aw_200706_nation

Army investigators have positively identified the remains of Spc. Vanessa Guillén, her family told the Washington Post on Sunday, more than two months after she vanished from Fort Hood.

Remains discovered Tuesday in a shallow grave east of the Texas installation triggered a manhunt that ended when one suspect – Spc. Aaron Robinson – killed himself as officers closed in, the Army said.

Robinson’s girlfriend was charged with evidence tampering and said she helped dispose of the body, court records show.

Guillén’s disappearance, and her family’s allegations that she was sexually harassed, drew attention from activists, lawmakers, celebrities and other soldiers. The family has also complained that the Army’s search for the 20-year-old soldier lacked urgency and care at the highest levels.

Recovered bones, hair and other remains were used to identify Guillén on Friday, family attorney Natalie Khawam said. But the family waited until Sunday for a priest and Army chaplain to formally notify Guillén’s mother, Gloria Guillén.

“She did feel Vanessa was no longer with us,” Gloria’s daughter, Mayra Guillén, told the Washington Post by phone from Houston. “She had a hard time accepting there isn’t a whole body.”

Investigators moved too slowly to piece together evidence and secure phone data that led to the suspects more than two months after Guillén disappeared, Khawam said.

“Her leadership failed her,” Khawam said. “The Army failed her.”Guillén was bludgeoned to death at Fort Hood on April 22, near where she was last seen, investigators said. The remains found Tuesday were so close to a site searched by investigators nine days earlier that they unknowingly stood on top of them, one search leader said.

Fort Hood and the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, which headed the investigation and is the service’s equivalent to the FBI, did not respond to a request for comment over the holiday weekend.Guillén believed that she could not approach her chain of command with allegations, her relatives said, and instead confided in family members. “She felt if she spoke, something would happen,” Mayra Guillén told The Post. “I now realize everything leads back to them harassing her at work.”

“They broke her spirit,” sister Lupe Guillén added.

The Army said last week that the allegations had not produced viable leads and that it found no connection between Guillén’s death and the accusations.

Maj. Gen. Scott Efflandt, the deputy commander of Fort Hood, defended the search effort and said officials offered the family tempered information to protect the integrity of the investigation.

Museum won’t remove flag-bearing car

VOLO, Ill. – A northern Illinois auto museum has no plan to stop displaying a Dodge Charger from the “Dukes of Hazzard” television show with the Confederate battle flag painted atop the vehicle.

Statues of Confederate generals and soldiers are being taken down across the country, NASCAR has banned the flag from its races and the Confederate emblem is being removed from the Mississippi state flag.

But the Volo Auto Museum about 50 miles northwest of Chicago says the famed “General Lee” from the first season of the TV show isn’t going anywhere, according to a weekend report in the Crystal Lake, Illinois-based Northwest Herald.

“We feel the car is part of history, and people love it,” museum director Brian Grams told the newspaper. “We’ve got people of all races and nationalities that remember the TV show and aren’t offended by it whatsoever. It’s a piece of history and it’s in a museum.”

Since the museum acquired in 2005 what it says is the last surviving 1969 Charger from the first season of the television program, Grams said nobody has complained. And the museum has continued to hear from people supporting the decision to keep the car as the push to rid the landscape of what is increasingly viewed as a symbol of racism, Grams said.

“Several people have reached out with positive comments about us leaving it on display,” Grams said, “complimenting us for leaving it there and not having a knee-jerk reaction to remove it like a lot of places are.”

Grams says the General Lee is a piece of history and the museum would not remove it any more than it would think of removing the Nazi memorabilia displayed in parts of the museum’s military section.

From wire reports