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 terrorized North Texas alumnae of a sorority more than a decade ago learned his fate Tuesday.
Jeffrey Wheat, 52, pleaded guilty in a Collin County courtroom and was sentenced to life in prison.
DNA connected Wheat to four sex assaults in Plano, Corinth, Coppell and Arlington. Three of the victims had a lot in common, they were alumnae of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, they were in their 50s and 60s, and were all three brutally raped in 2011 in their homes.
The fourth victim was a woman who was attacked in her Arlington home in 2003.
Get top local stories in DFW delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
“You get to be a certain age and here these women thought they were safe in their homes, and they were violated,” said Cheryl Smith, publisher of Texas Metro News and alumnae of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
Since 2012, Smith said she's printed reminders about the case that's affected her personally and professionally.
“It was frightening. It was frustrating. I was angry,” said Smith. “I didn't want people to forget.”
After the crimes, police gathered video evidence of the suspect, created a sketch, and even had his DNA, but the profile didn't match anyone in the system so the case went cold.
Then two Plano Police detectives were assigned to it in 2018 after new DNA tests connected the same suspect to a 2003 Arlington rape case.
“There were different times they thought they were close to the suspect, but they never gave up,” said Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis.
Willis said detectives spent two years narrowing in on a suspect using forensic genetic genealogy.
“There they found distant relatives and narrowed it down from there and that's how they caught him,” said Willis.
Wheat was arrested in 2021 for first-degree burglary of a habitation with intent to commit sexual assault. He was living in Lexington, Mississippi, and working as a long-haul truck driver at the time of his arrest. However, Willis said Wheat had been living in the DFW area during the periods of all four of the offenses.
Investigators said he worked at a credit card processing company used by the sorority.
“He misused this position at this company and had access to sensitive information and he misused that in the worst sort of way,” said Willis. “He’s just a straight-up predator.”
Tuesday, Willis said Wheat pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal across multiple counties coordinated by Assistant Criminal District Attorney Calli Bailey.
Wheat was sentenced to life in prison for cases in Collin and Tarrant counties. In Dallas County, he was sentenced to 30 years for aggravated sexual assault.
“I wanted to go and shout and then I felt like I was going to bust out crying and I was trying to balance everything out because I hurt for the victims,” said Smith.
Smith said she thinks of the case every day and is thankful the story now has an ending.
