Memphis man pleads guilty to kidnapping, killing school teacher

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man pleaded guilty Monday to kidnapping a Memphis school teacher while she was on an early morning run and then killing her.

Cleotha Abston entered guilty pleas to first-degree murder and especially aggravated kidnapping in the abduction and death of Eliza Fletcher.

Abston, 40, had been set to stand trial in February. Prosecutors had said they would seek the death penalty if Abston were convicted of first-degree murder. Instead, Judge Lee Coffee sentenced Abston to life in prison without parole after he entered the guilty pleas.

Fletcher was grabbed from a street while she was jogging before dawn near the University of Memphis on Sept. 2, 2022, and forced into an SUV. Her body was found days later near a vacant duplex.

The killing of Fletcher, a 34-year-old kindergarten teacher and mother of two, shocked the Memphis community and led to a flood of support for her family. Runners in Memphis and several other cities held early morning running events in her honor a week after she was abducted, a tradition that has continued in the city on the anniversary of her kidnapping.

In a statement, Fletcher's family said they “miss the bright light of Liza’s life every day.”

"Liza meant so much to so many, and her smile radiated happiness, energy, and comfort," her family said. “Her husband, her children, her parents, her brother, the rest of her family, her friends, her students, her school families, her fellow teachers, her church community, and so many others were moved by countless examples of her faith, kindness, and compassion.”

Abston, who also has gone by the name Cleotha Henderson, was arrested after police detected his DNA on sandals found near the location where Fletcher was last seen. An autopsy report showed Fletcher died of a gunshot wound to the head.

“We had been meeting with him regularly for the past few months and had been telling him that we need to settle this case, that we cannot go forward with a trial and expect to succeed,” said Juni Ganguli, Abston's lawyer.

Abston was sentenced to 80 years in prison May 17 for raping a woman a year before he was charged in Fletcher’s death. He was convicted in April of raping the woman while holding her at gunpoint in September 2021.

Abston, whose history of criminal charges dates back to the 1990s when he was a juvenile, was not charged in the 2021 rape case until after being charged a year later with killing Fletcher because of a long delay in processing the sexual assault kit. After Fletcher’s death, the Legislature passed a law requiring the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to issue a quarterly report on sexual assault kit testing times.