it all starts with Vanessa's family. In the summer of 2020, a few months after her disappearance, I drove to Houston to visit them. The Guillen family lives in a working class neighborhood in east Houston that reminds me of the barrio where I grew up, on the west side of San Antonio. My father's side of the family has been in Texas for seven generations. Like Vanessa, I was drawn to the military. I joined ROTC in high school and college. I thought the military would be my way out of poverty. My dad was a janitor at my high school with a third grade education. My mom cleaned houses in Alamo Heights, the rich part of town in Houston. As I pull up to the Guyn's driveway, it's packed with cars. People are bringing them food and cookies. Hola, constanos. Que gusto. Melo traves. Vanessa's mother, Gloria, meets me at the front door holding a rosary. I walk in and smell fresh tortillas, again reminding me of home. They immediately invite me to stay for lunch. Gloria and Rogelio are originally from a farming village in central Mexico. They came to Houston in 1997, a couple of years before Vanessa was born. And this is the city where they've been raising their four daughters and two sons. Rogelia works as a machine operator while Gloria stays at home with the kids. She considered Vanessa her second daughter, her miracle child. Gloria tells me that When Vanessa was 15 days old, she almost died of meningitis. A nurse told her to give up, but Vanessa lived. Gloria believes the Virgin of Guadalupe saved Vanessa's life. She's the patron saint of Mexico. The Guyennes are deeply Catholic. An altar honoring the Virgin of Guadalupe is one of the first things you see when you walk into their home. We had the same kind of altar in my home. The Guyn's altar has candles, handwritten notes, and a Mexican flag. But it also includes so much of Vanessa. Her graduation sash and cap, and sunflowers, one of her favorite flowers. On the wall above the altar, you can see paintings and photographs of Vanessa. Does this make you feel good? Yes, she says. It makes me feel good because this is where she was raised, and I feel she's here with me. When Vanessa went missing, Gloria would pray the rosary at this altar, pleading for her daughters safe return. A mother praying for the return of her strong and athletic daughter. On another day, I meet up with Gloria at a place that meant a lot to Vanessa. So this is where she ran track. You ran with her? We're at the running track at Vanessa's old High school. It's a rainy, overcast day, and Gloria tells me that she and Vanessa went running here together a couple of times. Vanessa, it seems, was always exercising. What kind of student was she? Vanessa was an excellent student, Gloria tells me, especially in math and writing. She studied a lot and was a varsity athlete. She hoped athletics could be her path to college. She played on no less than three soccer teams and ran cross country. She even ran marathons, Gloria remembers. On school nights, Vanessa would run laps on this track, sometimes until 7 or 7:30 at night. Running and soccer were her life. Vanessa was always so strong, Gloria says she loved going to the gym and lifting heavy weights. Squats and deadlifts were her favorite. On social media, Vanessa described herself as a gym aholic. Vanessa's father, Rogelio, would tell his daughter that she focused too much on exercise. He wanted her to take time for other things, too. Rogelio remembers how he and Vanessa would sometimes play fight, and she would beat him. Vanessa was strong. She knew how to defend herself, Rogelio says. Gloria tells me Vanessa had a dream of playing professional soccer someday. But from the time she was around 10 years old, Vanessa had another dream. She wanted to join the US Military. Her mother was completely against it. The military, that's not for women, she said. It's for men. But Vanessa persisted, and when she turned 18, she told her mother, I'm going to enlist. He didn't want her to go. No kdios, exactly. Gloria says she begged her daughter not to sign those enlistment papers. But Vanessa pushed back. She loved her country and wanted to defend it. Gloria spent the rest of the day in tears. Gloria's reaction didn't exactly surprise me. In my experience, Latino families are proud to have their sons serve in the military. But daughters, that's a newer thing. Vanessa's younger sister, Lupe, remembers when Vanessa told her the news.

Lupe Guillen (16:46)

And we're like, why did you sign? And then she just said, I want better opportunities, not only for me, but for my family. I want to be someone in life. I want to get a career, because not only do I want to protect the nation, I want to protect y', all because y' all are family.

John Quinones (17:04)

Family. It meant everything to Vanessa. She was especially close to her mother. So the fact that she enlisted despite Gloria's resistance, it makes me think Vanessa was her own woman, that she was strong mentally as well as physically. If she wanted to do something, she was going to do it. Gloria says Vanessa told her, I have been given a mission, and I'm going to fulfill it. Vanessa signed her papers and was placed in the Army's delayed entry program for most of her senior year. When she enlisted, the army gave her a symbolic scholarship check for future college expenses. The amount, $114,000. Vanessa's sister Lupe told me this check was a really big deal to Vanessa.

Lupe Guillen (18:07)

When they gave her her check, she put it on the room with every other medal for her marathon medals, her honorable medals, her cross country. She just sticked it there. So every time she used to go to sleep on our house, she used to see the check. She was that proud of herself.

John Quinones (18:24)

She finished high school on a high note. Her family says she graduated near the top of her class. She went to her senior prom in a green sequined gown with her best friend. Emerald green was one of her favorite colors. In her graduation picture, she looks happy and relaxed. Her long dark hair falls down to her waist. She wears a white sash with an emblem of Texas over her graduation robe. In blue letters it says class of 2018. Two days after graduation, she says goodbye to her family and leaves for basic training in South Carolina. She doesn't know it yet, but her military dreams are about to take a dark turn.

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John Quinones (20:49)

Vanessa heads to basic training. The 11 week training is intense and physically demanding. There's one video where it's Pitch dark outside, and you see Vanessa squatting and flipping over this huge tire. Vanessa's older sister, Myra, remembers how Vanessa loved her early time in the military.

Myra Guillen (21:10)

Her very first training, she didn't even want to come back. She was that happy. Even when she got home, she was like a new person. She was like. Her skin was literally glowing. She was a bit chubbier than usual. She's always been skinny, and she was just happy.

John Quinones (21:27)

Vanessa finished basic training in August of 2018. Myra flew to South Carolina for the ceremony. She remembers searching for Vanessa in the crowd.

Myra Guillen (21:38)

Eventually, she saw me. I just heard her yell out my name, and she just started running towards me. And I felt like a mom. I was like, I have a baby running towards me. And she just started crying. And it was just like. It was a really beautiful moment that I'll never forget.

John Quinones (21:54)

To mark the occasion, Vanessa posted a picture of herself on social media. It reminds me of one of those class photos you'd get in high school. Vanessa in front of an American flag. She's wearing green military fatigues. Her last name, Guillen, is embroidered in capital letters on her lapel. The caption she wrote with her post says, gracias, Adios por este logro. Thank you, God, for this achievement. No one could ever imagine that less than two years later, her family and the army would use this very photo of Vanessa in her Missing Person's Alert. And it's this portrait of Vanessa that I saw framed on the altar her family kept in their home, the one where Gloria prayed every night for her daughter's safe return. In December 2018, Vanessa gets her first official assignment. She's heading to Fort Hood in her home state of Texas. Her job is to repair and maintain small arms equipment. Now, Fort Hood is one of the largest military bases in the United States. It's roughly the size of New York City, including all five boroughs. It's the kind of place where the whole town basically exists to support the military community. Fort Hood has lots of amenities. There's a bowling alley and a golf course, seven elementary schools and two middle schools. But Fort Hood also has a troubled reputation. Its motto is the Great Place. But it's been the site of controversy as well as tragedy. In 2009, a U.S. army major stationed at Fort Hood killed 13 people and injured dozens of bystanders. I remember being in Austin when the news of the mass shooting broke, and I immediately rented a car and headed to Fort Hood to cover the story for ABC News. I'm here at Three Core headquarters, very close to the processing center where yesterday's massacre took place. Today, 2020, was given exclusive access to secure areas of this sprawling base where we visited some of the wounded and their families. As it turns out, Fort Hood has faced multiple scandals around allegations of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. In 2015, a Fort Hood sergeant who also served as a sexual harassment and assault advocate was convicted of running a prostitution ring. He pled guilty to multiple charges, including conspiracy to solicit prostitution. There have also been questions about the alarming number of soldier deaths at Fort Hood, including death by suicide. In 2020, the year Vanessa went missing, 13 Fort Hood soldiers reportedly died by suicide. This included the case of Sergeant Elder Fernandez, who killed himself after reporting sexual abuse to his command. The army later said it couldn't substantiate his allegations. In the four years before Vanessa's disappearance, more Fort Hood soldiers died in homicides than in battle. And in 2020, there were at least 28 Fort Hood soldiers who died, vanished, or in one case, turned up dead after going missing. At the time, the Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, held a press conference. He acknowledged how Fort Hood had a concerning record compared to other bases.

Ryan Reynolds (25:55)

The numbers are high here.

John Quinones (25:56)

They are the highest in most cases for sexual assault and harassment and murders for our entire formation. U.S. army Secretary McCarthy said the army was committed to investigating the root causes. Still, when Vanessa learned she'd be continuing her military service at Fort Hood, she was happy. It meant that she'd be stationed close to her family here again, her sister Myra.

Myra Guillen (26:23)

And sure enough, she was even happier that she was gonna be stationed in Texas, close to home. And we all were. We were, you know, just three hours away. It's nothing. And the fact that she was gonna be able to come over on the weekends and everything, everyone was like, okay, Everything's good.

John Quinones (26:41)

Vanessa quickly made friends with a few soldiers in her unit, including a guy named C.J. landy.

Juan Cruz (26:50)

She was a very energetic person. Like, she didn't talk to too many people, but said, we worked on the same team, and I guess apparently I'm, like, kind of funny at sometimes, and, like, she'd crack up all the time. Like, her laugh was very, very contagious.

John Quinones (27:02)

Most weekends, Vanessa drove the three hours southeast from the base to see her family and boyfriend back in Houston. But within about a month of starting at Fort Hood, Myra and the rest of the family noticed a change in Vanessa. She looked tired, with bags under her eyes. She didn't want to eat. She was losing weight.

Myra Guillen (27:26)

Sometimes I would just catch her, and I would ask her, like, Are you okay? And she would be like, yeah, it's nothing. I recall going back and there was times where she would try to tell me that she didn't want to be at Four Hills. And I remember this one time she said, I don't like it here and I hope one day you understand. And that really took me off and I started asking myself, what's the problem? And as I would ask her, I would try to pressure her, but she would just retract and say, it's nothing, forget it, never mind. I just hope one day you understand.

John Quinones (28:09)

Vanessa's younger sister Lupe gets emotional when she tells me about this One time when Vanessa came home and she was really upset.

Lupe Guillen (28:18)

One time she just laid down and she just started crying. And I couldn't ask her, what's wrong? What's happening?

John Quinones (28:25)

Something was wrong.

Lupe Guillen (28:26)

Her personality changed. She was not the same. You could see her because she was always happy, yet she just came into for hood and everything just went wrong.

John Quinones (28:37)

Looking back, Lupe says she feels regret. She wishes she had asked Vanessa more questions. But at the time, Vanessa told her, you're too little. You wouldn't understand. Lupe was four years younger than Vanessa. In February, a few months before her disappearance, Vanessa does confide in one person, and that's after the break.

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John Quinones (30:33)

See mintmobile.com Vanessa and her mother had always been close. So one day, a few months before Vanessa disappeared, Gloria approached her asking for the truth. Why was she so unhappy? Vanessa agreed to talk, but said her mother needed to be strong, that the news was going to be hard for her to hear. And that's when Vanessa told her she was being sexually harassed by a sergeant at Fort Hood. Gloria was devastated and also furious. She told Vanessa to report what was happening. Why didn't she tell the authorities? They wouldn't believe them. Gloria told her daughter, give me the name of that miserable person and I will go to Fort Hood to report him. I will fight. But Vanessa told her mother, look, it's a military base. You can't just go inside. So let's get a lawyer. Gloria said, I can't. Vanessa told her military laws are different also, I made an oath to defend my country. I'm brave. She said, I will fix it. For Vanessa to file a sexual harassment complaint would have meant reporting it up the chain of command. And it would have been up to the unit commander to decide whether someone was prosecuted or not. And a person Vanessa claimed was abusing her was further up that chain of command than she was. Vanessa's family says she feared retaliation, so Gloria held what Vanessa told her close to her chest. Gloria would later learn from an army command report that Vanessa had informally reported her sexual harassment. The army determined Vanessa had been sexually harassed on two separate occasions and that her supervisor and other leaders failed to take appropriate action. In March 2020, the COVID 19 pandemic put the US in lockdown. As an army soldier, Vanessa was classified as an essential worker. So she continued to report for duty at Fort Hood on weekends. She kept her routine of driving the three hours back to Houston to see her family and also her boyfriend, Juan Cruz. He recalls Vanessa being frustrated. Around this time, all the gyms were closed. Remember, Vanessa was a gym aholic. She loved working out. It was her stress release. So she came up with a creative way of getting her reps in.

Juan Cruz (33:34)

One time we were outside, you know, I'm skinny. And she would be like, let me carry you so I can do squats. And I was like, okay. And she would carry me on her shoulders and she would make like, squats and that would be really funny.

John Quinones (33:48)

About a month before she disappeared, Juan proposes to Vanessa. By this time, they'd been dating for about six years. Juan remembers going to Vanessa's parents house and telling Gloria and Rogelio, I want to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage if you allow me to. They said yes, and everyone celebrated.

Juan Cruz (34:16)

She was just smiling. She was holding my hand like. Like this. She was beside me. She was just smiling, looking at her parents. We were all happy.

John Quinones (34:26)

Gloria told me she noticed Vanessa seemed calmer after she got engaged. In so many ways, Vanessa's life was just beginning. She wanted to start a family, to go to college. Her contract with the army was set to end in June of 2021. She and Juan planned to get married a few months later, in November of that same year. But all of that was still more than a year away. So in the meantime, she kept her routine. Her last visit home was in April. It was a Sunday night, April 19, 2020, and she and Juan ordered takeout. They brought food over to Vanessa's parents house. As Vanessa was leaving, Gloria remembers standing in front of the altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe, telling Vanessa how much she loved her and kissing her. Gloria didn't know it, but it would be the last time she would see Vanessa, the last time she embraced her. She remembers the exact moment. It was 10:40pm Three days later, Juan and Myra would notice Vanessa had stopped responding to their texts. They'd rushed to the base to try to find her. Gloria too, began frantically texting her daughter. Where are you, honey? I'm dying of fear. Are you all right? Tell me, where are you, my sweetheart? Please tell me. I don't care if you did something, my sweetheart. The only thing I want is to see you and to know that you're okay. I'm going crazy out of desperation as I don't know where you are. For the next two months, Vanessa's family would pressure the military to find her. They felt very much in the dark. They marched in the street with posters and they drew others to their cause. Vanessa's friends, volunteer investigators, actors, athletes, politicians. The roar of their protests grew bigger and louder. Where is Vanessa? Vanessa had gone silent. But soon other people started speaking up in her name. What started out as a story about a single soldier who'd mysteriously vanished turned into something much bigger.

Deborah Roberts (37:17)

I am Vanessa Guillen.

Lupe Guillen (37:18)

Yo soy Vanessa Guillen. I am Vanessa Guillen.

John Quinones (37:23)

And at time, the same center of it all, one family search for a beloved sister and daughter. They weren't getting answers and they weren't the only ones. That's Next Time Vanished what Happened to Vanessa is a production of ABC Audio and 20 20, hosted by by me, John Quinones. Produced by Nancy Rosenbaum, Sabrina Fang, Shane McKeon and Nora Ritchie. Fact checking and production help from Audrey Mostek and Annalisa Linder. Our story editor is Tracy Samuelson. Our supervising producer is Sasha Aslanian. Music and mixing by Evan Viola. Special special thanks to Katie Dindoz, Janice Johnston, Denise Martinez, Raimundo, Natalie Cardenas, Rachel Walker, Brian Mazerski and Michelle Margulis. Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming. Laura Mayer is our Executive producer.

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