TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Sep 30, 2022

Gov. Bill Lee and legislative leaders announced plans yesterday to expedite the hiring of Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) forensic lab positions to speed up the processing of sexual assault kits. According to Tennessee Outlook, 25 forensic lab positions will be filled across the state with eight in the Jackson lab, 11 in the Nashville lab and six in the Knoxville lab. TBI had requested 50 laboratory positions for this budget year but received funding for only 20 of those jobs. The move comes in the wake of Memphis teacher Eliza Fletcher’s death. Her alleged killer, Cleotha Abston Henderson, has been connected to a rape kit from 2021. The kit sat on TBI’s shelf for 11 months before the agency started testing it. Legislative leaders said that delay is unacceptable. The autopsy in the Fletcher case shows she died of a gunshot wound and blunt force injury to the head, the Daily Memphian reports.