AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas lady was once sentenced Monday to 30 years in jail for serving to get rid of the frame of a U.S. soldier, whose 2020 killing sparked a motion of ladies talking out about sexual abuse within the army and resulted in adjustments in how they may be able to file it.
Cecily Aguilar is the one suspect arrested within the dying of Vanessa Guillén, who was once killed at Castle Cavazos, previously referred to as Castle Hood, close to Killeen, Texas. Aguilar was once 24 years previous when she pleaded in charge in November at a federal courtroom in Waco, Texas, to at least one rely of accent to homicide after the reality and 3 counts of creating a false commentary, consistent with the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace. The sentence got here after hours of testimony from lawyers, mavens and Guillén’s circle of relatives.
Aguilar aided boyfriend Military Spc. Aaron Robinson, 20, of Calumet Town, Illinois, in dismembering and casting off Guillén’s frame in a rural, wooded space in Killeen, consistent with federal and state government. Robinson died through suicide on July 1, 2020, the day Guillén’s stays have been discovered.
“We in the end have closure on this case,” stated legal professional Natalie Khawam, who represents Guillén’s circle of relatives.
Guillén was once declared lacking in April 2020, when her circle of relatives stated they didn’t pay attention from her for an strange period of time after she was once referred to as in for a shift within the army base’s armory room.
In keeping with a prison criticism, Aguilar stated she and Robinson — who government accuse of bludgeoning Guillén to dying on the base — disposed of her frame through mutilating it and hiding the stays in within sight woods.
Two weeks after Guillén’s frame was once discovered, Aguilar pleaded now not in charge to conspiracy fees. Later, a pass judgement on brushed aside her felony crew’s try to throw out her confession as a result of she stated she had now not been learn her Miranda rights on the time her commentary was once taken.
Guillén’s circle of relatives has stated they consider she was once sexually pressured all through her time on the Texas army base. Whilst Military officers have stated they don’t consider Robinson pressured Guillén, they admitted in a file a 12 months later that Guillén was once pressured through any other soldier on the base.
Following Guillén’s dying, her circle of relatives’s claims that she was once pressured and assaulted on the Texas base ignited a motion on social media of former and energetic provider contributors who shared their stories at army bases during the rustic the usage of the hashtag #IAmVanessaGuillen.
Then-U.S. Military Secretary Ryan McCarthy stated all through a consult with to the Texas base that it had some of the perfect charges of homicide, sexual attack and harassment within the Military, later including that the patterns of violence have been an instantaneous results of ” management disasters. ”
State and federal lawmakers handed law in 2021 honoring Guillén that got rid of some authority from commanders and gave survivors extra choices to file abuse and harassment. Military officers disciplined 21 commissioned and non-commissioned officials in reference to Guillén’s dying.