Sgt. Greville Clarke enters the Lawrence H. Williams Judicial Center at Fort Cavazos, Texas, on Dec. 10, 2024, for a hearing. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)

FORT CAVAZOS, Texas — Army Spc. Anthony McCollough sat in his third-floor barracks room on a Sunday morning in October 2022 listening to music. His neighbor, a new female soldier assigned to his air defense artillery company, had texted him to find out what he was doing. He responded but never heard back from her.

Soon, a figure flashed past his shaded window screaming for help. McCollough dressed and ran outside to see a man in dark clothing running from their building, two soldiers exhausted from chasing him and another woman blocking the door to her ground-floor room. Inside was McCollough’s neighbor, naked except for a belt attached to her waist like a leash. She was seeking refuge from an armed robbery, sexual assault and attempted kidnapping at the hands of a sergeant who she had met only days earlier.

That testimony from McCollough on Tuesday was part of the second day of Sgt. Greville Clarke’s court-martial at the central Texas Army base, which is expected to last through May 2. Clarke, 32, is accused of attacking this woman and four other female soldiers living in and around Clarke’s own barracks building between March 16, 2021, and Oct. 2, 2022.

His attacks were “careful, calculated and planned,” Maj. Allyson Montgomery, the prosecutor on the case for the Army Office of Special Trial Counsel, said Monday in her opening statement.

“The barracks are a refuge and safe place. The accused took that away. … When he used force, fear and violence, he turned their barracks rooms into crime scenes,” she said.

Clarke used various methods to break into the rooms, including a key that he had kept from living in one of the buildings, a known trick of opening a window to reach a locked doorknob, and his clout as a noncommissioned officer to convince new soldiers to open their doors in the middle of the night, Montgomery said. He would then wield a knife or pistol to demand their money, sexually assault them and, in one attack, strangle a woman to near death with a lamp cord.

Clarke has pleaded not guilty to the 37 counts against him, including charges of attempted premeditated murder, attempted rape, attempted unlawful use of an access device, violation of a lawful general regulation, rape, unlawful recording, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, kidnapping and obstruction of justice.

However, Clarke, who was apprehended in the hours after his October 2022 attack that McCollough described, confessed to his crimes during an interview with the Army Criminal Investigation Division. Excerpts from a recording of the interview were played Tuesday in court, where Clarke’s case is being tried by a military judge, Col. Maureen Kohn. There is no jury.

In that interview, Clarke described attacks against other women, which investigators at that time had not formally linked together, said Matthew Casper, assistant special agent in charge of the CID office at Fort Cavazos. Casper interviewed Clarke for hours that night, getting him to speak first of his difficult childhood and then of his attacks against fellow soldiers.

As the crimes were unfolding in the barracks during the course of a year, none were ever shared with the public, Casper said Tuesday during his testimony. Only people in CID or people told of them by the victims would have known about what had happened. Clarke even brought up an assault that CID was not initially tracking because it had been handled by Fort Cavazos police instead of CID.

Dressed in gray pants, a gray tank top and the same white Converse sneakers that left footprints in one of the barracks rooms, Clarke said he found the door to the room propped open by the deadbolt that morning, so he walked in and hid in the bathtub. He wore a medical mask and sunglasses to hide his face, as well as gloves, a hooded sweatshirt and pants. Eventually, the woman returned from the laundry room.

Stars and Stripes does not name people who identify as victims of sexual assault, unless given permission to do so.

“I waited for her to leave. She didn’t. She came into the bathroom,” Clarke said in the interview. “I pushed her and told her to shut up.”

He said he pointed his Walther brand firearm at her — one of at least six guns that he owned and stored at other people’s homes because personally owned guns are not allowed in the barracks.

As Montgomery described the attack in her opening statement, the female soldier, who had not yet been assigned a roommate, had left her door propped open that morning as she walked to the laundry room and back. The barracks buildings in that area are motel-style with doors that open to an outdoor hallway.

The woman had begun to clean her toilet when Clarke attacked, pushing her to the ground and putting the weapon to the side of her head. He tied her hands, blindfolded her, removed all her clothing except for her shirt, took her phone and began demanding her password and banking information.

He stole about $14,000 from her, according to his charge sheet.

“He turns from her money to her body,” Montgomery said.

After sexually assaulting the woman with his hands, Clarke untied her, fully undressed her and forced the woman to shower to his specifications. He then affixed the belt from her Army uniform around her waist.

“She’s asking him questions. He tells her to stop making sense,” Montgomery said.

Clarke then told the woman that he wanted to take her to a room where he’s prepared to kill her, the attorney said. He tried to put her in a suitcase, but it didn’t work. He then went into the room’s walk-in closet and began to empty a large plastic “tough box” of the woman’s items.

Her blindfold had lifted enough at this point to see that Clarke was no longer watching her.

“She tiptoes out of the room, opens the door and runs screaming,” Montgomery said.

Clarke told Casper in the interview that he pointed his gun at the woman as she ran.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” Clarke told the CID agent. “I didn’t want to shoot anyone, so I ran.”

As Clarke ran, he dropped one of his two cellphones, which had a photo of his yellow and white Yamaha motorcycle as the lock screen image. This allowed investigators to quickly identify him as a suspect, according to information discussed in court.

Clarke, who has been in pretrial confinement at Bell County Jail since he was arrested Oct. 2, 2022, has been absent from his own trial this week because he refused to be transferred from a holding facility on post to the courthouse. Speaking to the judge Monday through a video feed from the facility, Clarke said he was under constant observation because he was deemed a risk to himself and could not sleep or shower. The lights were always kept on in his cell, and he was not allowed privacy during a shower.

“I don’t plan to participate in my current capacity,” Clarke told the judge.

The judge ruled he had ample opportunity for personal hygiene but was not taking it. She ruled the court-martial could proceed without his presence because he was waiving his right to be there.

“She is well within her right to do that,” said Sherry Bunn, a former Army attorney who now represents accused service members in military court. She is not affiliated with Clarke’s case.

“You can forfeit your right to be present because you don’t want to be there, you can say you are not going to be there, or you can do something for the judge to kick you out,” Bunn said.

The judge only has to determine that waiting would create an unreasonable delay in the trial.

Prosecutors presented evidence Monday that if Clarke did attend the trial, he could become violent and a danger to others.

Mark Boore, a confinement liaison officer for Fort Cavazos, testified Monday that he has transported Clarke to the base from Bell County Jail for more than two years. In that time, he has seen Clarke have outbursts and refuse to comply when he feels he does not have control.

Clarke on Monday asked guards to brush his teeth, Boore said. Instead, Clarke tore the lockers from the walls of the restroom and headbutted them. Even with restraints, he said everyone in the courtroom could be at risk of harm.

“Sgt. Clarke is extremely strong,” Boore said.

Clarke’s defense team did not object to his absence from court.