The city of Memphis admitted this week that the police department did not take fingerprints at the scene of an alleged rape by Eliza Fletcher’s alleged killer a year before her death, according to a report.
The items included the victim’s purse and cell phone, which she had told investigators her alleged rapist had touched.
The department responded Monday in a court document to a lawsuit filed by Alicia Franklin, who said Cleotha Abston (aka Henderson) raped her in September 2021, but the Memphis Police Department failed to properly investigate her attack and let her stay. out of jail.
Abston was charged earlier this year with kidnapping and murdering Fletcher in Memphis while he was out for an early morning run in September.
ELIZA FLETCHER MURDER SUSPECT ALLEGEDLY RELATED TO 2021 RAPE; THE POLICE DID NOT REQUEST AN ‘EXPEDITED’ DNA CHECK
Eliza Fletcher in an undated photograph; Cleotha Abston accused of murder in Memphis court
(Liza Fletcher/Instagram; Fox News Digital)
Later that month, he was charged with aggravated kidnapping and rape in the Franklin case.
Franklin says she met Abston, whom she knew only by his first name, on a dating app and the two agreed to meet at an apartment building where he said he worked in maintenance before going out to dinner before her alleged rape, according to WMC. TELEVISION.
His rape kit sat on a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) shelf for a year and was only submitted to a national database after Fletcher’s body was found, according to WMC.
Cleotha Henderson, 38, also known as Cleotha Abston, who is now charged with the kidnapping and murder of Eliza Fletcher in Memphis earlier this month, appeared in court Monday morning, September 19, 2022 before Judge Montesi .
(Karen Pulfer Focht for Fox News Digital)
Franklin said he took investigators to the scene of the alleged attack immediately and gave them information such as his phone number, the name he gave him and the type of car he was driving, but said they did not take any evidence from the scene.
ELIZA FLETCHER MURDER SUSPECT SLAPPED ON ‘UNRELATED’ KIDNAPPING, RAPE CHARGES
The city, which is seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed, admitted it did not collect fingerprints at the scene, but said Franklin could only give “CJ” as the suspect’s name.
The city also requested that “immaterial, irrelevant and scandalous allegations” be removed from the lawsuit if it is not dismissed.
The booking photo shows Cleotha Henderson, who has been in prison for more than half her life.
(Tennessee Department of Corrections)
A Memphis Police Department public information officer told Fox News Digital in September that there was no probable cause to make “any” arrests until the DNA was received.
A TBI spokesperson told Fox News that the Memphis Police Department did not request an expedited analysis of the sexual assault kit from the alleged September 2021 rape, and “no suspicious or standard DNA information was included in the submission.” .
Because the analysis was not expedited and was placed in the “unknown assailant kit queue,” a TBI forensic scientist began his review of the sexual assault kit on June 24 and completed an “initial report” on August 29. . The unknown male DNA profile was subsequently entered into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, resulting in a positive match for Abston on September 5. The TBI then reported its findings on him to the Memphis Police Department.
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The TBI spokesperson told Fox News that when it receives an expedited request for analysis of a sexual assault kit, it typically takes five business days to process “depending on the amount of evidence presented.”
The Memphis Police Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on Friday.
Fox News’ Adam Sabes contributed to this report.
