Cleotha Abston Wiki – Cleotha Abston Biography

Prosecutors announced Thursday they are seeking the death penalty for the man accused of kidnapping Tennessee’s mother, Eliza Fletcher, during a morning run and killing her. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy filed a notice that his office will seek the death penalty against Cleotha Abston, who faces kidnapping and murder charges in the Fletcher case, Judge Lee Coffee said.

“This is not a decision taken lightly or as a matter of course,” Mulroy said in a statement obtained by the WATN news station. “This is a serious decision involving a punishment that I have publicly opposed as a matter of policy. But as a DA I have to enforce the law despite personal opinion. After careful consideration of the facts in this case and similar cases, I believe that this is what justice requires.”

Outside the courthouse, where Abston appeared for a status hearing on Thursday, Mulroy told reporters he believes the gruesome case reaches the threshold for prosecutors to seek the death penalty. State law says that cases deemed egregious, egregious, and cruel are eligible. “We argue that that applies in this case,” Mulroy said.

Cleotha Abston Age

The age of Cleotha Abston is 38 year.

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Charges on Cleotha Abston

Mulroy said prosecutors consulted with Fletcher’s family about the decision to seek Abston’s death penalty and they support it. Fletcher, a teacher and heiress to a billion-dollar fortune, went for a run around 4:30 a.m. m. on September 2 near the University of Memphis campus when she was forced into a dark GMC Terrain.

The 34-year-old mother died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head and blunt force trauma to the head, according to the autopsy report. The next day, police arrested Abston, a 38-year-old career criminal, who had previously served 20 years for aggravated kidnapping in 2000, and charged him with the kidnapping and murder of Fletcher.

Fletcher’s body was found days later in a wooded area in south Memphis, not far from where police said Abston was caught on surveillance footage cleaning the interior of the car. Abston quickly became the prime suspect in Fletcher’s murder after DNA evidence on a pair of Champion slides left behind at the scene.

He has also been charged with one additional count of aggravated kidnapping and rape in a separate incident that took place a year before Fletcher’s kidnapping and murder. The alleged victim in that case, Alicia Franklin, said she met Abston on an app in August 2021 and they met in front of her apartment complex for the first time the following month.

Franklin alleged that Abston escorted her to an empty apartment at gunpoint, blindfolded her with a T-shirt, and threatened to kill her. She alleged that she then forced her into a car and raped her in the back seat of her car. Franklin, who filed a lawsuit against the department, also alleged that the officers failed to take evidence from the crime scene and showed her a dated photo of Abston that she could not identify.

Authorities sent a rape kit for her to test, but it wasn’t returned until early September, just days after Fletcher’s disappearance. No trial date has been set for Abston.