The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division has concluded that the death of soldier Ana Basaldúa Ruiz at the Fort Hood military base in Texas (later renamed Fort Cavazos) on March 13th, 2023, was a suicide, according to its final report, to which Telemundo News had exclusive access. The investigation reveals the toxic culture that was permissive of the harassment of women, something Basaldua suffered before her death, and incidents such as a soldier’s aggression — who tried to suffocate her — or having been forced to change units after an “inappropriate relationship” an officer had with her, though he was not punished for it.
[Read the original story in Spanish]
The documents to which Telemundo News had access to shed light on Basaldua’s tortuous time in the Army. She enlisted in August 2021, at the age of 18, and in December, she was assigned to the Texas base, where she soon began complaining to colleagues and family about being harassed by the team leader who was assigned to her as a counselor.
The man, whose identity was not released by the Army, would become jealous and upset if he saw her talking to others, according to the documents. She described him as an “intense” person who made her feel “smothered,” according to testimonies from soldiers who knew her well.
In 2022, the military base investigated if a situation of possible harassment developed as was reported by the soldier’s family after her death, and concluded that an improper relationship did exist, as mentioned in the final report on her death. However, she was transferred from the platoon, while her supervisor was promoted and assigned to another brigade “to have a fresh start as a leader.”
The Army’s investigation also reveals that Basaldua was physically assaulted in December 2022 by another soldier, with whom she had a relationship, although there is no evidence that she presented a formal complaint to the chain of command. In March of that year, the soldier, whose name is not revealed in the report, admitted to investigators that “it was possible” that he once tried to suffocate her, but said he did it “in a joking manner.” The report does not reveal any disciplinary action against the soldier, and Basaldua’s family is pressing for at least a permanent mention of the assault in his file.
Beyond these two incidents, the testimonies of soldiers interviewed by the Criminal Investigation Division seem to show a persistently toxic culture permissive of harassment within the Army, despite the changes introduced as a result of the murder of soldier Vanessa Guillén at Fort Hood in April 2020.
Ana Basaldua, pictured with her father, Baldo, served as a combat engineer with the 1st Cavalry Division at the Fort Hood, Texas, military base, now renamed Fort Cavazos.Cortesía de Baldo Basaldua
One of the people interviewed by the investigators, a sergeant major who recruited Ana Basaldua in California in 2019, and whose identity is not disclosed in the report, said that he was in contact with the soldier and knew that “she was being harassed by her co-workers” at the military base. Although he offered no details, he said he believed it was because due “to her being a female in a male dominated field.” The sergeant, interviewed on May 1 by investigators, explained that when he recruited Basaldua he warned her of “the realities of entering a male dominated MOS [a military specialist] as a female when she picked her job.”
Another soldier, a former colleague of Basaldua at Fort Cavazos and now stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia, recalled to investigators that on one occasion the sergeant of his platoon asked him to escort the young woman to a vehicle yard because “the mechanics would make inappropriate comments towards females and make them feel uncomfortable.”
And a former teammate in the platoon she was transferred to after complaining of sexual harassment told investigators that the sergeant who led the group “favored females in the unit, and he noticed females were always requested to be his driver.” He also claimed to have seen a video showing an unidentified woman “dancing on” the sergeant, which he believed was “inappropriate.”
The report also reveals that in October 2022, another investigation was carried out for sexual harassment in the same company where Basaldua was, in a separate case from that of the dead soldier and that involved two soldiers with the rank of sergeant, as reported to the Criminal Investigation Division to the company commander, whose identity was not revealed, and who claimed to be unaware of the results of the investigation.
Ana Basaldua’s parents have accused the Army of allowing a culture of harassment against its members, especially women, and told Telemundo News that they are not satisfied with the investigation into their daughter’s death.
"My daughter did not commit suicide, my daughter was 'suicided,'" Ana Basaldua's mother, Alejandra Ruiz Zarco, said when interviewed in Tacámbaro, Michoacán, Mexico.Charbell Lucio / Noticias Telemundo
Nor do they accept the version that she took her own life. “Anita did not do that. I do not agree with what the investigators say,” her father, Baldo Basaldua, told Telemundo News in an interview this Tuesday at his home in Long Beach, California.
“My daughter did not commit suicide, my daughter was suicided,” said her mother, Alejandra Ruiz Sarco, interviewed by Noticias Telemundo on Monday in Tacámbaro, in the Mexican state of Michoacán. (Basaldua was born there and obtained U.S. citizenship in 2020).
“Ana Fernanda was such a happy and lively girl. It was very difficult for her to realize what reality was like in the Army: the confinement, psychological pressure, the physical and work pressure that they experience,” she said.
My daughter did not commit suicide, my daughter was suicided”
Alejandra Ruiz Sarco ana basaldua's mother
Telemundo News sent questions to the military base about the report's findings and the testimonies that paint a picture of a toxic environment for women, but so far it has not responded. In March, days after Basaldua's death, base commander Sean C. Bernabe said he took any allegations of harassment "very seriously" and was investigating the case for "action." "Harassment of any kind is contrary to the values of the Army," he said at the time.
The Army's Criminal Investigation Division has not responded yet to questions from Telemundo News about its investigation, but said it will do so “shortly” [this article will be updated to include that information as soon as it is received].
Baldo Basaldua, father of soldier Ana Basaldua, says he is not satisfied with the investigation that the Army conducted into the death of his daughter at Fort Cavazos, Texas. He wants to know what happened in the hours immediately after the young woman's death, on March 12, 2023.Ronny Rojas / Noticias Telemundo
After Basaldua’s death, the Army launched an investigation into the command culture and the environment at the military base while she was on duty, but the family is still awaiting the results, explained their attorney, Ryan Guilds. “We have yet to receive the results of the command investigation, despite the months that have gone by since Ana’s death.”
“When Ana joined the Army, she was a happy, energetic young woman with unlimited dreams and possibilities. Those are now gone. We have not received an explanation regarding her treatment in the days and hours prior to her death and what steps the Army took or didn’t take to prevent her death,” the lawyer said.
At the same base where Basaldua died, which is home to some 40,000 military personnel, four soldiers died in August, according to a statement in which the base concluded that "there are no discernable demographic trends other than the fact that all four deceased Soldiers were male and assigned to 1st Cavalry Division" (the same one where Basaldua served).
In the first quarter of 2023, 94 suicides were registered among active members of the Army, including Basaldua, an increase of 25% compared to the same period in 2022 when 75 soldiers died from this cause.
The military legal defense group Protect Our Defenders, which has provided counseling to Ana Basaldua’s family during the investigation, also said, “The Army’s silence following that request speaks volumes.”
“Months after her death, the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz remain unanswered. Uncertainties persist and inquiries remain unanswered,” the vice president of the group, Josh Connolly, told Telemundo News.
Ana Basaldua was recruited at this Army office in downtown Long Beach, California, in August 2021. She asked her father to come with her.Ronny Rojas / Noticias Telemundo
An “inappropriate” and “improper” relationship
Basaldua arrived at Fort Hood in December 2021 after completing her training at the Fort Leonard Wood military base in Missouri. She was stationed as a combat engineer with the Bravo Company at the 1st Cavalry Division, where she was assigned a team leader to give her “mentorship and extra physical training” in her first few months of service, according to the report.
In mid-March 2022, Basaldua began to express her disagreement with the soldier’s attitude, who at that time held the rank of specialist. According to documents, Basaldua told another soldier in her company — there were only two women in the Bravo Company at the time — that the soldier would become upset and give her “intimidating looks” if he saw her talking to other men.
According to the soldier’s testimony, who is not identified in the report, while they were eating at a restaurant one day, Basaldua showed her a text message that her team leader sent her after seeing her talking to a sergeant: “Looks like you picked up another victim.”
The former unit mate, interviewed by investigators on March 24, stated that when Basaldua was with her colleagues at the gym, the team leader would stare at her and would “make her feel uncomfortable and smothered,” to the point that Basaldua started avoiding him because of his intimidating attitude.
Basaldua’s former unit mate took her to her squad sergeant to talk about these problems. According to her statement, after she took her complaint to her command, the team leader “began to ignore PV2 Basaldua Ruiz at work and would not help her develop as a soldier, and he began to ask for her to be moved out of the platoon,” the documents point out. The investigative report does not specify whether the sergeant to whom she told what she was experiencing took any action in this regard.
On August 15, 2021, Baldo Basaldua uploaded to Instagram a photo he took with his daughter, Ana, in front of the Army recruiting office in Long Beach, California. That day, when she was 18 years old, Ana left for military service.Ronny Rojas / Noticias Telemundo
At least four military personnel interviewed told investigators that Basaldua told them about the problems she had with her team leader. A soldier friend, stationed at Fort Knox in Kentucky, and with whom she was in almost daily communication, stated to investigators that Basaldua told her that “her sponsor would flirt with her and make comments about her appearance” and “would show up to her barracks room unannounced on several occasions wanting to hang out.”
According to the testimony of that friend described in the CID report, Basaldua felt “frustrated” with the situation, but did not want to report the actions of her sponsor so as not to “feel like a victim.” In addition, she “felt if she spoke up about her sponsor’s actions, there would be consequences.”
“At first, she was scared because she didn’t want to get into trouble or anything like that. But she reported it, and supposedly they were going to take away that sergeant’s rank, but they never did it. He stayed there in the same company, the only thing they did was move Basa to a different platoon,” the same soldier told Noticias Telemundo last March, a few days after her friend died.
Another soldier, of Mexican origin, like Basaldua, who knew her when she was transferred from a platoon, told investigators that he heard her say that the counselor made her feel “uncomfortable” and that he “was always offering to give her rides and take her to get groceries and did not like it when other soldiers offered to help her.”
The young woman also informed her parents of the situation. “The person who received her [at Fort Hood], she was uncomfortable with him. She told me: ‘Mom, I can’t even pick up the phone because he asks me: Who are you talking to?’”, Basaldua’s mother, Alejandra Ruiz Zarco, told Noticias Telemundo last week.
“He controlled her,” her father said as he remembered his conversations with his daughter.
Ana Basaldua's mother, Alejandra Ruiz, caresses the coffin with her daughter's remains, along with the young soldier's father, Baldo Basaldua, on Thursday, March 30, at the Los Angeles airport.Cortesía de Honoring Our Fallen
According to the report, in June 2022, when “rumors” started spreading within the division of a romantic relationship between Basaldua and her team leader, and months after the soldier raised her complaints up the chain of command, Fort Hood opened an investigation into the case. It concluded that there was an “inappropriate relationship” and “undue familiarity” between the two, but ruled out that there was sexual harassment. The investigating officer recommended that they be separated and that the counselor, who was promoted in rank after receiving a leadership course, be sent to a different brigade for a “fresh start as a leader.”
Basaldua’s mother rejects the result of the investigation and criticized the decision of the military base to transfer her daughter from the platoon and allow the investigated soldier to continue his military career without sanction.
“How is it not harassment? For the love of God [...] Of course it was harassment! Obviously, it was harassment [...] I would’ve demoted [the soldier] or stripped him of his rank,” Alejandra Ruiz said. “My daughter was not responsible for provoking anyone (...) By the end of January she complained: ‘Mom, why did you make me pretty? It’s like it’s a sin to be pretty. You have to go unnoticed, so they don’t bother you.’”
Basaldua’s sponsor was interviewed by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division on March 21, a week after the soldier’s death. Now as a sergeant, he denied her allegations and assured that he “wanted the best for” Basaldua and that since he was assigned as her guide, he told her that he “would never engage in an inappropriate relationship with her.” He claimed that he “warned her of other male soldiers in the unit and that not all soldiers were her friends and wanted the best for her.”
However, he said that he was the one who felt “uncomfortable” being around her and that he asked his superiors on several occasions to remove the young woman from the unit. He also accused the unit leadership of having “put him in bad situations” by keeping the soldier under his leadership.
Latina soldier Ana Basaldua Ruiz was stationed at Fort Cavazos (formerly known as Fort Hood), Texas, for 15 months. Cortesía de la familia
The soldier asserted that it was he who asked the command to investigate the relationship and said he was upset with the military base because he felt that the investigations “only focused on PV2 Basaldua-Ruiz being a victim of harassment when he was the one who requested the inquiry.”
The sponsor also recounted that, when he heard about Basaldua’s complaints about his attitude, he asked to sit down with Basaldua in the presence of his squad and platoon leaders, as well as the platoon sergeant. He claimed that in front of them, Basaldua said she “did not feel harassed” by him, according to the documents. On May 27, 2022, weeks before the base investigated a possible situation of sexual harassment, Basaldua was transferred from the platoon, as requested by the military sponsor.
When asked about this particular case, the base did not respond.
During the 2022 fiscal year, the Department of Defense received 8,942 sexual assault complaints from members of the Armed Forces—eight out of 10 cases occurred during military service—a slight increase from the previous year, following recent scandals at military bases like Fort Hood, which caused modifications to be made to the legal code, like classifying sexual harassment as a crime for the first time in the military justice system. However, the majority of sexual assaults go unreported: only one in 10 men and three in 10 women who experience sexual assaults report it, according to estimates by the Defense Department.
Perhaps it is the fear of retaliation that stops victims from reporting their attackers: a third of military members who suffered a sexual assault say they experienced some form of retaliation after the attack, according to a RAND Corporation study published in 2021. Those who file complaints are more likely to suffer reprisals than those who remain silent, according to the study.
The badges Ana Basaldua wore on her uniform hang on a wall in her father's bedroom in California.Ronny Rojas / Noticias Telemundo
“He was choking me and I couldn’t move”
Two days after Basaldua’s death, Army investigators examined several of her journals found in her bedroom. In one of them they found a note written on December 10, 2022, in which Basaldua detailed an attack she suffered at the hands of a soldier with whom she had a relationship, and whose identity remains hidden by the Army. In the note, written in Spanish, the soldier retells how her partner tried to choke her.
“Something happened yesterday and I really didn’t like it a lot what happened but what can I do. I was with [name withheld by the Army] and he got mad at me for something dumb. He told me, ‘wtf,’, why did I have to put that on his pillow. He was choking me and I couldn’t move, and he thought that was super fun,” she wrote.
“I felt really bad and I didn’t know how to leave,” Basaldua wrote, “Truthfully I did not like any of this, and omg I hope to never see him again.”
In her diary, Basaldua recounted that after the attack, she wrote to a female soldier friend asking her to call her back, so she would have an excuse to leave the room and get away from the soldier. Her friend confirmed this fact to the investigators and showed the messages that Basaldua sent her. She also said that she told her about the attack that same day; she did not report it up the chain of command because she believed Basaldua would not have wanted her to.
Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz (right), in a photo provided by her family.Noticias Telemundo
On the same page where she detailed the assault she suffered, Basaldua also wrote about the books she wanted to read in January of this year: Bunny, by author Mona Awad; The Broken Woman, by French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir; A Universal History of Infamy, by Jorge Luis Borges, and The Winner Stands Alone, by Paulo Coelho.
The young woman shared details of the attack with her parents and with at least three soldiers. One of the soldiers, interviewed on April 12 of this year, told Army investigators that Basaldua told him about the episode on New Year’s Eve 2022, when he saw her at a party in their barracks. She informed him that “she attempted to break off the relationship gradually” and asked him not to report the incident to her superiors.
According to the testimony collected by the investigators, the couple began their relationship in September 2022 and continued to see each other for a few months after the attack. The soldier’s father, Baldo Basaldua, told Telemundo News that his daughter mentioned to him that her boyfriend pushed her against the wall and put his arm around her neck, trying to suffocate her and when she rebuked him, he told her that he “was playing.”
“She said she had gone out with that boy, that he was very jealous and that they were together. But she says to me, ‘He choked me, I felt like he was strangling me, I felt like that was it…,” her father recalled from his conversation with his daughter.
“I said to her: ‘What kind of game is that? That’s wrong.’ I said, ‘Then leave him, don’t be with that person. That person is not right in the head,’” he recalled.
Interviewed on March 22, the soldier who attacked her, who holds the rank of sergeant, admitted to investigators that the incident did occur, but assured them that the asphyxiation attempt was done “in a joking manner” and that Basaldua did not let him know it had bothered her, according to his testimony, which is included in the investigation documents.
A view of building 32023, where the body of Ana Basaldua was found on March 13. The image is included in the Army's investigative report.División de Investigación Criminal del Ejército
The Criminal Investigation Division submitted its report of the attack on April 21, but there is no record so far that the Army has taken any action against the soldier who attacked the young woman. The family’s attorney, Ryan Guilds, told Telemundo News that the Army is contemplating giving the soldier a letter of reprimand, a type of administrative punishment issued against members who break military service rules. However, that is not a final decision.
The family is pressing for said censorship to remain on the soldier’s permanent file. Otherwise, a letter of censure could disappear from a soldier’s file if he changes duty stations, or after three years, whichever comes first, the Army says.
A threat of expulsion over two incidents
In the months before her death, Basaldua’s life at the military base turned even more difficult. In December, the soldier tested positive for marijuana in an urinalysis, for which the Army assigned her clinical treatment for drug use and opened a separation process. Basaldua told a military therapist who was helping her that she “unknowingly” used marijuana; she explained to a soldier friend that the drug traces were the product of some cannabis gummies that she consumed at her house while she was off leave, thinking that they “were regular gummies.”
Almost all the soldiers interviewed by the investigators agreed that Basaldua’s personality changed radically in December, after the sergeant’s attack and the Army opened her separation process.
According to the testimony of one of her platoon mates, “Basaldua’s persona had changed, and she wasn’t herself once the positive urinalysis occurred.” Her “demeanor changed,” he said.
Latina soldier Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz in a photo taken while she was out eating with friends.Cortesía
Basaldua’s friend stationed at Fort Knox explained to investigators that after testing positive for marijuana, the military base restricted her from leaving and assigned her additional tasks, so the young woman was unable to travel home for the Christmas holidays in 2022. From that moment on, she noticed changes in her friend’s behavior —she spent more time alone, reading or sleeping in her room, she stopped going to the gym, and it took her longer to respond to her messages— and she heard her say that she no longer wanted to be in the military.
A sergeant who was her friend at Fort Cavazos told investigators that he ran into her in January of this year and thought she looked “depressed and sad.” Her soldier friend, also of Mexican origin, told investigators that Basaldua “hated being on restriction,” after she tested positive for drugs, and “appeared depressed and wanted to be done with the Army.”
He also criticized his unit at Fort Cavazos because he considers that they “failed her [Basaldua]” by not giving her a second chance after she tested positive for drugs. “Once she failed her urinalysis, the unit only focused on getting her out of the Army and not providing her any help,” the soldier said, according to the report.
Members of the Army Honor Guard carry Ana Basaldua's coffin at the Los Angeles airport. The soldier was serving as a combat engineer with the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas.Cortesía de Honoring Our Fallen
Basaldua’s mother, Alejandra Ruiz Zarco, told Telemundo News that she last spoke to her daughter on March 8, five days before her death. She said her daughter didn’t sound sad, but she said she was surprised when Basaldua told her she no longer wanted to be in the Army.
On February 21, however, Basaldua told the therapist on base that she wanted to stay in the Army and expressed hope that she would be allowed to continue in the service. On March 8, in another therapy session, she seemed happy and said she believed her commander would allow her to continue in the military, according to the investigators’ report.
But on March 11, 2023, an incident occurred that pinned Basaldua against the wall. That Saturday, around 2 p.m., Basaldua and two other soldiers were arrested by military police after they tried to take six perfumes and one lip gloss from a store located inside Fort Cavazos. The value of the items they attempted to steal was $346, according to the incident report.
Basaldua admitted her guilt and was exposed to another process of separation from the Army. “I’m willing to do anything I can to fix [this] and I’ll take my punishment for my actions, and I’m really sorry for what I did,” the young woman wrote in the affidavit she gave to the military police.
Baldo Basaldua, father of deceased soldier Ana Basaldua Ruiz, keeps in his bedroom in Long Beach California, a photo of his daughter along with the note that she left him the day she left for the Army, in August 2021.Ronny Rojas / Noticias Telemundo
The same day, after 9 p.m., the young woman spoke by video call with her father and told him about the incident, saying that it had been bad, but that the police had been nice to her.
On Sunday, March 12, she had to report to building 32023 at 9 a.m. to perform extra work. At 10 a.m., the non-commissioned officer on duty released her from her duties. It was the last time she was seen alive, according to the report.
Soldiers interviewed by the investigators said Basaldua was distraught over the possibility of being isolated from the Army after her arrest. Analysis of her phone records showed that her last internet entry was at 9:30 a.m. that Sunday, when she searched: “What happens when you get a dishonorable discharge?”
Ten minutes later, she sent her last text messages to her dad: “My whole life is wrong.” She also wrote to him that she wanted to die, although her father assures that this was an exaggerated phrase that she commonly used to talk about any problem.
“I took them as her normal responses: she’s angry, she’s tired. I never felt like it was something she was going to do,” Baldo Basaldua told Telemundo News.
An image included in the Army's report from the investigation shows that a half-read copy of the book Bunny, by Canadian writer Mona Awad, was left on Ana Basaldua's desk in Fort Cavazos (formerly known as Fort Hood).Reporte de la División de Investigación Criminal del Ejército
His father remembers those messages and still keeps them on his phone. He answered her right away, trying to cheer her up, but today he regrets not having called her on the phone.
“I regret not calling her because if I had called her I think she would have been someone else [...] I think it would have helped her a lot if I had called her on the phone,” he told Telemundo News through tears.
In the bedroom of his apartment in Long Beach, California, which he shared with his daughter on many occasions, Baldo Basaldua keeps photos and memories of her. He keeps a letter that she wrote him on August 15, 2021, the day she left for the Army. “Thank you for being my father, friend, teacher and partner. Thanks to you, at this moment I am the best version of me, I have never been so happy,” the note says.
From the day she wrote that note until Monday, March 13, 2023, 574 days passed, when after 7 a.m., two soldiers who were carrying out an orientation found Basaldua’s body semi-suspended, with a rope around her neck, inside the maintenance bay in building 32023, the same place Basaldua liked to go read because it was “quiet” and “no one bothered her there,” according to the testimony of several colleagues who knew her.
The Army investigation ensures that it found no criminal evidence in her death and concludes that the young woman took her own life, although they have not been able to determine the official time of her death, Guilds explained. In her room, along with her diaries, the investigators found papers with drawings and notes. One of them says: “I’m sorry if I’ve ever lied”; “There is always another option”; “Everyone says: you have to be real”; “You’re never alone.” On her desk, there was a half-read copy of Bunny, a book about femininity, loneliness and toxic friendships by Canadian novelist Mona Awad, one of the books Basaldua had set out to finish months before.
This story was translated from Spanish by Juliana Jiménez J.