by Anna Tinsley
FORT WORTH
Molly Jane Matheson made a difference.
This week, a year after a law was signed in her honor, a man wanted in a September 2019 sexual assault in an Arlington park has been arrested because of it.
Jessie D. Ray was arrested last month in Tyler during a narcotics investigation. After a search of his iPhone showed a video of a sexual assault, law enforcers put details about that attack into the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database.
Information about that sexual assault wouldn’t have been in the database if not for Molly Jane’s Law, which now requires law enforcement officers investigating a sexual assault to input information into the national database, which is maintained by the FBI.
The measure authored by state Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, was signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in May 2019. It was named for Matheson, a 22-year-old Fort Worth woman who was murdered in 2017.
This was the first known arrest in a sexual assault case in Texas because of Molly Jane’s law.
“I am gratified that Molly Jane’s law is having the exact impact that was intended when we passed this monumental legislation, which is to identify and remove violent sexual predators from our streets,” Goldman said. “As I’ve stated many times, this is the most important piece of legislation I’ve ever authored in my eight years of serving as a state representative.”
As for Matheson, Reginald Gerard Kimbro is accused in her rape and murder. He remains in the Tarrant County Jail with bail set at more than $1 million. He once dated Matheson.
Police determined that Kimbro had visited Matheson’s home in the TCU area April 8, 2017, the night before her body was found.
He admitted he visited Matheson, but said she was alive when he left. Police believe he raped and strangled her, then washed her clothes, bedding and body, trying to get rid of the evidence. He was arrested after DNA tests tied him to evidence found on her body.
Kimbro also has been indicted in the capital murder of Megan Leigh Getrum, a 36-year-old Plano woman. He has been linked to other cases, including the choking and raping of a 20-year-old woman in South Padre Island in 2014.
Goldman has said the goal of Molly Jane’s Law is to help investigators find similarities in cases they are working on, potentially preventing the same person from attacking again.