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Pfc. Vanessa Guillen, 20, disappeared during the workday on April 22 in the parking lot of 3rd Cavalry Regiment’s engineer squadron headquarters, where she worked in the armory room.

Pfc. Vanessa Guillen, 20, disappeared during the workday on April 22 in the parking lot of 3rd Cavalry Regiment’s engineer squadron headquarters, where she worked in the armory room. (U.S. Army)

AUSTIN, Texas — Agents for the Army Criminal Investigation Command have returned to a location along a river about 30 miles from Fort Hood, Texas, where partial human remains were found and could be related to the search for a soldier who has been missing from the base for more than two months.

CID Investigators are now working alongside Texas Rangers, the FBI and Bell County Sheriff's Department deputies at the “area of interest” near the Leon River as part of their search for Pfc. Vanessa Guillen, said Chris Grey, spokesman for CID.

Guillen, a 20-year-old small arms repairer with the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, has been missing since April 22. She was last seen at work in the armory room of the regiment’s engineer squadron. Last week, the base commanders told the family, who are from Houston, they believed “foul play” was involved in her disappearance, according to Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, who has been assisting the family.

The remains along the river were found after CID received “additional information,” Grey said. The remains were sent to a forensic anthropologist for analysis and confirmed to be human.

“No confirmation as to the identity of the remains has been made at this point and we ask for the media and public's understanding that the identification process can take time,” Grey said. “Due to the ongoing criminal investigation, no further information will be released at this time."

The discovery comes two weeks after skeletal remains of another missing Fort Hood soldier — Pvt. Gregory Wedel Morales, who had been missing since August 2019 — were found in a field in Killeen, Texas, just outside the installation.

Fort Hood is partially located within Bell County, along its western edge. The Leon River is on the opposite side of the county and continues east of Belton.

Since Guillen went missing, her family has called for the Army to do more to locate her. Her attorney has a news conference scheduled for Thursday in Washington, D.C., to discuss efforts to start a congressional inquiry into the Army’s handling of the case.

Guillen’s family also said the soldier told them that she had faced sexual harassment from a sergeant in her unit. This allegation led Col. Ralph Overland, 3rd Cavalry Regiment commander, to open his own investigation into the claims earlier this month.

No information from that investigation has been released.

thayer.rose@stripes.com Twitter: @Rose_Lori

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Rose L. Thayer is based in Austin, Texas, and she has been covering the western region of the continental U.S. for Stars and Stripes since 2018. Before that she was a reporter for Killeen Daily Herald and a freelance journalist for publications including The Alcalde, Texas Highways and the Austin American-Statesman. She is the spouse of an Army veteran and a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in journalism. Her awards include a 2021 Society of Professional Journalists Washington Dateline Award and an Honorable Mention from the Military Reporters and Editors Association for her coverage of crime at Fort Hood.

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