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| Photo Credit: AP. |
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The man charged with kidnapping a Tennessee woman jogging near the University of Memphis last week spent 20 years behind bars for a previous kidnapping.
U.S.
Marshals arrested 38-year-old Cleotha Abston on Saturday after police detected
his DNA on a pair of sandals found near to where Eliza Fletcher was last seen,
according to an arrest affidavit. Police also linked the vehicle they believe
was used in the kidnapping to a person at a residence where Abston was staying.
While
Fletcher has not been found, Memphis police said in the affidavit they believe
she was seriously injured in the abduction, which was caught on surveillance
video. Authorities have said Fletcher, 34, was jogging around 4 a.m. on Friday
when a man approached her and forced her into an SUV after a brief struggle.
Fletcher was reported missing when she did not return home that morning.
Late Monday,
police tweeted that a body had been found in a Memphis neighborhood but that
the identity of that person and the cause of death was unconfirmed. The tweet
made no reference to the Fletcher case, saying only that the investigation was
ongoing. A large police presence was reported in the area where authorities
reported finding the body just after 5 p.m., local news reports said.
Abston
previously kidnapped a prominent Memphis attorney in 2000, the Commercial
Appeal reported. When he was just 16 years old, Abston forced Kemper Durand
into the trunk of his own car at gunpoint. After several hours, Abston took
Durand out and forced him to drive to a Mapco gas station to withdraw money
from an ATM. At the station, an armed Memphis Housing Authority guard walked in
and Durand yelled for help. Abston ran away but was found and arrested. He
pleaded guilty in 2001 to especially aggravated kidnapping and aggravated
robbery, according to court records. He received a 24-year sentence.
Durand, in a
victim impact statement, wrote, “I was extremely lucky that I was able to escape
from the custody of Cleotha Abston. ...It is quite likely that I would have
been killed had I not escaped,” the Commercial Appeal reported. Durand noted
that it took over a year for Abston to sign the guilty plea, calling the
refusal “jailhouse braggadocio.”
Durand also
detailed Abston’s lengthy history in the juvenile court system. In the years
before the kidnapping, Abston had been charged with theft, aggravated assault,
aggravated assault with a weapon, and rape, according to Durand’s statement.
Durand died
in 2013, seven years before Abston would be released in November 2020 at age
36. In the two years since his release, there were no further documented
charges against Abston in Shelby County prior to his Saturday arrest, the Commercial
Appeal reported.
Online court
records do not show if Abston has a lawyer who can comment on his behalf. An
arraignment has been set for Tuesday.
Fletcher is
the granddaughter of the late Joseph Orgill III, a Memphis hardware businessman
and philanthropist. The family has released a video statement asking for help
in finding Fletcher and offered a $50,000 reward for information in the case.
This story has been corrected to show that Abston spent 20 years in prison for kidnapping Durand.