Plano Police Department has cracked a ten-year-old sexual assault case. This arrest could be a major break in a series of rape cases where the suspect only targeted Black Sorority Alumnus. Reports state.
Jeffrey Lemor Wheat, 48, was arrest on a Felony Warrant out of Crawford County, Arkansas and was picked up by Arkansas Police on Jan. 11.
Wheat was transferred back to Texas to face charges and is currently being held at the Collin County Jail and has a bond of $500,000.
David Tilley of the Plano Police Department stated, “It was just their hard work and dedication to make sure they covered every single base”.
Arrest documents state, Wheat was identified using DNA evidence that was found at the crime scene.
In April 2011, there was another case out of Plano where officers made contact with a woman who reported she was sexually assaulted in her bedroom. The victim told investigators at the time the “suspect knew her name and used it during the attack.” There was blood found on the pillowcase of the victim’s bed from when she bit the suspects hand.
Investigators traced that call to a payphone at a Chevron Gas Station. Investigators were then able to obtain the video of the suspect from the side of the store.
According to court documents, the victim of the sexual assault confirmed to investigations that the man seen on the surveillance tape obtained. The man seen in the video was indeed the assailant.
Several months later, Plano Police received a crime bulletin from the Coppell Police Department about a similar sexual assault that happened back in September of 2011.
A vaginal swab was obtained from the Coppell incident using a sex assault exam kit. Investigators compared the DNA from the blook in the Plano Case and semen from the Coppell Case and determined it was from the same man, stated in the arrest affidavit.
“I’m overwhelmed, I’m anxious, and I’m angry,” expressed Cheryl Smith, a Delta Sigma Theta alumnus and a journalist who has been following the case since day one. “He didn’t do it to me, but he didn’t have to do it to me for me to care and I wanted other folks to care,” Smith stated.
Investigators also received another crime bulleting detailing a similar sexual assault that occurred in the city of Corinth in October of 2011.
Arlington Police Department also had a sexual assault case and the DNA collected from that scene matched the three 2011 offenses to one man, court records showed.
Plano Police has reached out to Wheat’s ex-wife in November of 2020. She confirmed that Wheat was the person on the 2011 surveillance video calling to apologize for the Plano assault, according to the affidavit.
Although Plano Police stated the arrest is only related to the incident that occurred in Plano, the department is still in communication with the other police departments in relation to this case.
