The man accused of kidnapping and murdering Eliza Fletcher in a high profile 2022 case was convicted late last week for raping another woman a year before Fletcher’s murder, according to several reports.
Cleotha Abston was reportedly convicted in Memphis of three counts of aggravated rape, especially aggravated kidnapping and unlawful possession of a weapon.
Abston’s victim was a woman named Alicia Franklin, whom he raped in 2021.
She said the Memphis Police Department (MPD) did not handle her case properly.
“They had more than enough evidence that night when they interviewed me to get him off the streets, but they didn’t,” said Franklin in a September 2022 interview with Good Morning America, just after Fletcher’s body was found.
She said she met Abston on a dating application, and after the pair went on a date, he raped her at gunpoint.
“Every time I said something he threatened to kill me,” Franklin said. “He forced me in the car [and] he raped me.”
Abston was charged with the rape shortly after Fletcher’s death because the DNA in Franklin’s sexual assault kit (SAK) was finally matched to him, which just happened to be soon after he was arrested in Fletcher’s murder case.
That sparked a conversation about the backlog of SAKs at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), which is responsible for testing the DNA samples that come along with them.
Some theorized that had Franklin’s SAK been tested in a timely fashion, Abston would have been arrested much more quickly, thus preventing Fletcher’s murder.
TBI said at the time that the backlog was due to the sheer amount of SAKs that needed testing.
“The length of time to work these cases is attributed to the workload of the four scientists assigned to this unit. These forensic scientists work every biological evidence submission, ranging from homicides to SAKs, to robberies, assaults, and break-ins,” TBI spokesperson Kelli McAllister told The Tennessee Star at the time. “In 2021, that included 602 evidence submissions. These scientists are also responsible for responding to crime scenes when necessary and testifying in every court hearing and trial associated with their casework.”
As of January, Abston’s trial date had not been set in the Fletcher killing, but a Shelby County Judge did reject a motion from Abston’s attorney for a change of venue.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter/X.
Image “Cleotha Abston” by Memphis PD.
