By ROSE L. THAYER | STARS AND STRIPES Published: April 21, 2021 AUSTIN, Texas Within minutes of learning that Sgt. Elder Fernandes was missing from his unit at Fort Hood, Texas, Army investigators began making calls and identifying leads to locate the soldier. However, Fernandes had been missing for 48 hours before anyone contacted the Army Criminal Investigation Command, setting agents far behind in the race to find Fernandes, who had spent the previous week hospitalized for contemplating suicide. Upon his release Aug. 17, the soldier’s chain of command knew that he had been sleeping in his car, acting out of character and preparing to file for divorce and had recently reported he was the victim of unwanted sexual contact. Yet, he was dropped off at the home of a friend, without confirmation that he made it inside. When he missed a medical safety check the next day, no one alerted authorities, allowing precious time to slip by as his family called the unit for help and got
By ROSE L. THAYER | STARS AND STRIPES Published: April 21, 2021 AUSTIN, Texas Within minutes of learning that Sgt. Elder Fernandes was missing from his unit at Fort Hood, Texas, Army investigators began making calls and identifying leads to locate the soldier. However, Fernandes had been missing for 48 hours before anyone contacted the Army Criminal Investigation Command, setting agents far behind in the race to find Fernandes, who had spent the previous week hospitalized for contemplating suicide. Upon his release Aug. 17, the soldier’s chain of command knew that he had been sleeping in his car, acting out of character and preparing to file for divorce and had recently reported he was the victim of unwanted sexual contact. Yet, he was dropped off at the home of a friend, without confirmation that he made it inside. When he missed a medical safety check the next day, no one alerted authorities, allowing precious time to slip by as his family called the unit for help and got
Fort Hood soldier was still alive days after he disappeared, raising possibility that suicide could have been prevented, reports show
Family slams Army for not looking harder for troubled soldier
By Andrea Estes Globe Staff,Updated December 13, 2020, 5:56 p.m.
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A military honor guard carried the casket of US Army Sergeant Elder Fernandes into St. Edith Stein Parish in Brockton during the soldier s funeral in September.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff/The Boston Globe
Army Sergeant Elder Fernandes of Brockton was alive for days after he was discharged from a Fort Hood psychiatric hospital in August, newly released police reports show, raising the troubling possibility that searchers might have prevented his death if they had made a more extensive effort.