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Author’s Note: This article includes potentially disturbing content including sexual assault and threat of violence. Reader discretion is advised.
Last week, former Staff Sergeant Greville Clarke was found dead in his cell of the United States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB), several months into his life sentence. After an 18-month spree of horror, Clarke was charged with 29 different counts, including rape, kidnapping, and premeditated murder. His crime rampage also brings safeguarding failures at the hands of Fort Hood officials to light.
In March 2022, a young female soldier living in the east end of the Fort Hood Army post was held at knifepoint and sexually assaulted. On the night of July 15th, he entered the barracks room of Private Mayra Diaz where he raped her and nearly strangled her to death. Despite public proclamations about creating safer conditions for female soldiers after the brutal murder of Vanessa Guillen, Fort Hood failed to send out any public safety notice warning women about a string of assaults.
It was not until October 2nd 2022, that this pattern became public knowledge on the base. On that Autumn night, Clarke broke into the room of another female soldier. He held her hostage in her room, attempting to sexually assault her. Eventually, he lost control, and the woman escaped, naked and screaming for help. Clarke ran the opposite direction in the building, where he was chased and apprehended by fellow soldiers. That night, he admitted to attacking four different women, spanning back to March 2021.
During his first attack, he entered the barracks room by crawling through the woman’s window. The woman was alone, but had fallen asleep while Facetiming her girlfriend–something she often did due to fear of being stationed at Fort Hood after Vanessa Guillen’s death. Clarke bound her hands, but her girlfriend woke up and began to scream, prompting him to wipe away prints using her comforter and flee the scene. An independent investigation proved that higher-ups at Fort Hood had actionable intelligence that there was a pattern of sexual assaults, but did nothing to inform the public. Chris Swecker, a retired assistant director of the FBI asserted: “I think the first time around [in March 2021], everyone in that barracks area should have been alerted to this case and given enough details to know how to protect themselves.”
As CID investigates Clarke’s death, questions remain about why Fort Hood leaders failed to alert soldiers sooner — and whether promised reforms after the Vanessa Guillén case have truly taken hold.
