Source: Sergei Bobylev / Getty
A man who has been accused of terrifying members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. has been apprehended. Dating back to 2003, four members of the historic Black sorority reported being sexual assaulted in four different cities in Texas and DNA evidence has finally connected police to their suspect after searching for 10 years.
According to WFAA, Jeffery Lemor Wheat was arrested in Arkansas and later transferred to Texas. He is being held on $500,000 bond at the Collin County Detention Center and will be charged with felony sexual assault regarding a sexual assault that took place in Plano, Texas, Plano Police said. Dallas Morning News reported that Wheat does not have an attorney yet.
DNA was collected from the April 2011 crime scene due to the victim biting Wheat during the attack. She told police that Wheat also called her a few days after to apologize for sexually assaulting her. A similar incident was reported in September 2011 in Coppell, Texas by another member of Delta Sigma Theta. The blood from the April incident and semen from the September attack was determined to be a match, WFAA reported. In October, Corinth Police Department received a report of another sexual assault that was similar to the attacks from the prior months. After collecting DNA evidence from these three attacks, police were also able to get a led in a sexual assault from 2003 in Arlington, Texas. The DNA collected from the 2003 case, where another Delta reported being attacked, was a match for the three others. All four members were Black women in their mid-50s and 60s.
In November 2020, Wheat’s ex-wife identified Wheat in the surveillance footage where he is seen calling the Plano, Texas victim to apologize for the attack, WFAA reported.
“Our biggest fear is there are more [victims],” David Tilley of the Plano Police Department told WFAA. “That’s something that we wanna know. There may have been some unreported cases.”
The Plano Police Department are working with police in Arlington, Corinth and Coppell regarding the other sexual assault cases so that Wheat can be charged.
