Hi, Crime junkies. I'm your host Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I want to tell you today is one that we've actually been following for a while now. One, the whole country has been following.

It's a story about one woman's tragedy tangled up with so many tragedies on so many levels.

This week on Wednesday is Veterans Day here in the US and every year we cover stories of people in our military who have devoted their lives to defend and protect us but who are not being defended or protected by the very government they serve.

And in 2020, the story of a 20 year old soldier took over the media after she goes missing from one of the largest military bases in the country.

Her tight-knit family was determined to find her and bring her home. But the investigation into her disappearance uncovers more than anyone bargained for.

Secrets, lies, and a system that failed to protect the most vulnerable people within it, leaving everyone asking what is going on at Fort Hood.

This is the story of specialist Vanessa Guien.

It's April 22, 2020 and Guien is trying to reach her sister Vanessa.

She's calling and calling, but the calls just keep rolling over to voicemail and she's texting and texting but her texts aren't going through at all.

They're not even showing as delivered and it's super concerning because even when she's working, Vanessa never turns off her phone.

Myra starts calling around which is how she learns that Vanessa missed a standing phone call with her fiance Juan as well and they talked every day at noon. But when he called on this day, she never answered.

Myra knows right away that something is terribly wrong. Like she's worried maybe Vanessa's been in some kind of accident or something and every minute that passes, it's just compounding her worry.

The Guien's get a call that evening from the leadership at Fort Hood, Texas, the military base where at the time Vanessa is a private first class and they're asking if they had seen or heard from Vanessa.

Apparently she was expected to check in at 4pm but didn't and no one has seen her on the base since like midday.

Are any of her colleagues at the base concerned at this point? Not nearly as concerned as her family and that is super frustrating for Myra as you can imagine because at this point, Vanessa's family isn't just worried.

I mean they're frantic and growing more frantic by the minute.

Finally around midnight that night, Myra has had enough of the waiting and she decides she's just going to go look for Vanessa herself and she starts the three hour drive from Houston to Fort Hood.

According to an episode of ABC's 2020 called I Am Vanessa, Myra meets with the base commander first thing the next morning and finds out that all of Vanessa's things, her keys, her wallet, her credit cards and IDs, were found in the armory room where she'd been working with.

According to the US Army's website, they check her barracks and her unit and at the same time people are doing all the things you'd expect to see with a missing persons case like asking around to co-workers and friends calling local hospitals like the works but no one has seen or heard from Vanessa.

So at this point, the military reports were missing to local law enforcement and engages their criminal investigation division or the CID. But it's not until the next day that the military police issue a BOLO or beyond the lookout to other police in the area and another day after that before they issue their first media alert asking for the public's help to locate Vanessa.

At the same time, Myra and the rest of her tight knit family are bringing their own team together to look for Vanessa, putting up missing person posters, posting to social media, even putting up billboards on the roads leading into Fort Hood.

So the CID goes about its investigation, retracing Vanessa's steps on the day that she went missing and they're able to pinpoint what seems to be her last movements or at least the last ones anyone saw on the base.

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