The mother of a slain 101st Airborne soldier at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and a Latino civil rights organization are offering a combined $55,000 award for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case.
Pfc. Katia Duenas-Aguilar, 23, was found by local law enforcement at her off-base residence in Tennessee on May 18. Local law enforcement ruled Duenas-Aguilar’s death as a homicide the next day.
On May 25, the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the country’s oldest Latino civil rights groups, announced at a press conference its intention to give $25,000 to anyone who provides information to find Duenas-Aguilar’s killer. Carmen Aguilar, the soldier’s mother, also announced her pledge of $30,000 in addition to LULAC’s reward.
“LULAC stands with Carmen Aguilar, mother of the young woman, an army soldier serving her country far from home, whose life has been taken, and we must have justice,” LULAC President Domingo Garcia said in a statement. “For this mother to commit, not just money but her total soul, to finding whoever did this deserves our complete and unequivocal support.”
The death of Duenas-Aguilar “echoes memories” of the 2020 homicide of Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén, Garcia said in the statement. Guillén was murdered at Fort Cavazos, Texas by Spc. Aaron Robinson. During the investigation, LULAC also pledged $25,000 for information that led to an arrest and conviction of Guillén’s killer.
Guillén’s family said she experienced harassment and assault at the base, and her death sparked outrage that led to the I am Vanessa Guillén Act. The legislation revamped how the military looks into cases of sexual harassment and assault by putting investigations in the hands of independent investigators outside the chain of command and making sexual harassment punishable in the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.
President Joe Biden signed the provision as part of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act in December 2021.
Duenas-Aguilar enlisted in the Army in 2018 as an information technology specialist, completing basic training at Fort Eisenhower, Georgia. Duenas-Aguilar moved to Fort Campbell in 2019. She was from Mesquite, Texas.
She is survived by her mother and 4-year-old son.
Those with information or additional video footage are asked to contact Detective Hofinga of the Clarksville Police Department at (931) 648-0656, ext. 5720, according to a statement from the Clarksville Police Department. Those who prefer to remain anonymous and be eligible for a cash reward can call the Clarksville Montgomery County Crime Stoppers Tipsline at (931) 645-8477, or go online and submit a tip at P3tips.com/591.
Zamone “Z” Perez is a reporter at Military Times. He previously worked at Foreign Policy and Ufahamu Africa. He is a graduate of Northwestern University, where he researched international ethics and atrocity prevention in his thesis. He can be found on Twitter @zamoneperez.
