Jessie DeWayne Ray sentenced to 25 years in prison for Arlington sexual assault
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) — A man was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday after a new law helped detectives in Tyler connect him to a 2019 sexual assault in Arlington.
Jessie DeWayne Ray, 26, was handed the sentence on Nov. 9, 2022 after he pleaded guilty to an aggravated sexual assault charge.
Ray is the first person convicted under Molly Jane's Law, which requires law enforcement agencies investigating sexual assaults to add information to an FBI database in order to help investigators find similarities in cases and prevent offenders from attacking again.
In court, Ray admitted to sexually assaulting a woman on Sept. 21, 2019 at the Crystal Canyon Park in Arlington. The victim told police that her assailant approached her from behind at gunpoint and recorded the attack on his iPhone.
A few months later, in May 2020, Ray was arrested in Tyler during a drug investigation. Police searched his iPhone and found a video of a sexual assault. Detectives added the details of the assault into the FBI database, which indicated that the video was a recording of the Arlington attack.
Ray was given a life sentence for manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance in Tyler before being transferred to Tarrant County. He will now go to Oklahoma City, where he faces charges in connection with another sexual assault linked to him after his arrest.
Molly Jane's Law is named after Molly Jane Matheson, a 22-year-old Fort Worth woman who was raped and murdered by Reginald Kimbro, a man with a long history of sexually assaulting women. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole in March 2022.
Molly Jane's mother, Tracy Matheson, criticized police for not identifying Kimbro's pattern of behavior and lobbied for the new law, which was signed in Sept. 2019.
"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," said Tracy, who was in court for Ray's sentencing. "Serial rapists must be held accountable so that lives can be saved. He may be the first; he will not be the last."
