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A 38-year-old man is charged with especially aggravated kidnapping in the disappearance of a Memphis teacher, 34, after police said DNA on a pair of slides linked him to the woman.
But, police said, Cleotha Abston, who was released from prison in 2020 after serving two decades for kidnapping, hasn’t said where Eliza «Liza» Fletcher is and the search for her is continuing.
In a Sunday morning tweet, Memphis Police said Abston has been charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and tampering with evidence. Police did not give more information on Abston or any prior connection to Fletcher.
The arrest came roughly 12 hours after police announced they had found the GMC Terrain they said was used in Fletcher’s abduction early Friday morning as she jogged on the University of Memphis campus.
New details have also been released in an arrest affidavit. According to the affidavit:
Richard Fletcher, Eliza Fletcher’s husband, notified the Memphis Police Department that his wife had not returned from her run by 7 a.m., and a man on a bike, who was riding the same route Fletcher was running, found Eliza Fletcher’s cellphone and a pair of Champion brand slides in the street.
Police reviewed surveillance footage from the nearby Earthquake Research and Information Center on the U of M campus. Police say that video showed a black GMC Terrain passing by and then waiting for Fletcher to run past.
«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.»
Police say the SUV was parked for approximately four minutes before driving away from the site.
Law enforcement officials, after reviewing footage, found that «approximately twenty-four minutes before the abduction, surveillance footage captured the same vehicle in the area»
The slides were sent to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for DNA testing, which later was found to match Abston in a national DNA database from a previous conviction.
