Eliza Fletcher, the heiress who was savagely abducted during a morning run four days ago, has been recognized by Tennessee authorities as the body that was discovered discarded in Memphis. Fletcher, 34, has been identified as the deceased victim who was discovered in the 1600 block of Victor yesterday, according to a tweet from the Memphis police on Tuesday morning.
The defendant, Cleotha Abston, was also charged with first-degree murder and first-degree murder in the commission of a kidnapping, according to the authorities.
Suspect in abduction of Eliza Fletcher identited as Cleotha Abston is expected to appear in court this morning. Fletcher, a kindergarten teacher, was kidnapped while jogging near the University of Memphis last week. #ElizaFletcher #lizafletcher #cleothaabston pic.twitter.com/t3phU06Yev
— That Guy Shane (@ProfanityNewz) September 6, 2022
At 5:07 p.m. on Monday, more than 36 hours after Abston, 38, was charged with exceptionally aggravated kidnapping, police searching for the mother of two discovered the body. After being apprehended on Saturday, authorities said Abston, who had already served 20 years in prison for a brutal kidnapping, had refused to say where Fletcher was.
The body was discovered not far from where Abston, according to authorities, was allegedly spotted Friday morning during Fletcher’s 4 a.m. run cleaning out the GMC Terrain seen in surveillance footage of her dramatic kidnapping.
The suspect was described as acting “weird” and scrubbing his clothes hours after the kidnapping, according to the affidavit, which was signed by his brother, who was accused separately with drug and weapons violations.
Fletcher, the granddaughter of a late Memphis tycoon, was captured on camera by police on Friday morning as she raced near the University of Memphis. An affidavit later revealed that the GMC she was forced into had been stalking the same spot for at least 24 minutes before she ran through.
The SUV pulled up in front of her, and surveillance video showed a man getting out and approaching Fletcher “aggressively,” shoving her into the passenger seat.
The affidavit stated that “during this abduction, there appeared to be a fight,” warning that Fletcher “suffered major injuries” most likely. Richard Fletcher, Fletcher’s husband, set off the alarm at 7 a.m.
After DNA testing on two Champion slides left at the scene, Abston was swiftly identified as the main suspect. He was charged with very aggravated abduction, the same crime he was charged with for Fletcher, and had already done 20 years for it after shoving a lawyer into the trunk of a car to fetch him cash from many ATMs.
The late prosecutor Kemper Durand, who was kidnapped, claimed that if he hadn’t managed to warn an armed security guard, who scared the kidnapper away, it was “very possible that I would have been killed.”
According to court records obtained by the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Abston was just 16 years old at the time and already had a lengthy juvenile record involving claims of rape.
According to a report, Abston’s neighbors called him a “creep” and “pervert” who incessantly tried to get women to perform sexual acts for money. Even one of his uncles, Nathaniel Isaac, 69, declared that the “whole f—ing family is nuts” and that he was “100% confident” his nephew “had anything to do with her abduction.”
