DNA connected 52-year-old Jeffrey Wheat to four sex assaults in Plano, Corinth, Coppell and Arlington. NBC 5’s Meredith Yeomans has reactions from today’s sentencing, and how the case went from cold to conclusion.
A serial rapist who admitted to multiple home invasion sexual assaults that took place in North Texas over nearly a decade will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
District attorneys in Tarrant and Collin counties said 51-year-old Jeffery Lemor Wheat pleaded guilty Tuesday to four sexual assaults in North Texas that occurred between 2003 and 2011 in Tarrant, Collin, Denton and Dallas counties. Wheat was sentenced to life in prison for the cases in Tarrant and Collin and he was sentenced to 30 years for the sexual assault in Dallas County.
Investigators said DNA evidence taken during the investigation into a 2003 sexual assault case in Arlington was resubmitted in 2018 and was found to be a match for assaults being investigated in Shady Shores, Coppell, and Plano. Those three assaults were reported to have occurred in 2010-11, and all of the victims were alums of the same sorority.
Investigators identified Wheat as a suspect in the assaults and located and arrested him in 2021 in Crawford County, Arkansas. The district attorney's office said that subsequent DNA tests after his arrest confirmed DNA matches to the Arlington case and the three other cases.
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"We are exceptionally grateful for the hard work of all the agencies that came together to secure justice for these women," said Assistant Tarrant County District Attorney Stephanie Simpson in a statement.
On behalf of the Arlington Police Department, I am elated we can bring closure to the victim in this case. We will never give up hope to fight for victims no matter how long it takes.
Al Jones, Arlington Chief of Police
Officials said when the DNA from the Arlington case was tested initially 15 years earlier, limitations in technology and testing could not obtain a match. The DNA testing that was used in 2018 is called Forensic Genetic Genealogy, or FGG, and is the same testing used that brought Glen McCurley, the man who killed 17-year-old Carla Walker in 1974, to justice in 2020, nearly 50 years after her abduction and murder.
In a probable cause affidavit obtained by NBC 5 in 2021, detectives said genealogical research, online records searches, social media research, and interviews led them to develop Wheat as a suspect in the attacks.
On Nov. 12, 2020, detectives spoke to Wheat's ex-wife, who confirmed he was the father of her child. Wheat's ex was shown a video recorded outside a gas station in 2011 where a man used a payphone to call one of the assault victims and apologize. Wheat's ex-wife said she was sure the man in the video was her ex-husband after recognizing "the walk, his shoulders, his height, and that he had glasses."
A DNA sample was taken from Wheat's child, and those samples were sent to a DNA lab that said the suspect's sample from the crime scene "cannot be excluded as the possible biological father" to the child.
In the affidavit, police said Wheat's ex-wife thought he was working for Brinks Security customer service in 2003 -- the same security company used by the victim in the 2003 attack. Wheat's ex-wife said she thought he worked for Fiserv, a financial services company, in 2011. Detectives said the victims in the 2010-2011 attacks all were associated with a sorority that utilized Flagship Merchant Services, a credit card company powered by First Data Independent Sales, which was a company later purchased by Fiserv.
The district attorney offices in Tarrant and Collin counties thanked investigators for not giving up on the case and for the bravery of the survivors who provided victim impact statements Tuesday during sentencing.
Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis said three of the women testified during sentencing Tuesday, confronting Wheat and describing the trauma they endured.
"This maximum sentence would not have been possible without the bravery of these four survivors, as well as the above and beyond cooperation and coordination of Plano, Coppell, Corinth, and Arlington police, and the Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant county district attorney offices," Willis said.
