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The suspect arrested in reference to the kidnapping of lacking Memphis instructor Eliza Fletcher was beforehand charged twenty years in the past with abducting a outstanding legal professional.
Cleotha Abston, 38, has been arrested and charged with particularly aggravated kidnapping and tampering with proof in reference to Fletcher’s disappearance.
Fletcher, a 34-year-old mom of two and kindergarten instructor, was reportedly compelled right into a darkish SUV early Friday whereas out for a run by the College of Memphis campus and has not been seen or heard from since.
Memphis police confirmed to Fox Information on Sunday that Abston had been beforehand charged with aggravated theft and kidnapping for the crime involving outstanding Memphis legal professional Kemper Durand in Could 2000. Abston was 16 on the time, in keeping with the police division.
LIZA FLETCHER’S ABDUCTION: TIMELINE OF THE MEMPHIS TEACHER’S DISAPPEARANCE
Authorities are providing a $50K reward to assist discover mom kidnapped whereas jogging.
(Memphos Police Division/TBI)
“I do not suppose this was a random kidnapping,” TJ Ward, a non-public investigator who labored the case of the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba, instructed “Fox & Associates Weekend” of Fletcher’s abduction. “I believe this was most likely deliberate.”
“I imagine that this was not a random abduction,” he added. “I imagine that this man is aware of one thing and hopefully the knowledge regulation enforcement has obtained will lead it to Ms. Fletcher.”
Ward counseled how rapidly police have labored this case, including that the final place of mobile phone pings and particulars from the suspect’s automobile and computer systems might present essential particulars for investigators.
Fletcher’s husband, Richard Fletcher III, was photographed exterior his household’s Memphis house Saturday morning with a number of different folks. He initially reported his spouse lacking Friday morning round 7:45 am when she by no means returned from her run.
A photograph of Cleotha Abston.
(Tennessee Division of Corrections)
In line with police reviews cited within the Could 31, 2000, version of “The Business Attraction,” Abston compelled Durand into the trunk of Durand’s automobile at gunpoint close to Beale Road, “the place he spent the subsequent two hours.” Durand was in a position to yell for assist after being dropped at an ATM machine.
A tribute to Durand by the Lewis Thomason Regulation Agency referenced the ordeal and highlighted how he petitioned for a lesser sentence for the 12-year-old confederate who Abston had picked up alongside the best way.
Fletcher is from a outstanding Memphis household, the granddaughter of a well known philanthropist and enterprise proprietor.
(Liza Fletcher/Instagram)
Durand, a former assistant US legal professional working as a protection lawyer on the time of his kidnapping, died abruptly in 2013 at age 73 at house whereas recovering from the flu and bronchitis, in keeping with one other memorial by the Yale Class of 1961.
That memorial additionally referenced how Durand requested for leniency for the 2 discovered responsible of his abduction, recalling how “he simply did not wish to ‘wallow in’ the concern he confronted being held by an armed kidnapper.”
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“In truth, he prompt an commercial for Business Financial institution & Belief, owned by a good friend. In it, Mr. Durand sat on the trunk of his Mercedes with the caption: ‘Why Does Kemper Durand Financial institution With Us? As a result of this outstanding legal professional thinks it is higher than having his property stuffed within the trunk of a automobile’,” the memorial says.
Fox Information’ Audrey Conklin, Adam Sabes, Stephanie Pagones and Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.