John Porter
Death penalty to be sought in TCU-area strangulation, two other cases
BY MITCH MITCHELL
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH - Three men — including the suspect in the strangulation of a 22-year-old woman near TCU in April — will face possible death sentences if they are convicted of the crimes they are accused of committing, according to the Tarrant County district attorney’s office.
The office will seek the death penalty against Reginald Gerald Kimbro, James Earnest Floyd Jr. and Burnches Marskish Mitchell, said Samantha Jordan, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.
District Attorney Sharen Wilson has sought the death penalty in only one other case since she took office in January 2015. That was the case of Rodolfo Arellano, 34, who is accused of kidnapping Elizabeth Pule Arellano and tying a rope that was attached to concrete around her neck and throwing her off the Lake Worth bridge in April 2016.
Rodolfo was in the Tarrant County Jail on Thursday with bail set at $500,000. A trial date is pending for Rodolfo; trial dates have not been set in the three other cases.
Kimbro is charged with capital murder in connection with the April 10 strangulation of Molly Matheson, a 22-year-old woman found dead in her apartment near TCU on April 10. Matheson graduated from Keller Timber Creek High School and had attended the University of Arkansas until 2015.
Kimbro said Matheson had texted him on the night of April 9, asking if he wanted to hang out, according to police. He said he went to her residence, an unattached apartment behind a home in the 2600 block of Waits Avenue, and that they eventually started making out.
Kimbro told investigators he was going to have sex with Matheson but she declined, citing her boyfriend. He said he left about 1:30 a.m. April 10 and drove to Arkansas.
Kimbro is also suspected of raping and killing Megan Leigh Getrum, a 36-year-old Plano woman whose body was found April 19 at Lake Ray Hubbard. Getrum had not been seen or heard from since the evening of April 14, when she went for a walk at the Arbor Hills Nature Preserve in Plano.
Detectives also learned that Kimbro was a suspect in two sexual assaults in which the victims reported being choked — one in September 2012 in Plano and the other on South Padre Island in March 2014.
According to Kimbro’s arrest warrant affidavit in the Plano case, he was not charged in the 2012 rape accusation because “there came a point during the investigation in which [the victim] no longer wished to pursue the case.”
The victim now wants to pursue charges, the affidavit said, and police are investigating.
Kimbro was in the Tarrant County Jail on Thursday, with bail totaling nearly $2.4 million.
In a statement, Matheson’s family thanked the district attorney’s office for its “commitment to bringing [Kimbro] to justice.”
“Sadly, had the jurisdictions responsible for allowing him to walk free for other previous sexual assaults in Plano and South Padre, we would not be discussing this today,” the statement said.
Floyd is accused of beating John Porter with a metal table during a home invasion March 28 in Fort Worth, demanding his wallet and shooting him in the head.
Authorities said Floyd also shot Porter’s wife, Diane, in the stomach and tried to tie her hands with an alarm clock’s power cord, she told police in an interview at John Peter Smith Hospital.
As she lay bleeding on the floor, she said, Floyd demanded her bank card and personal identification number and shot at her head.
Floyd left the couple’s home in their Kia Sorento SUV, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. He was in the Dallas County Jail on Thursday in an unrelated kidnapping case with bail totaling $700,000.
Mitchell is accused in the slaying of Khrystophir Scott, 27, at a White Settlement convenience store on Jan. 27. Scott was a customer at the Quick Sak store, at 898 S. Cherry Lane, when two men entered the store and demanded that everyone get on the ground. A struggle ensued and Scott was shot.
Mitchell was in the Tarrant County Jail on Thursday with bail totaling nearly $1.5 million.
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