By Harriet Ramos
Published November 9, 2022
A 26-year-old man pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault Wednesday and was sentenced to 25 years in prison, the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. Jessie DeWayne Ray was accused of sexually assaulting a woman at gunpoint in an Arlington park in 2019. Ray recorded the assault on his iPhone and the video was discovered in May 2020 when Tyler police arrested him during a narcotics investigation. When Tyler police entered information from the video into an FBI database known as the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, they found it was a match for the then-unsolved Arlington case.
Ray is the first person arrested under Molly Jane’s Law, a 2019 Texas law that obligates law enforcement officials who investigate sexual assaults to put the names of offenders into the national Violent Criminal Apprehension Program so they can be linked to other cases they may be responsible for. The goal is to prevent perpetrators from committing the same offense over and over. The law was named after 22-year-old Worth resident Molly Jane Matheson, who was raped, beaten and strangled to death in 2017 by a serial rapist.
“This law is a key resource for law enforcement officers investigating cases of sexual assault,” Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Sharen Wilson said in the release. “Rapists can be caught, arrested and prosecuted before they attack again.” Molly Jane Matheson’s killer, Reginald Kimbro, received multiple life sentences in March, when he pleaded guilty to the murders of Matheson and Megan Getrum, of Plano, as well as several other rapes.
Molly Jane’s mother, Tracy Matheson, was in court Wednesday for Ray’s sentencing. “It is extremely satisfying to know Molly Jane’s Law provided a way for the agencies involved to communicate with one another in order to identify this offender,” Tracy Matheson said. “Serial rapists must be held accountable so that lives can be saved. He may be the first; he will not be the last.” Ray already received a life sentence in Tyler for manufacture/delivery of a controlled substance and faces additional sexual assault charges in Oklahoma City, according to the news release.