A man from Tennessee admitted guilt on Monday for abducting a school teacher from Memphis during her early morning jog and subsequently taking her life.
Cleotha Abston has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and especially aggravated kidnapping in connection with the abduction and death of Eliza Fletcher.
Abston, 40, was scheduled for trial in February. Prosecutors indicated their intention to pursue the death penalty should Abston be found guilty of first-degree murder. Judge Lee Coffee has sentenced Abston to life in prison without the possibility of parole following his guilty pleas.
On September 2, 2022, Fletcher was taken from a street while jogging early in the morning close to the University of Memphis and made to get into an SUV. Days later, her body was discovered near an empty duplex.
The tragic death of Fletcher, a 34-year-old kindergarten teacher and mother of two, has left the Memphis community in disbelief and has sparked an outpouring of support for her family. In Memphis and various other cities, early morning running events took place in her honor a week after her abduction, a tradition that persists in the city each year on the anniversary of her kidnapping.
Fletcher’s family expressed their daily longing for the vibrant presence of Liza.
“Liza meant so much to so many, and her smile radiated happiness, energy, and comfort,” her family said. “Her husband, her children, her parents, her brother, the rest of her family, her friends, her students, her school families, her fellow teachers, her church community, and so many others were moved by countless examples of her faith, kindness, and compassion.”
Abston, also known as Cleotha Henderson, was taken into custody after police found his DNA on sandals located near the spot where Fletcher was last observed. An autopsy revealed that Fletcher succumbed to a gunshot wound to the head.
“We had been meeting with him regularly for the past few months and had been telling him that we need to settle this case, that we cannot go forward with a trial and expect to succeed,” said Juni Ganguli, Abston’s lawyer.
Abston received an 80-year prison sentence on May 17 for the rape of a woman that occurred a year prior to the charges in Fletcher’s death. In April, he was found guilty of raping a woman at gunpoint in September 2021.
Abston, who has a criminal record going back to the 1990s as a juvenile, faced charges in the 2021 rape case only after being charged a year later with Fletcher’s murder, due to a significant delay in the processing of the sexual assault kit. Following Fletcher’s passing, lawmakers enacted a law mandating the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to provide a quarterly report on the testing durations for sexual assault kits.