A former soldier was sentenced on May 6 of the 2001 murder of a 19-year-old pregnant soldier, following the conclusion of an investigation that spanned 22 years and two continents.
Shannon Wilkerson was convicted Monday by a federal jury in Pensacola, Florida, of murdering Amanda Gonzales, according to a Department of Justice news release. Wilkerson managed to evade justice for more than two decades after Gonzalez’s body was found in her barracks in Hanau, Germany, on November 5, 2001.
Advances in DNA technology, as well as the inability to explain Wilkerson’s whereabouts between the time Gonzales was last seen on November 2 and when her body was found on November 5, eventually helped achieve a conviction.
Prosecutors alleged Wilkerson was wearing a sweatshirt he had borrowed from a friend at that time, according to court documents. The sweatshirt’s owner said he had not provided the clothing to anyone else. The government conducted a DNA test on the hoodie in 2021 using previously unavailable technology.
That’s when Jeffrey Fletcher, a forensic biologist at the U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Laboratory who examined the hoodie, identified something significant.
“Fletcher found a mixture of DNA on the sleeve of the sweatshirt that was at least 4,000 times more likely to have originated from Gonzales, Wilkerson, and the sweatshirt owner than from an unknown person, Wilkerson, and the sweatshirt owner. sweatshirt,” the prosecutor’s office said in the statement.
Despite overwhelming evidence, Wilkerson’s defense attempted to pin the murder on Chinu Kim, a soldier who lived in the room next to Gonzalez and who killed two mechanics five years after Gonzalez’s death. Kim was convicted in 2010 of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to two life terms in prison without the possibility of parole.
United States Attorney Jason Coody poked holes in the defense’s argument, noting, among other things, that Kim was too small in stature to match the killer in the Gonzalez case.
“Amanda Gonzales’ injuries indicate that she was quickly overpowered by a large, strong individual,” Coody said, according to court documents.
The prosecution also argued that Kim was interviewed in prison and made no mention of Gonzalez’s murder, despite having already been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The Justice Department also mentioned a potential motive along with the sentencing announcement.
Timothy R. Langan Jr. of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Division said Wilkerson murdered Gonzalez with the belief that she was pregnant with his child.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, praised the department’s tenacity in seeking to resolve the case.
“Many dedicated police officers and prosecutors persisted for years, pursuing every available lead and never wavering in their search for evidence to hold the victim’s killer accountable for his heinous crime,” Argenteri said in the statement.
Wilkerson will be sentenced on August 8 and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. The FBI’s New York Field Office, along with the Department of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, led the investigation.
Riley Ceder is an editorial writer at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice and human interest stories. He previously worked as a student investigative internship at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the ongoing Abused by the Badge investigation.
