Man Sentenced After Admitting Attacks On Girlfriend’s Young Daughters

April 2, 2022 – A Westwood man was sentenced to 21 years in prison Friday for sex crimes committed against his girlfriend’s young daughters in 2017 and 2018, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

Defendant Ray Jones, 46, pled guilty in Criminal Court to aggravated child abuse against one child and was sentenced to 18 years without parole. He also will be on the Violent Sex Offender Registry for life.

He was sentenced to an additional three years for solicitation to commit aggravated sexual battery against the other girl. Both incidents happened at a residence on Western Park Drive in southwest Memphis where Jones lived with his girlfriend and her daughters.

In April of 2017, the 12-year-old daughter said in a note to her mother that Jones had asked her repeatedly if he could fondle her. After she refused each time, she said Jones then offered her money if she would let him fondle her.

In August of 2018, the girl and her 8-year-old sister said Jones came into their bedroom and began stabbing the younger sister with a knife, causing wounds to her face and shoulders. The attack did not stop until the older sister – who was the victim in the earlier incident jumped on Jones’s back.

The case was handled by Asst. Dist. Atty. Gavin Smith of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit (SVU) which prosecutes cases that include rape, child sexual abuse, severe physical abuse of children, elder abuse, and vulnerable adult abuse. The SVU was created as an expansion of the multi-agency Child Protection Investigative Team (CPIT).