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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Tennessee man pleaded responsible Monday to kidnapping a Memphis faculty trainer whereas she was on an early morning run after which killing her.
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Cleotha Abston entered responsible pleas to first-degree homicide and particularly aggravated kidnapping within the abduction and dying of Eliza Fletcher.
Abston, 40, had been set to face trial in February. Prosecutors had mentioned they might search the dying penalty if Abston had been convicted of first-degree homicide. As an alternative, Decide Lee Espresso sentenced Abston to life in jail with out parole after he entered the responsible pleas.
Fletcher was grabbed from a avenue whereas she was jogging earlier than daybreak close to the College of Memphis on Sept. 2, 2022, and compelled into an SUV. Her physique was discovered days later close to a vacant duplex.
The killing of Fletcher, a 34-year-old kindergarten trainer and mom of two, shocked the Memphis group and led to a flood of help for her household. Runners in Memphis and several other different cities held early morning operating occasions in her honor per week after she was kidnapped, a convention that has continued within the metropolis on the anniversary of her kidnapping.
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In an announcement, Fletcher’s household mentioned they “miss the intense gentle of Liza’s life each day.”
“Liza meant a lot to so many, and her smile radiated happiness, vitality, and luxury,” her household mentioned. “Her husband, her youngsters, her dad and mom, her brother, the remainder of her household, her mates, her college students, her faculty households, her fellow lecturers, her church group, and so many others had been moved by numerous examples of her religion, kindness, and compassion.”
Abston, who additionally has passed by the identify Cleotha Henderson, was arrested after police detected his DNA on sandals discovered close to the situation the place Fletcher was final seen. An post-mortem report confirmed Fletcher died of a gunshot wound to the top.
“We had been assembly with him frequently for the previous few months and had been telling him that we have to settle this case, that we can not go ahead with a trial and anticipate to succeed,” mentioned Juni Ganguli, Abston’s lawyer.
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Abston was sentenced to 80 years in jail Might 17 for raping a lady a yr earlier than he was charged in Fletcher’s dying. He was convicted in April of raping the lady whereas holding her at gunpoint in September 2021.
Abston, whose historical past of legal prices dates again to the Nineteen Nineties when he was a juvenile, was not charged within the 2021 rape case till after being charged a yr later with killing Fletcher due to a protracted delay in processing the sexual assault package. After Fletcher’s dying, the Legislature handed a regulation requiring the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to concern a quarterly report on sexual assault package testing instances.
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