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 — A sergeant who attacked young women who were alone and new to the Fort Cavazos barracks will spend the rest of his life in prison after at least two of his five victims asked the judge for no leniency.

“I want this man to suffer in fear for the rest of his life,” said the woman who was nearly strangled to death in July 2022 by Sgt. Greville Clarke. “I want him to have a long life behind bars wondering when God will decide to give him his last breath.”

Clarke, 32, was convicted of 29 separate crimes including attempted premeditated murder, rape and kidnapping after a court-martial without a jury that lasted more than two weeks. Military Judge Col. Maureen Kohn on Thursday announced his sentence — life in prison with the eligibility for parole for the attempted murder charge and more than 112 years for all the other crimes.

Clarke was also found guilty of assault with the intent to commit rape, burglary, robbery, aggravated sexual contact, aggravated assault, assault with intent to commit kidnapping, assault consummated by battery, indecent visual recording and obstruction of justice. He would serve the 112-year sentence should he ever be approved for parole, according to the Army Office of Special Trial Counsel, which prosecuted the case.

Kohn acquitted Clarke of just two crimes — a second count of attempted premeditated murder and attempted fraudulent use of an access device.

Clarke was also demoted in rank to E-1, forfeited all pay and allowances and will receive a dishonorable discharge. He will serve his time at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., though he has been in confinement at Bell County Jail since his arrest Oct. 2, 2022.

Clarke’s crime spree began in March 2021 when he broke into a woman’s barracks room while she slept. A year later, he began again, escalating his violence and concealing his crimes by wearing gloves, masks and sunglasses. In the third of his five attacks, Clarke was scared away from the woman’s room when he heard her roommate speak. He was caught Oct. 2, 2022, when the woman escaped from him.

“I am incredibly proud of the five survivors of Sgt. Clarke’s violence for standing strong against him during trial. It has been my honor to walk with them on the journey to receive justice for the heinous acts the accused carried out against them,” Maj. Allyson Montgomery, prosecutor with the Army Office of Special Trial Counsel, said in a statement Thursday. “May they now begin their lifelong paths of healing and vindication knowing their voices have ensured the accused is held accountable for his crimes.”

Clarke’s lawyers presented evidence this week to show there were factors from Clarke’s life that deserved leniency and an opportunity for parole, such as an abusive childhood and lack of stability growing up. Attorneys also presented family members who testified they were willing to support Clarke, should he ever be released.

The fifth and final woman attacked by Clarke spoke Wednesday, saying the pain and panic of that day have never really left her.

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

Clarke hid behind her shower curtain on a Sunday morning in October 2022 and surprised her while she cleaned the toilet. In the roughly three hours that Clarke held her hostage in her own barracks room, he tied her up, blindfolded her, hit her in the head with a pistol, raped her, forced her to shower to his specifications and then began a plan to take her from the room in a large plastic bin to kill her in another location, according to evidence presented in court.

As he cleared the bin, the woman ran from the room naked and screaming for help. Once safe in another woman’s room, she sobbed and dry heaved before an ambulance arrived.

“Surviving is not the same as healing,” she said.

She keeps pepper spray around her home, only buys see-through shower curtains, cries without warning and flinches anytime someone around her moves too quickly, she said. To occupy her mind, she’ll spend days cleaning every tile in the bathroom “to keep dark thoughts from taking over.”

However, the woman said she’s been able to achieve far more than she ever thought possible, including continuing her Army career, getting married and completing extreme physical challenges. Now a sergeant, she addressed the court wearing her Army dress uniform and glasses that she removed to wipe tears from her eyes as she moved to the memories and trauma that still “echo” in her mind.

“I carry the weight of leadership and what you did to me,” she said addressing Clarke directly, though he was not in court to listen. He waived his right attend any portion of the court-martial.

“I screamed from a mountaintop in Alaska ... because I don’t know how to hold all this pain that was caused,” she said. “My wife wants to help but sometimes she doesn’t know how to reach me when I shut down. … I never used to be this way.”

The woman Clarke attacked three months earlier and nearly strangled to death was not able to continue her service in the Army because she became afraid of every man she saw in uniform. The Army was the only career that she had ever planned or imagined for herself, she said Wednesday.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” she said.

On the July 2022 night that Clarke came to her room, he wore his uniform and a medical mask. He banged on her door after 2 a.m., and she only answered because she saw his sergeant rank. He then forced his way in with a pistol and proceeded for the next four hours to undress her, tie her up, rape her, force her to shower, waterboard her and then strangle her with a lamp cord until she was unconscious, according to evidence presented in court.

“It felt like a dream, like it wasn’t real. When I would seek help, people didn’t believe me,” the woman said, as she began to cry. “There are nights where I sit on the bathroom floor crying. Why did I live? Why did his attempt to take my life fail?”

After the two women spoke, two relatives of Clarke’s answered questions for Maj. Duncan Roberts, an attorney for Clarke.

Jamickia Clarke, the convicted soldier’s younger sister, said her brother is known to his family as Patrick. He found their mother dead in the bathtub when he was 2 years old. They then moved in with their father, who was later deported back to Jamaica for drug charges. Their stepmother raised them until she died nine years later.

“I can’t remember a time he wasn’t beaten every day,” Jamickia Clarke said of living with their stepmother in Florida. It was a “horrible, abusive environment,” she said.

Her brother could only eat bread and water for dinner some nights and would be forced to stand for hours as punishment, once leading him to urinate on himself, she said.

Jamickia Clarke, an Air Force veteran, said she understood the impact that her brother’s actions had on the lives of the victims, and she is sorry.

“I know these nights of terror will impact you for the rest of your life in ways I will never understand,” she said.

Sondra Logan, Greville Clarke’s aunt and a medically retired Army veteran, also apologized to the women on behalf of her nephew.

“You did nothing wrong,” she said to the women. “I feel your pain. I feel your family’s pain. This isn’t an easy road for you guys.”