Man in custody in connection with 2011 Plano sexual assault case, police say

A suspect in a 2011 sexual assault is now in custody, Plano police announced Friday.

Jeffery Lemor Wheat, 48, was booked into the Collin County jail Friday on one count of sexual assault.

WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reported that Wheat’s DNA linked him to an April 2, 2011, attack on a woman at her Plano home, according to an affidavit. The assailant called the woman several days later to check on her, police said.

That assault was the second in a series of attacks on women — all of them alumnae of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority who were in their 50s or 60s — over an 11-month period, which police have said were committed by the same man.

On Nov. 11, 2010, the attacker attempted to sexually assault a woman in Plano.

On Sept. 15, 2011, the attacker sexually assaulted a woman in Coppell.

On Oct. 14, 2011, the attacker sexually assaulted a woman in Shady Shores.

Police have previously said that DNA evidence conclusively connected three of the assaults, but not the first incident because it was an attempted rape and no DNA was collected.

Though the victims were members of the same sorority, they did not all attend the same college or know one another. In each case, the assailant made clear he knew personal information about the victim, police said.

Wheat’s arrest-warrant affidavit also said the DNA in those cases matched DNA from a 2003 sexual assault in Arlington, WFAA reported.

In the April 2011 case in which Wheat was arrested, the attacker knew the victim’s name, according to the affidavit obtained by WFAA.

When the attacker called the woman days later, the call was traced to a convenience store in Mesquite and police were able to obtain surveillance footage of the caller. Wheat’s ex-wife told police in November that the man in that footage was her former husband, according to the affidavit.

Wheat was apprehended in Crawford County, Ark., WFAA reported. His bail was set at $500,000, and he did not have an attorney listed in court records.

It’s unclear whether charges have been filed in any of the other attacks.