'What happened to you': Eliza Fletcher's family agrees to spare her killer from execution

With the support of a slain teacher’s family, prosecutors in Shelby County, Tennessee , reached a plea deal with her killer. The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office previously sought the death penalty against Cleotha Abston, 40, for abducting, beating, and shooting Eliza Fletcher, 34, while she was on an early-morning jog.

On Monday, however, they announced that they reached a deal in which he pleaded guilty to charges including first-degree aggravated kidnapping, and tampering with evidence, authorities said. In exchange, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors said they reached the deal with the support of Fletcher’s family. District Attorney Steve Mulroy read their statement on their behalf in court, in which they mourned Eliza, and called out Abston for his actions.

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“We have no idea what happened to you to turn you into someone so filled with a desire to hurt people,” they wrote. “Whatever it was, it does not excuse or explain what you have done. You have changed our lives forever, and nothing will ever be the same. Your actions were evil. There is no other word for it. You murdered Liza, even though she did nothing to deserve it. She did not hurt you. In fact, she would’ve been the first to help if you needed it.”

Prosecutors described Fletcher as a devoted mother and beloved kindergarten teacher at St. Mary’s Episcopal School.

This guilty plea and sentence follow several months after jurors convicted Abston in a similar case in which he kidnapped and raped a woman at gunpoint, and was sentenced to 80 years in prison without the possibility of parole. The survivor, Alicia Franklin, stepped forward amid Fletcher’s 2022 death, and she sued the city of Memphis, saying police neglected to investigate her own case. That lawsuit ended in a 2023 dismissal.

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