Jonathan McCarty: Alternative Suspect in the Greg Kelley Case

Jonathan McCarty is the Leander High School football teammate and housemate of Greg Kelley who was later identified as an alternative suspect in the 2013 Cedar Park child sexual assault for which Kelley was wrongfully convicted. McCarty lived at the in-home daycare run by his mother where the abuse occurred, closely resembled Kelley physically, and was never interviewed by police during the original investigation. He has never been charged in connection with the daycare case. In February 2019, he pleaded guilty to unrelated unlawful restraint and drug charges and was sentenced to four years in prison.

Who Jonathan McCarty Is

McCarty is the son of Shama and Ralph McCarty, who operated the in-home daycare in Cedar Park, Texas, where a four-year-old boy identified in court records as “H.M.” said he had been molested in July 2013.¹ He lived in the home, played football alongside Greg Kelley at Leander High School, and was a close friend. Acquaintances described the two young men as looking so alike that they resembled “twins” or “brothers.”²

Kelley had been staying at the McCarty home during part of his junior year of high school. He was 17 when Cedar Park police arrested him on August 9, 2013, and a Williamson County jury convicted him in July 2014 of super aggravated sexual assault of a child. The sentence was 25 years in prison without parole.³

Why Police Never Looked at Him in 2013

Cedar Park Police Chief Sean Mannix and Detective Chris Dailey focused the investigation entirely on Kelley. McCarty was never interviewed. Investigators later admitted in court that they never compiled a list of other potential suspects, never ran criminal background checks on other adults in the home, and never showed the child victim a photo lineup that included anyone other than Kelley.¹

Detective Dailey testified under oath that the goal of a police investigation, in his view, was “successful prosecution” rather than seeking the truth.⁴ Kelley’s original defense attorney, Patricia Cummings, had previously represented McCarty’s brothers and described her relationship with the McCarty family as “friendly.” Multiple witnesses, including the mother of Kelley’s girlfriend and a defense investigator, later testified that they urged Cummings to look at McCarty as a suspect and she refused. Tracey Anderson said Cummings held up her hand and told her, “we aren’t going to go there.”⁵ Defense investigator AJ Keirn said he believed an “apparent conflict of interest” existed. Cummings disputed that account and said she had made “sound legal decisions.”⁶

The Evidence That Later Pointed to McCarty

When the case was reexamined starting in 2017, several facts about McCarty came into focus.

He was present in the home when the abuse occurred. Kelley, by contrast, had moved out of the McCarty house nearly a month before the assault was reported.⁷ The child victim had mentioned McCarty by name in addition to Kelley.² Evidence also surfaced that McCarty had allegedly confessed the crime to a friend.⁸

After a 2017 arrest on unrelated drug charges, investigators reportedly found child pornography on McCarty’s phone and home computer.² Texas Ranger Cody Mitchell, who conducted the reinvestigation prompted by Kelley’s writ of habeas corpus, testified that three people, not just Kelley, should have been considered suspects.⁹ Mitchell also found that Detective Dailey had manipulated dates in the indictment to align with the period Kelley was living in the home, and had used leading questions with a second child witness after telling the child that the first victim had already identified Kelley.¹

Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick, who took office in January 2017, called the failure to investigate McCarty a “catastrophic failure” by the original investigators and described the Cedar Park Police Department’s work as “wholly deficient.”²⁸

Why McCarty Was Never Charged in the Daycare Case

Despite everything Mitchell’s reinvestigation surfaced, McCarty has not been charged with the child sexual assault. Dick said his office would not pursue charges without a confession or “extraordinary evidence,” concluding there was not enough for a successful prosecution. Prosecutors said McCarty “likely never will be” charged in the case.¹⁰

Dick attributed that outcome in part to how thoroughly the original investigation had been mishandled, which he said made it nearly impossible to build a case against anyone else years later. He called the case a “perfect storm of all aspects of the criminal justice system failing.”¹¹

The Unrelated Case That Sent Him to Prison

In 2015, a woman came forward alleging that McCarty had sexually assaulted her when she was 15 years old.¹⁰ Authorities noted during that investigation that McCarty had been accused of sexual assault by women in four different Texas counties.²

In February 2019, McCarty pleaded guilty in Williamson County to unlawful restraint and drug charges as part of a plea agreement, and was sentenced to four years in prison. The sexual assault charge itself was not part of the final plea. Dick acknowledged what the plea gave up: “Obviously you are always hoping to get the most appropriate charge and most appropriate sentence, but when you reach a plea agreement you have to make some concessions.”¹⁰

How the Kelley Case Ended

While McCarty was never held accountable for the daycare abuse, the case against Kelley came apart. Attorney Keith Hampton, hired by Kelley’s family after the conviction, filed a writ of habeas corpus that led to the Texas Ranger reinvestigation.¹² In August 2017, a district judge granted Kelley a $50,000 bond and he was released after more than three years in prison. In December 2017, the Williamson County court found that the evidence established Kelley’s “actual innocence.” The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld that finding on November 6, 2019, and on November 27, 2019, Judge Donna King formally declared Kelley innocent of all charges.¹

Detective Chris Dailey resigned from the Cedar Park Police Department on July 9, 2020, one day after Cedar Park Mayor Corbin Van Arsdale and City Councilmember Mike Guevara filed a criminal complaint with the DA’s office alleging that Dailey had committed aggravated perjury in the case. No publicly reported charges resulted from the complaint.¹³ Chief Sean Mannix retired from Cedar Park in early 2020 and was set to be sworn in as chief in Burnet that July, but he withdrew on the same day after Kelley’s supporters organized protests.¹⁴

Kelley filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Cedar Park, Mannix, and Dailey in May 2020, alleging a fraudulent investigation, the withholding and fabrication of evidence, a conspiracy to violate his constitutional rights, and a failure to train officers. The parties settled the case for $500,000 on July 19, 2022.¹

1
Prison Legal News. $500,000 Settlement for Texas Man Wrongly Imprisoned for Child Sex Abuse
2
Oxygen. Where Is Greg Kelley’s Friend Johnathan McCarty
3
Time. Outcry on Showtime
4
Texas Observer. Outcry and Southwest of Salem Review
5
Spectrum News. Greg Kelley Hearing Day 2
6
Austin American-Statesman. Greg Kelley Blasts His Lawyer From 2014 Trial as She Defends Her Work
7
CBS Austin. Greg Kelley Sues Cedar Park, Former Police Official After Wrongful Sex Assault Conviction
8
The Appeal. Texas District Attorney Says System Failed in Case of Man Convicted of Sexual Assault
9
CBS Austin. Texas Ranger Testifies There Are Three Suspects in Greg Kelley Case
10
Austin American-Statesman. Alternate Suspect in Greg Kelley Case Sentenced in Unrelated Charges
11
Oxygen. Why Did DA Shawn Dick Participate in Outcry Docuseries on Greg Kelley Case
12
People. How Texas Teen Football Star Rebuilt His Life After Wrongful Conviction
13
KVUE. Cedar Park Police Chris Dailey Resigns, Greg Kelley Case Complaints
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KXAN. Former Cedar Park Police Chief Sean Mannix Withdraws, Will Not Become New Burnet Police Chief