Tracy Matheson's mission for the past several years grew out of a parent’s worst nightmare. Molly Jane, Matheson’s 22-year-old daughter, was raped and murdered in her Fort Worth, Tex.-area apartment in 2017. Her killer, Reginald Kimbro, went on to murder a second woman, Megan Getrum, 36, days later. Kimbro was sentenced to multiple life sentences for those murders and additional sexual assaults in 2022, NPR reports. Since her daughter’s death, Matheson has channeled her pain into her nonprofit, Project Beloved: The Molly Jane Mission, an organization dedicated to advocating for sexual assault victims. The group's name was inspired by Molly Jane Matheson’s wrist tattoo that said “Beloved.” Tracy Matheson said justice was eventually done in her daughter’s case, but she was left feeling like there was more to do. “I have to do something. I can’t stay quiet,” she said.
She immersed herself in books and studies to learn about sexual assault, how it's addressed in the criminal justice system and the emotional and physical impact of trauma tied to an assault. Using this knowledge, Project Beloved developed one of its biggest initiatives: renovating police interview rooms from their harshly lit, cold atmosphere to become as comfortable and stress-free as possible. It's a way for investigators to become trauma-informed — acting in a way that anticipates how trauma survivors might respond differently after an assault, for example, and to prevent acting in a way that could re-harm them. Project Beloved has worked with more than 100 law enforcement agencies in big cities and small rural towns across the nation to create soft interview rooms. The rooms are to be used to interview victims of sexual assault or other forms of trauma and are renovated to create a comfortable, safe environment as victims retell their harrowing experiences to investigators. The renovation costs, usually $2,500 to $3,000, are covered by Project Beloved thanks to donations to the organization and the work can take just a few hours to complete.