01/10/2026
In 2010, what should have been a routine moment of safety for a U.S. Army officer deployed to Kuwait turned into a life altering act of violence one that would eventually expose a serial ra**st operating both overseas and within the United States.
On April 29, 2010, U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID) agents at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, were contacted regarding a brutal assault and attempted r**e inside the female shower trailer on base. The victim, a U.S. Army officer, reported that she had been showering for approximately three minutes when an unknown male suddenly attacked her.
The assailant was described as a male whose face was almost entirely concealed by a military tan undershirt. He forcibly pulled the officer from the shower to the opposite end of the trailer and ordered her to turn away from him. When she resisted, the attack escalated violently.
The attacker slashed her repeatedly with a box-cutter-type knife, cutting her face, arm, and hand, and punched her several times in the head. During the assault, he chillingly stated that he “guessed” he would have to kill her. Fearing for her life and bleeding from multiple wounds, the victim eventually told him she would comply with his demands if he would stop cutting her. Moments later, the attacker fled the scene on foot.
The wounded officer ran to her tent for help and was quickly transported to the medical facility at Camp Arifjan, where she received numerous stitches for her injuries.
CID investigators processing the scene discovered critical evidence. A military tan shirt believed to have been used to conceal the attacker’s face was found covered in what appeared to be blood. Investigators also followed a trail of blood leading from the female shower trailer to a nearby male washroom. Blood samples were collected and sent to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory (USACIL) for analysis.
Testing revealed two DNA profiles in the blood: one belonging to the known female victim and another belonging to an unknown male with Type A blood.
That unknown male DNA would soon unlock a much larger and more disturbing pattern.
The DNA profile matched evidence recovered from a 2008 sexual assault in Norfolk, Virginia. In that case, a woman had been r**ed in her home. One month later, the same attacker returned and r**ed her daughter. Norfolk Police Department investigators had also recovered latent fingerprints from those crime scenes.
NCIS and the Norfolk Police Department began working together to identify the suspect responsible for all three attacks.
Further investigation led authorities to Amin Jason Carl Garcia, a U.S. Navy Reservist. Military records revealed that Garcia lived approximately one mile from the Norfolk victims at the time of the 2008 assaults and was assigned to Camp Arifjan during the 2010 attack in Kuwait.
By December 2013, Garcia was still serving in the Navy Reserves. While he was attending a drill weekend at the Navy Operational Support Center (NOSC) in the Bronx, New York, NCIS agents discreetly placed him under surveillance. After Garcia finished eating lunch on base, agents collected items he had used a fork, two cups, and a banana to obtain DNA samples.
Laboratory analysis confirmed what investigators suspected: Garcia’s DNA matched the DNA recovered from the 2010 assault in Kuwait and both 2008 Norfolk r**es. Further testing confirmed that the latent fingerprints from the Norfolk crime scenes also matched Garcia’s fingerprints.
In August 2014, Garcia was convicted in Norfolk Circuit Court for the 2008 r**es and sentenced to life in prison.
On November 20, 2015, Garcia pleaded guilty in federal court to the assault and attempted r**e of the Army officer at Camp Arifjan.
Now 43 years old and a former U.S. Navy sailor, Amin Jason Carl Garcia was sentenced to 240 months (20 years) in federal prison for the Kuwait attack bringing accountability, years later, to a survivor whose courage and evidence helped expose a serial predator operating both in uniform and in silence.
