Police released an affidavit in the arrest of a man in Eliza Fletcher's disappearance. Here's what we know
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9/4/22 -- UPDATED 9/5/22
Here's what we know about Fletcher's disappearance, Abston's arrest and the search for her:
- Fletcher was last seen at around 4:20 a.m., Friday, Sept. 2, jogging near the intersection of Central Avenue and Zach H. Curlin Street.
- A GMC Terrain was seen 24 minutes before the abduction surveillance footage.
- A surveillance camera captured a man violently and quickly approach Fletcher before forcing her into the passenger side of a GMC Terrain with passenger-side tail light damage.
- "A male exited the black GMC Terrain, ran aggressively toward the victim, and then forced the victim Eliza Fletcher into the passenger's side of the vehicle," the affidavit read. "During this abduction, there appeared to be a struggle."
- Investigators found a pair of slides at the scene. Police said DNA from the footwear matched Abston based on a sample taken after he was previously convicted of a crime. Other surveillance video showed Abston wearing similar slides days earlier.
- Abston's cellphone placed him near the intersection around the time Fletcher disappeared.
- U.S. Marshals found the GMC Terrain on Saturday at an apartment complex in southeast Memphis.
- Police ended an interview with Abston still not knowing where Fletcher is.
- Fletcher is believed to have been seriously injured during her abduction.
- Abston spent just more than 22 years in state prison after being convicted of kidnapping an attorney. He was released from prison in November 2020.
Abston has prior abduction conviction
In 2000, when Abston was 16 years old, he was charged, tried and convicted of abduction.
In June 2000, Abston kidnapped Memphis-based lawyer Kemper Durand at gunpoint. Court records say Durand was forced into the trunk of his car before being forced to drive a Mapco gas station to withdraw money from an ATM for Abston.
At the station, an armed Memphis Housing Authority guard walked in and, when Kemper yelled for help, Abston and Marquette Cobbins ran away.
[..]
"Kemper then further described how during those hours he spent in the trunk of his car, he heard the two men talking," the obituary read. "The man who was now about to be sentenced had pleaded with his friend to 'stop the car, let this man out, give him his keys and go!'"
[..]
"My feelings about being the victim of this crime, and the feelings of those around me, are that I was extremely lucky that I was able to escape from the custody of Cleotha Abston. I had been taken from the trunk of my car, where he and his co-defendant had placed me for a number of hours, and made to drive to the Mapco station," Durand wrote.
"The purpose was that I was to use my ATM card to get cash for Cleotha Abston. It was very fortunate that an armed, uniformed Memphis Housing Authority guard happened to come into the Mapco station while Cleotha Abston, Marquette Cobbins (the second defendant), and I were using the ATM machine. It is quite likely that I would have been killed had I not escaped."
Also in his impact statement, Durand wrote that it took over a year for Abston to sign the guilty plea, citing the refusal as "jailhouse braggadocio."
Durand also detailed Abston's lengthy history in the juvenile court system prior to his conviction for the kidnapping, the earliest of which, Durand said, dated back to 1995 when he was no older than 12 years old. Abston also appeared in juvenile court records in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999 for charges including theft, aggravated assault, aggravated assault with a weapon, and rape, according to Durand's statement.
Durand died in early February 2013, seven years before Abston would be released in November 2020 at age 36. In the two years since his release, there are no further documented charges against Abston in Shelby County.
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