welcome to what's a crime i'm linda and today we're going to be talking about
yet another missing soldier from fort hood
his name is elder fernandes and he's been missing
since monday august 17 2020. tragically yesterday tuesday
august 25th he is believed to have been found
according to reports but before i get into it if you'd like
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this is sergeant elder fernandez he's 23 years old and according to elder's mom
he's only been in texas for seven or eight months
she says he's been in texas for seven or eight months
he was just having some issues lately inside his unit
and as i mentioned he is believed to been found yesterday tuesday august 25th
eight days after he was missing now authorities are waiting on forensic
confirmation but they did say that there was id that was found
and it indicates that it is of sergeant elder fernandez
here's what the report says at 5 36 pm tuesday a call was received in reference
to a medical call along the railroad tracks west of south
49th street a caller advised that a mail was
observed near the railroad tracks upon officer's arrival it was determined
that the subject had been deceased for some period of time
identification found at the scene indicates the victim may be missing fort
hood soldier 23 year old elder fernandez however no forensic confirmation has
been made at this time at this initial stage of the
investigation there is no indication of foul play
the investigation is ongoing justice of the piece ted duffield has ordered an
autopsy next of kin have been notified our
thoughts and prayers are with the fernandez family during this
challenging time temple police chief sean reynolds
said temple pd is the lead agency in the death investigation tpd
is working in conjunction with fort hood and killeen police department criminal
investigation divisions temple fire and rescue also responded to
the scene this is an ongoing investigation no
additional information is available at this time
and here's what we know so far in the timeline on tuesday august 11th
elder was admitted to the carl r darnell memorial hospital
his aunt isabel said that the family called him every single day but he told
them very little about why he was there the family also
said fort hood officials informed them later
that elder had been suicidal but they don't know exactly when
then on sunday august 16th elder talked to his mom
alina and promised her he'll video call her when he's out of the hospital
other family members said that alina and elder were very very close they had an
extremely close relationship it was reported
his mom said the last time we talked on sunday evening he told me mom
as soon as i get out of the hospital and get my cell phone i will call you
i'll make a video call so you can see me these were his last words to me
i promise you i will call you monday and it never happened
it's not okay and on monday august 17th elder was released from the hospital and
there were no phone calls made to his mom
he was allegedly taken back to a home on woodlands
drive-in clean at the 2700 block of woodlands drive as to who drove him
the family says it was a staff sergeant elder's aunt said we know it's
a staff sergeant we have requested permission to speak with him to
find out what kind of conversation did you all have
what state of mind was he in we have not had the opportunity to speak with this
gentleman interestingly the place that he was
allegedly dropped off at was his last known address and it wasn't where elder
lived i will speak to that in a little bit in
this video he moved out of that place at the end of
july he had recently signed a new lease but
never picked up his keys yet his mom alina says the roommates told us
he was never there they had never seen him on that monday
he had already moved out from that apartment
she said nobody had seen him open the door or get inside the house we don't
know after that now i haven't seen any
information yet on where he was staying from august 1st
to august 10th before he went into the hospital
since july or the end of july was the last time
he was at the last apartment so i do wonder
when his lease was for and when he was supposed to move in
because again he never picked up the keys for it so he had that
day in between now texas equisearch searched the area where elder was
supposedly dropped off and found nothing and i was really happy to
hear that texas equisearch was part of this search
tim miller from x equisearch actually was helping
in the search for vanessa guillen at the end of it and he talked about the
red flags in that case so i'm very curious as to what he has to
say in this one now elder's car was found still on post
it was reported that his car was found with all of his belongings in it
you know what's weird about some of these stories from fort hood
is many of these soldiers either had just bought a car
was about to buy a car or just bought a apartment it's just an observation i'm
not saying it's anything weird it's just something that sticks out to me
that it seems to be you know ongoing but i guess with the age
and them just coming on to fort hood that would be part and parcel with it
perhaps and speaking of being new it seems that many of these
soldiers who have gone missing or killed or to
that effect all were around the age give or take of
one year being on fort hood so around that mark
it's weird now on tuesday august 18th elder should
have been back to work and alina phones elder's supervisor at
fort hood and he said he was just about to call her
to inform her that elder didn't show up to work and elder was recently
transferred to a different unit because he was the victim of
abuse of sexual contact according to the us army
official in a statement it said we can confirm that there is
an open investigation of abuse of sexual contact involving sergeant fernandez
the unit sexual assault response coordinator has been working closely
with sergeant fernandez ensuring he was aware of all his reporting care
and victim advocacy options the transfer was meant to ensure that he received
proper care and ensure that there were no opportunities
for reprisals now natalie kawam who is the lawyer
representing vanessa gian's family is also now representing elder's family
and she says we must fight for them like they fight for us
she said that army officials told elder's relatives that he was found
hanging from a tree and in a statement natalie said i am saddened that another
soldier who served the country has been destroyed by sexual assault and
sexual harassment and this toxic culture in the military
that exists and in an article it stated that elder
was supposed to be released to the care of his roommate on august
17th and an army sergeant said he dropped him
off at his apartment complex but the
roommate said he never saw him and natalie said that instead of making
sure that elder was in the care of his roommate he left him
in front of the apartment building and she said that elder had been
suicidal following a sexual abuse incident after
a staff sergeant allegedly groped him and elder reported the abuse and he was
transferred to a different unit but natalie said he didn't have any
mental health issues when he joined the army
he re-enlisted this year he told his mom how happy he was to serve
everything was great until he was sexually assaulted by his staff sergeant
he was upset and humiliated she says that information was then
shared with his new unit unfortunately then
the hazing and bullying continued now i did
read that the place where elder was found was just
over 25 miles away from fort hood and it's just over 25 miles where the
apartment complex was to where he was found so i'm curious to
know how the heck elder got there who drove
him and what method of transportation got him
there because his car was found at the base and
he allegedly was dropped off at this woodlands place but he never went inside
and i looked on a map and that's a 10 hour walk if he chose to walk there
but my question is how did he get there 25 miles away what did he use to hang
himself he had all his belongings so to speak in
his car as that was reported he didn't go into
the apartment and he didn't have keys to his new
apartment and like i said he didn't have a method
of transportation so unless he took some sort of transit
or something to that effect certainly he
wouldn't have gotten anything from the hospital
and the question i have is why would he go 25 to 30 miles away to do it
what does that place mean to him if anything it very well could have been
on his own accord but i definitely have questions over this
as many of you out there do as well and of course his family they see red
flags all over the place is what was reported there are one too
many soldiers going missing and dying from fort hood some sort of change has
to happen and i did have a look on elder's
facebook page and i noticed way back in april he did
post something for vanessa and then the months following so
this sexual abuse from my understanding happened in
april as well to elder and after that there was
a couple posts that he had in there that it was just a little bit it alerted
me and wondered what was going on at fort
hood with him because there was just a couple
things in there that um that seemed to be
bothering him so to speak because he he did post a lot of memes
but they ended up being kind of like i guess
pot shots kind of thing to fort hood in my opinion
let's have a chit chat below and have a chat about this it's very very
sad what happened to elder and what happened to
11 soldiers since well just in 2020 my heart goes out to elder's family no
one should have to lose a child and no one
certainly should have to lose a child
this way and knowing that he was abused by a superior let's have a chit chat
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