TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Kate Prince on Sep 6, 2022

The man accused of abducting and murdering Memphis school teacher Eliza Fletcher previously served more than 20 years for kidnapping a prominent Memphis attorney, the Commercial Appeal reports. Fletcher was jogging before dawn on Friday morning when police say she was violently forced into an SUV and later killed. Cleotha Abston, 38, faces multiple charges relating to the crime, including kidnapping and first-degree murder. When he was 16, Abston and another man kidnapped Memphis-based lawyer Kemper Durand at gunpoint, forcing him into the trunk of his car and driving to gas stations to withdraw money from ATMs. Durand was able to escape while at one station. Abston was sentenced to 24 years in prison for the crime and was released in November 2020. Durand died in 2013. In an obituary, Lewis Thomason attorney Bill Haltom wrote of Durand’s response to the kidnapping.