Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

A former soldier from Suffolk was sentenced to 200 months in prison for the attempted murder of another soldier while he was stationed at Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos) in June 2000.

According to court documents, Allen Houston James, 46, entered the barracks room of another soldier while she was sleeping and attempted to rape her at knifepoint. The victim resisted and was repeatedly stabbed. After James left the room, she escaped and reported the incident before she was taken to the hospital for emergency surgery for stab wounds. Medical records revealed that one of the victim’s neck wounds was within millimeters of her jugular vein and penetrated from the front to the back, nearly reaching her spine. As a result of the stabbing, the victim sustained permanent nerve damage.

The case went unsolved until 2019, when a new DNA analysis by the United States Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory (USACIL) identified James as the perpetrator. He was located while he was stationed at Fort Belvoir in March 2021. James was indicted on July 13, 2021, for one count of attempt to commit murder and was arrested the following day in the Eastern District of Virginia. He was transferred to Waco on July 19, 2021, and then reassigned to Chief Judge Alia Moses in Del Rio on Nov. 13, 2023. James was found guilty by jury trial on Feb. 23, 2024.