Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / IT'S ELIZA: Memphis Mom Body ID'ed, Video Shows Suspect Frantically Cleaning Blood from GMC Yards from Dead Body

Transcript

IT'S ELIZA: Memphis Mom Body ID'ed, Video Shows Suspect Frantically Cleaning Blood from GMC Yards from Dead Body · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Greece. In the last hours, a
0:16
Speaker 1: convicted kidnapper rapist agasalter in court, but this time linked
0:25
Speaker 1: to the body of a thirty four year old Memphis
0:29
Speaker 1: mother of two, Eliza Fletcher. Her disappearance rot not only
0:36
Speaker 1: Memphis but our country. So seemingly out of the blue.
0:40
Speaker 1: This innocent, young church school teacher, mother of two beautiful children,
0:49
Speaker 1: out up and early. Like many of us moms, She's
0:52
Speaker 1: up at four o'clock. It's the only time in her
0:54
Speaker 1: day she can fit in a run in between working
0:58
Speaker 1: and being a full time mother. Eliza never made it
1:04
Speaker 1: home from that run. Where did it all start? Take
1:10
Speaker 1: a listen to our friends at w r EG. It's
1:14
Speaker 1: been just over twelve hours since Elijah Fletcher disappeared and
1:17
Speaker 1: multiple agencies has have joined forces, and I can tell
1:20
Speaker 1: you there's a lot of concern in the community as
1:23
Speaker 1: time passes by. Where is the lines of Fletcher? That's
1:27
Speaker 1: the question many are asking across the Mid South after
1:30
Speaker 1: investigators say the avid jogger was abducted. It's very important
1:34
Speaker 1: that if anybody knows the whereabouts of miss Fletcher to
1:38
Speaker 1: contact the police immediately. Fletcher was jogging down Central Avenue
1:42
Speaker 1: around four thirty this morning, when investigators say she was
1:45
Speaker 1: approached by someone who forced her into a dark colored
1:49
Speaker 1: suv and drove off. You don't want to hear that
1:52
Speaker 1: that's going on. We want to find her. We don't know,
1:57
Speaker 1: We don't know what's going on. Hart Robinson is a
1:59
Speaker 1: friend of Fletcher and got the news this morning and
2:02
Speaker 1: immediately came to the area of Central Avenue and Zach
2:05
Speaker 1: Curling Street where she was last seen. Where everybody's really
2:09
Speaker 1: looking for it. That desperate search went on, and as
2:13
Speaker 1: friends and family, including police, retra can't you just imagine
2:17
Speaker 1: you doing it yourself, retracing the steps you think she jogged,
2:24
Speaker 1: And as that took place, only two clues emerged. A
2:29
Speaker 1: water bottle and a cracked cell phone or take a
2:33
Speaker 1: listen to our friend Jordan James Fletcher cell phone and
2:36
Speaker 1: a water bottle were found in front of a home
2:38
Speaker 1: owned by the University of Memphis and a safety alert
2:41
Speaker 1: sent to students. They say she was reported missing after
2:45
Speaker 1: not returning home from her run. The suv that she
2:49
Speaker 1: was last seen and was spotted driving westbound down Central Avenue.
2:54
Speaker 1: Multiple agencies, including the FBI, are assisting with the case.
2:57
Speaker 1: With one goal in mind, find Eliza Fletcher. Our concern
3:01
Speaker 1: is to locate miss Fletcher, so if anybody knows where
3:04
Speaker 1: she's at, call the police immediately. The Midtown woman was
3:07
Speaker 1: kidnapped while jogging early Friday morning near the University of Memphis.
3:11
Speaker 1: According to Memphis Police, Fletcher had been jogging in the
3:13
Speaker 1: area of Central and Zach Curlan at about four thirty
3:16
Speaker 1: in the morning when an unknown person approached her and
3:18
Speaker 1: forced her into a dark colored SUV. After a brief struggle,
3:22
Speaker 1: Fletcher was then forced into the vehicle. I Meancy Grace,
3:25
Speaker 1: this is crime Stories. Thank you for being with us
3:29
Speaker 1: here at Fox Nation, and Sirius XM one eleven, you
3:35
Speaker 1: just heard the bare bones of the beginnings of the
3:41
Speaker 1: frantic search for this thirty four year old Memphis mother
3:45
Speaker 1: of two. Every case, every murder case I prosecuted or investigated,
3:54
Speaker 1: I started with the one thing my victim, Eliza. I
4:03
Speaker 1: want you to hear Eliza here, Eliza k W eight M.
4:11
Speaker 1: This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine,
4:16
Speaker 1: this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine,
4:20
Speaker 1: Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, Hide
4:24
Speaker 1: it under a bush. No, I'm gonna let it shine,
4:29
Speaker 1: hide it under a busha en. I'm gonna let it shine,
4:34
Speaker 1: Let it shine, let it shine, Let it shine. Shine
4:39
Speaker 1: all over Saint Mary School. I'm gonna let it shine,
4:44
Speaker 1: shine all over Saint Mary School. I'm gonna let it shine.
4:48
Speaker 1: Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. This
4:53
Speaker 1: little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, this
4:58
Speaker 1: little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine, Let
5:03
Speaker 1: it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Miss you girls,
5:09
Speaker 1: now you need to let the light shine at your
5:12
Speaker 1: house and I will see you later. How many thousands
5:19
Speaker 1: of times do you believe her? Little children toppers are
5:25
Speaker 1: going to play that over and over and over as
5:31
Speaker 1: they grow up without their mother. Where did it all start?
5:38
Speaker 1: We know where it has culminated in the discovery of
5:42
Speaker 1: Eliza's body. But between then and now, between Eliza singing
5:49
Speaker 1: her song at Saint Mary's Church school to little children,
5:54
Speaker 1: to jogging early for am that morning, we hear of
6:00
Speaker 1: an award as they call it a reward, and we
6:05
Speaker 1: hear of video emerging. Take a listen to Eliza's uncle
6:11
Speaker 1: and our friends at Fox thirteen. The family has met
6:14
Speaker 1: with police and we have shared with them all the
6:17
Speaker 1: information we know. More than anything, we want to see
6:20
Speaker 1: Liza returned home safely. The family has offered a reward
6:24
Speaker 1: for any information that leads to her safe return. We
6:27
Speaker 1: believe someone knows what happened and can help. If you
6:31
Speaker 1: have any information on this crime or Eliza's location, call
6:35
Speaker 1: the police at nine one five four or five cops,
6:39
Speaker 1: or call crime Stoppers at nine one five two eight.
6:44
Speaker 1: Cash joining me and I'll star panel to make sense
6:48
Speaker 1: of what we know right now. But first I want
6:51
Speaker 1: to go to Dave Mac Crime online dot com investigative
6:54
Speaker 1: reporter Dave Mike. I want to go through the area
6:59
Speaker 1: where she was jogging. But hold on, Dave Mac. Also
7:02
Speaker 1: with me, Doctor Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrists, joining us out
7:06
Speaker 1: of the Atlanta jurisdiction at Angela Arnold MD dot com.
7:09
Speaker 1: You're very familiar with Memphis. Tell me Angela about the
7:14
Speaker 1: area from which she was kidnapped. You know, Nancy, it's
7:18
Speaker 1: a very nice area of town, right around the University
7:21
Speaker 1: of Memphis and Central Avenue. And for people who like
7:25
Speaker 1: to live in town. I grew up in town in Memphis.
7:30
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful area to live. The houses are beautiful,
7:34
Speaker 1: it's just a nice You know, Memphis is a small
7:37
Speaker 1: it's a small town, but that is a nice in
7:40
Speaker 1: town area to live for people who love being sort
7:44
Speaker 1: of feeling like they're in the city. So an upscale area. Guys.
7:48
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our cut fifteen our friends at NBC.
7:52
Speaker 1: According to an affidavit, around four am Friday, Fletcher went
7:55
Speaker 1: for her usual early morning run. Police say about half
7:58
Speaker 1: an hour later, they believe Cleota Apstein forced her into
8:02
Speaker 1: this suv near the University of Memphis. Court documents saying
8:05
Speaker 1: the suspect ran aggressively toward Fletcher amid a violent struggle.
8:09
Speaker 1: She was allegedly inside the parked suv roughly four minutes
8:13
Speaker 1: before it drove away. Do you have any sense of
8:15
Speaker 1: what might have been going on in those four minutes?
8:17
Speaker 1: In the criminal context, that's actually a very long time.
8:21
Speaker 1: That's enough time for him to restrain her. That's enough
8:24
Speaker 1: time for him to seriously harm her. To day make
8:27
Speaker 1: joining me Crime online dot Com investigative reporter, the words
8:30
Speaker 1: seriously harm, those are words tracking, tracking what police leaked,
8:39
Speaker 1: and that is that they thought Eliza had suffered serious injury,
8:43
Speaker 1: serious harm inside that GMC because it was covered with blood,
8:49
Speaker 1: Dave Mack, isn't it true? This was all caught on
8:53
Speaker 1: video surveillance. We're not taking anybody's word for it. Where
8:58
Speaker 1: did that video surveillance come from? Is it something to
9:01
Speaker 1: do with the university? Which is right there? Wasn't she
9:05
Speaker 1: jogging the outside I believe of the university edges. Actually
9:10
Speaker 1: the where it actually happened, the home right there was
9:15
Speaker 1: owned by university and directly across the street. There was
9:20
Speaker 1: surveillance footage that was able to capture the very dark,
9:25
Speaker 1: but it captured as it took place. You mentioned what
9:29
Speaker 1: they called an aggravated, very violent attack that you could
9:34
Speaker 1: see apparently in this surveillance footage, the suspect attacking quickly
9:41
Speaker 1: running up on Eliza, running up on her, attacking her
9:47
Speaker 1: to the point where blood was found on the ground,
9:51
Speaker 1: and then inside the vehicle, to Matthew Mangino joining me,
9:55
Speaker 1: former prosecutor Lawrence County, former Parole board member, author of
9:58
Speaker 1: the executioners, to now a private lawyer. He's at Matthew
10:02
Speaker 1: T Mangino. Matthew, that is qualifying him for this special kidnap,
10:10
Speaker 1: not just a kidnap, which is a felony in itself.
10:13
Speaker 1: You can get twenty to life for kidnap. But this
10:16
Speaker 1: is an extremely dangerous, seriously harmful kidnap. What does that
10:21
Speaker 1: mean to you as a lawyer, Well, this would appear
10:24
Speaker 1: to be, you know, an aggravated kidnapping. I mean he's
10:28
Speaker 1: coming out of the vehicle. He's attacking this woman. As
10:32
Speaker 1: we just heard, there's blood found outside of the vehicle,
10:36
Speaker 1: there's blood found inside the vehicle. Uh, you know, this
10:39
Speaker 1: is a very dangerous person who would randomly attack a
10:44
Speaker 1: stranger like this and pull her into a vehicle. The
10:49
Speaker 1: other thing that I found is that they found his
10:52
Speaker 1: his flip flop flops, his sandals, uh you know, laying
10:55
Speaker 1: you know, along the road, which gives me the impression
10:58
Speaker 1: that this is a crime of opportunity. If he was
11:01
Speaker 1: out and he knew he was going to be attacking somebody,
11:04
Speaker 1: he might be better prepared, you know, wearing you know,
11:07
Speaker 1: sneakers or some sort of shoes that he knew he
11:10
Speaker 1: would be able to rapidly approach somebody. But to see
11:13
Speaker 1: these flip flops gives me the idea that this is
11:15
Speaker 1: a guy driving by boom, he makes a decision and
11:20
Speaker 1: it's a crime of opportunity. The woman's there. He has
11:23
Speaker 1: a history and this is what he does. Disagree. You
11:28
Speaker 1: think criminals are so smart they're gonna go, oh, maybe
11:31
Speaker 1: I shouldn't wear kidnap flipflops to raping kidnap somebody. Hell no,
11:38
Speaker 1: these are they, as you're saying, flip flops. They're the
11:41
Speaker 1: type of cheese you see a lot of athletes wear
11:43
Speaker 1: where they were socks and then slide in like Adidas
11:48
Speaker 1: or Nike. Not really flip flops, but I guess it's
11:51
Speaker 1: closest thing you can compare them too. But he was cruising,
11:56
Speaker 1: stalking her for nearly half an hour. But before I
12:00
Speaker 1: go to Jennifer, a coffin daff for a former FBI
12:03
Speaker 1: doctor Kendall Crowns is joining me. Chief Medical Examiner out
12:06
Speaker 1: of Tarrant County. That's Fort Worth Lecturer, University of Texas
12:11
Speaker 1: and Texas Christian University Medical School. Doctor Kendall Crowns, thank
12:15
Speaker 1: you for being with us. Much has been made of
12:17
Speaker 1: the blood that was found there at the scene where
12:21
Speaker 1: he left his I guess flipplops, but also within his GMC.
12:27
Speaker 1: A lot of people jumped to the conclusion that she
12:29
Speaker 1: had been stabbed. I disagree. I think she was hit
12:32
Speaker 1: immediately in the face to stun her, and anything around
12:37
Speaker 1: your nose or your mouth causes a lot, a profuse
12:42
Speaker 1: amount of bleeding. Why, those areas are really vascular. So
12:47
Speaker 1: the oral micosa itself has a lot of blood vessels
12:51
Speaker 1: in it, and then the nose as well, again has
12:55
Speaker 1: a lot of blood vessels in it. So you get
12:57
Speaker 1: hid in any of those regions who start bleeding quite profusely.
13:01
Speaker 1: The other thing is you can have someone that has
13:03
Speaker 1: a scalp laceration or cut on their scalps. The scalp
13:06
Speaker 1: skin itself is also very highly vascular, and you can
13:10
Speaker 1: get a lot of bleeding from that, more than you
13:12
Speaker 1: would necessarily from other types of wombs. So anything about
13:15
Speaker 1: the face, nose, mouth, had, scalp skin has got a
13:19
Speaker 1: lot of blood vessels. You see a lot of blood.
13:21
Speaker 1: You started off by saying it's highly vascular and regular
13:24
Speaker 1: people taught. Does that mean there's a high concentration of
13:27
Speaker 1: blood vessels. Yeah, a lot of blood vessels. Got time
13:41
Speaker 1: stories with Nancy Grace Jennifer or a coffin effort with
13:48
Speaker 1: me from her FBI now law Enforcement Network Analysts instructor
13:54
Speaker 1: fire Arms Beyond International and she is a self defense
13:58
Speaker 1: fire arms egg. Jennifer, thank you for being with us.
14:03
Speaker 1: What about this? Don't you agree that the first thing
14:06
Speaker 1: he would do is stun her by hitting her in
14:08
Speaker 1: the face, I mean with a fist right in the nose,
14:10
Speaker 1: in the face. I would say maybe the second thing,
14:13
Speaker 1: you know, I think his biggest thing was restrain her
14:16
Speaker 1: and pulling her in the vehicle. But I have seen
14:19
Speaker 1: no evidence or fact that there was a knife involved
14:22
Speaker 1: or a weapon. People who commit these types of crimes
14:25
Speaker 1: like to get personal, They like to attack, They like
14:28
Speaker 1: to see the person in agony and screaming, and I
14:32
Speaker 1: think that was this type of attack. So I have
14:34
Speaker 1: to agree with you Nancy, that is stunned in the
14:37
Speaker 1: face once he got her in that van could have
14:41
Speaker 1: resulted in this blood evidence. Now, Matthew and Gino has
14:45
Speaker 1: a really good point, although I disagree with it ultimately.
14:49
Speaker 1: He's talking about the suspects slides, that's what they're called.
14:53
Speaker 1: It's a solid van of plastic, typically over the top
14:58
Speaker 1: of the foot, the toast sticking at and you slip
15:00
Speaker 1: into him. Call slides and everybody makes him a Data's
15:04
Speaker 1: Puma Nike. Everybody. They were still there and you know
15:10
Speaker 1: what I love about the slide DNA. Now it would
15:15
Speaker 1: be epiphilial DNA, which is off of your skin. And
15:20
Speaker 1: very quickly, doctor Kendall Krouse, if you could explain how
15:25
Speaker 1: awesome epiphelial DNA is and how easy it is now
15:30
Speaker 1: that we understand it, how easy it is to find it.
15:33
Speaker 1: So your epopelial layers, your thin layer of your outer
15:37
Speaker 1: covering in your skin, and pretty much anytime you touch
15:40
Speaker 1: a surface, you're leaving DNA on that surface. It's been
15:46
Speaker 1: very good for the DNA analysis that we can find
15:49
Speaker 1: it at off top season from doing swabs. So you
15:53
Speaker 1: just think about any contact, any surface you come in
15:55
Speaker 1: contact with, you've left a trace evidence, which is I
15:59
Speaker 1: believe low cards principle. If I remember right right right,
16:03
Speaker 1: Jennifer Coffin Daffer with me, former FBI agent Jennifer, I
16:07
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about what Matthew and Jeno
16:10
Speaker 1: said that this was a spur of the moment thing,
16:13
Speaker 1: Doctor Angie, Doctor Angela Arnold, a psychiatrist side of Atlanta.
16:16
Speaker 1: Isn't it true that your network back in Memphis says
16:22
Speaker 1: that this freak I had even say his name, but
16:27
Speaker 1: I will CLOTHA Abston Abston had a habit of hanging
16:34
Speaker 1: around the university making sex overtures to co eds, and
16:39
Speaker 1: he did the same thing in his own neighborhood. Explain
16:42
Speaker 1: that whole thing. I mean, if my husband, if I
16:46
Speaker 1: if he even whistled at somebody number one, after I
16:49
Speaker 1: got up off the ground from sainting, because I've never
16:53
Speaker 1: do anything like that before, I would totally jerkingnot in
16:56
Speaker 1: his neck, But I mean, what is that. You know,
17:00
Speaker 1: somebody whistles it at you, or cat calls at you,
17:04
Speaker 1: or says, hey, I give you a hundred dollars to
17:07
Speaker 1: f me, which is what he was saying to women
17:09
Speaker 1: in his neighborhood. But what is that? First of all, Nancy,
17:13
Speaker 1: it's a very immature form of behavior for a grown
17:16
Speaker 1: I don't know that I'd call it that. That's sudden,
17:18
Speaker 1: that will get you shot by somebody's husband. They go ahead,
17:21
Speaker 1: But it's and it shows such a lack of boundaries.
17:24
Speaker 1: I mean, who, like you said, who doesn't ha it?
17:28
Speaker 1: I thought I had doctor Angie Arnold on, I've just
17:31
Speaker 1: got a guy who's done time for rape, agasalt theft, kidnapping,
17:37
Speaker 1: copycat kidnapping, did twenty two years on a twenty four
17:40
Speaker 1: year jail jail sentence, and she says there's a lack
17:44
Speaker 1: of boundaries. You know, I'd like to cut her, mike,
17:48
Speaker 1: but I just want to hear, just for the fun
17:50
Speaker 1: of it, what she's about to say. Go, Hey, doctor Angie.
17:53
Speaker 1: Well that's the first part that I wanted to say.
17:56
Speaker 1: Now you're okay. I assume there's going to be an indendity,
17:59
Speaker 1: but you know, to God, Nancy, let's just call him
18:01
Speaker 1: what he is. Okay, he's a psychopath, that's what he is. Oh,
18:07
Speaker 1: he's been doing he's been doing bad things. He was
18:10
Speaker 1: twelve year old, eleven, But don't even start with he's crazy.
18:18
Speaker 1: Sistay Our France at NBC. Around seven to fifty am,
18:21
Speaker 1: roughly three hours after the abduction, the suspect's brother and
18:25
Speaker 1: another witness telling investigators they saw him wash his clothes
18:28
Speaker 1: in a sink and clean the inside of the car
18:31
Speaker 1: with floor cleaner, according to an affidavit, the brother also
18:34
Speaker 1: saying he was acting very strange that bizarre scene allegedly
18:38
Speaker 1: unfolding less than a mile from where police discovered the
18:41
Speaker 1: unidentified body late Monday. The affidavit also says Abston left
18:45
Speaker 1: sandals behind authorities using DNA from those shoes to zero
18:49
Speaker 1: in on him. Okay, doctor and she, don't even start
18:52
Speaker 1: with the crazy talk, because here's a guy three hours
18:57
Speaker 1: after Eliza as kidnapped and in my mind already killed.
19:01
Speaker 1: She's dead. He has to wherewith all to think, Wow, right,
19:05
Speaker 1: I need to clean out my GMC. I need to
19:08
Speaker 1: do that right now before the cops come look at it.
19:10
Speaker 1: So don't even start down that road that he's crazy,
19:13
Speaker 1: he's a psychopath, blah blah blah. Well, you can be
19:17
Speaker 1: a psychopath and not be called crazy. I'm not calling
19:20
Speaker 1: him crazy, okay. I think that he is a very
19:24
Speaker 1: evil person, and those kinds of people exist in our world.
19:29
Speaker 1: Everything that they do is about evil. And he also
19:34
Speaker 1: doesn't have a conscience about what he does. Sure, he
19:37
Speaker 1: knows that he needs to clean out his car, he
19:39
Speaker 1: didn't know that he shouldn't have left his shoes where
19:41
Speaker 1: he did, but that none of those things make him crazy.
19:45
Speaker 1: But he is the reason I call him a psychopath
19:48
Speaker 1: is because he doesn't have any kind of conscience about
19:52
Speaker 1: what he does. Can we get back to what your
19:55
Speaker 1: network and mephist tells you about him? Propositioning co eds,
20:01
Speaker 1: You know. You know, Lucy is fourteen. My little girl
20:04
Speaker 1: and her twin brother, they're about to turn fifteen, believe
20:07
Speaker 1: it or not, which means in three years they're going
20:10
Speaker 1: to go to college. God willing have this hanging around
20:14
Speaker 1: the campus propositioning teen girls for sex. It's very open,
20:20
Speaker 1: it's very accessible. Co Eds are walking the streets all
20:24
Speaker 1: the time. Okay, I mean, Nancy. It's sort of chilling
20:29
Speaker 1: to me think about us. It's very chilling to me
20:34
Speaker 1: to think that the people that I know knew that
20:38
Speaker 1: he was doing us. Why would they know that exactly?
20:41
Speaker 1: I don't know why they knowed us, but they knew
20:44
Speaker 1: that he had a history of hanging around that campus
20:47
Speaker 1: and cat calling the co eds. Let me go to
20:49
Speaker 1: Matthew Mangina, a former prosecutor and author. Matthew Mangino, that's
20:54
Speaker 1: just kind of evidence that will not come in to evidence,
20:59
Speaker 1: although I wish would because I think it's very probitive.
21:02
Speaker 1: There's no way a jury will ever hear that Clota
21:07
Speaker 1: Abstin had a habit of propositioning teen girls for sex.
21:13
Speaker 1: If I, if I was prosecuting the case, I would
21:19
Speaker 1: try to present this as a prior prior bad axe
21:22
Speaker 1: under four or four of the rules of evidence, you know.
21:27
Speaker 1: So you know, I think there's a possibility that we
21:30
Speaker 1: could get that information, and I will certainly try to
21:34
Speaker 1: do that. But with regard to the issue that was
21:39
Speaker 1: raised earlier, you know, there is no um sign that
21:43
Speaker 1: this guy has any sort of insanity or anything like that. Uh.
21:47
Speaker 1: He certainly tried to cover his tracks, He tried to
21:50
Speaker 1: get rid of evidence. He knows the difference between right
21:53
Speaker 1: and wrong. So you know, maybe he has some other
21:57
Speaker 1: mental health issues, but they certainly are not going to
22:01
Speaker 1: excuse any conduct, maybe mitigate, but not excuse. As you
22:05
Speaker 1: know by now, the body of thirty four year old
22:08
Speaker 1: mom Eliza Fletcher, the mom of two little boys, has
22:12
Speaker 1: been discovered thrown into tall grass. Yards away from her
22:18
Speaker 1: body were her Lululemon jockeing shorts that she has seen
22:23
Speaker 1: pictured in with me and All Star Pound. To make
22:26
Speaker 1: sense of what we know right now regarding the discovery
22:30
Speaker 1: of Eliza's body, take us an hour cut fourteen our
22:34
Speaker 1: friends at WRG A good wrenching discovery in South Memphis,
22:38
Speaker 1: as detectives confirm a body was located a few yards
22:42
Speaker 1: away from where Eliza Fletcher's alleged abductor came hours after
22:46
Speaker 1: her kidnapping. Monday, Memphis police swarmed this area after finding
22:50
Speaker 1: a body in an overgrown lot near a vacant home
22:54
Speaker 1: on Victor Street. The scene just a stone's throw away
22:57
Speaker 1: from where Memphis police say thirty eight year old Cleot
23:00
Speaker 1: the absent came hours after abducting Fletcher. They believe he
23:04
Speaker 1: cleaned blood from the interior of the suv used in
23:07
Speaker 1: the abduction and washed his clothes and his brother's sink. Wow,
23:12
Speaker 1: a lot of cleaning going on, washing his clothes and
23:14
Speaker 1: his brother sink. Straight out to Dave Matt, crime online
23:17
Speaker 1: dot Com invest to get a reporter. So it's true,
23:21
Speaker 1: Dave mac Then it is actually caught on video of
23:26
Speaker 1: the suspect cleaning out his GMC. Isn't that true? Absolutely?
23:31
Speaker 1: It was caught on camera at seven forty five in
23:34
Speaker 1: the morning, about five minutes before her husband called police
23:38
Speaker 1: to notifiers she never came home from a run. What
23:41
Speaker 1: time did the husband report her missing? It's just curious,
23:44
Speaker 1: so she had been gone for three hours and fifteen
23:47
Speaker 1: minutes roughly. To Jennifer Coffin Daffer, a former FBI, what
23:52
Speaker 1: do you make of the nearly thirty minutes that he
23:55
Speaker 1: stopped Eliza before forcing her into his GMC. Well, I
23:59
Speaker 1: think this is telling this was not completely random. If
24:03
Speaker 1: you will, he was either a waiting there because he
24:08
Speaker 1: knew possibly her running patterns, or he was there because
24:12
Speaker 1: he was stalking to try to find somebody. But if
24:16
Speaker 1: you look at the time, it's not a time that's
24:20
Speaker 1: going to instill a lot of people on that campus.
24:24
Speaker 1: I mean, the prey is going to be very diminished
24:27
Speaker 1: at four o'clock in the morning. So I find it
24:30
Speaker 1: very interesting. I don't think that this was just he
24:34
Speaker 1: was out driving around and decided to do this haphatically.
24:37
Speaker 1: I think the slides, quite frankly, are irrelevant in that
24:41
Speaker 1: scenario because this is what he wore. This is how
24:44
Speaker 1: he dressed every day. So he's going out and he's
24:50
Speaker 1: on campus waiting seemingly for her. We say him cleaning
24:54
Speaker 1: out his car very carefully at his brother's. But to
24:58
Speaker 1: doctor Kennel Crown, Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County, a regular
25:02
Speaker 1: bleach or dechurgent won't do it. You need something like
25:06
Speaker 1: a sulfuric acid base such as black swan. That's the
25:10
Speaker 1: only thing that might get rid of DNA, so he
25:15
Speaker 1: can clean all day long and wash his clothes and
25:18
Speaker 1: his brothers sink. But it ain't happening in Doctor Kinnel crowns.
25:22
Speaker 1: That's not going to work. Yeah, it's correct, Nancy. Usual
25:25
Speaker 1: cleaning products aren't gonna wash away the stain of the
25:28
Speaker 1: blood and the DNA from the victims, so you have
25:32
Speaker 1: to go to a lot of efforts to really get
25:34
Speaker 1: rid of it, short of burning it or something along
25:37
Speaker 1: those lines. But yeah, just typical cleaning supplies aren't going
25:40
Speaker 1: to do the trick. Also, I just like to interjectorial
25:43
Speaker 1: quickly that you know, this is not the first time
25:46
Speaker 1: we've discussed the case where someone was stalking to someone,
25:49
Speaker 1: So I see it all the time. If you run
25:52
Speaker 1: the same route, drive the same way, there's always someone
25:55
Speaker 1: watching in wait and Achillia. So you know, think about
25:59
Speaker 1: mixing it up a case, William, maybe you won't die.
26:02
Speaker 1: I was thinking about Dennis Rader, you know, the BT
26:05
Speaker 1: case strangler. He stalked his victims that knew their routine,
26:09
Speaker 1: and it reminded me a little bit of that type
26:11
Speaker 1: of an emo that he was there. I agree completely,
26:15
Speaker 1: and Nancy, my intel tells me and I think this
26:19
Speaker 1: is important to know. The reports of him being hanging
26:26
Speaker 1: around the University of Memphis campus came out immediately after
26:30
Speaker 1: she was kidnapped, but no one had said anything prior
26:34
Speaker 1: to her being kidnapped. Okay, so he had been around,
26:37
Speaker 1: people had seen him, but the reports didn't come out
26:41
Speaker 1: until after she was kidnapped that people had seen a
26:44
Speaker 1: black man in a black suv hanging around the University
26:47
Speaker 1: of Memphis. And then the discovery Eliza takeleas n cut
26:51
Speaker 1: seventeen our friends at Fox thirteen in the past ten minutes.
26:55
Speaker 1: Memphis police confirming those new details, saying that the body
26:59
Speaker 1: they found yesterday is that of missing mother Eliza Fletcher,
27:03
Speaker 1: and now the man they had in custody, already charged
27:06
Speaker 1: with her kidnapping, faces murder charges. And this is coming
27:10
Speaker 1: just about sixteen hours after they discovered a body here
27:14
Speaker 1: not far, they said, within walking distance to an apartment
27:18
Speaker 1: complex where the thirty eight year old Cleota Absen was
27:22
Speaker 1: seen cleaning his suv shortly after the abduction. To Matthew
27:28
Speaker 1: Mangino joining us, Matthew Mangino, that's certainly not going to
27:32
Speaker 1: engender a lot of warm, fuzzy feelings. But on a
27:36
Speaker 1: behalf of a jury when they see cleova Absen cleaning
27:41
Speaker 1: his car trying to wash blood out of his clothes.
27:44
Speaker 1: I can't wait to find out about the evidence down
27:47
Speaker 1: that Saint drain and her body is just a few
27:52
Speaker 1: hundred feet away. He's that close to her body that
27:57
Speaker 1: he's thrown out according to police and tall graph and
28:01
Speaker 1: left there to decompose. In fact, what lamp police there
28:06
Speaker 1: was the quote stitch that neighbors had described of her
28:10
Speaker 1: decomposing and a swarm of flies. And there he is
28:16
Speaker 1: a hundred yards away, frantically cleaning his car and washing
28:21
Speaker 1: his shirt. Just conjure up that image in your mind.
28:25
Speaker 1: Matthew Minngina, What do you do with that at trial? Well? Yeah,
28:28
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously he's not the sharpest tool in the shed.
28:33
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about that he's the devil. He's straight
28:37
Speaker 1: from hell. Well yeah, I mean, you know, we talked
28:40
Speaker 1: earlier about the fact that you know, he's he's a
28:43
Speaker 1: psycho past. He has no remorse, he doesn't have any conscience,
28:47
Speaker 1: but he's not all He's also not very smart. It
28:50
Speaker 1: doesn't seem um, you know, you're going to try to
28:53
Speaker 1: you know, don't care every smart Why why are you
28:55
Speaker 1: telling me he's not smart? I'm asking you, what do
28:58
Speaker 1: you do when the devil who is busy washing his
29:04
Speaker 1: T shirt and her body's about a hundred yards away?
29:07
Speaker 1: What do you do with that? At trial? How do
29:09
Speaker 1: you put that mental image out of the jury's mind. Well,
29:12
Speaker 1: you try to first, you try to work out a
29:15
Speaker 1: plea because the trial is not going to be very
29:18
Speaker 1: good to you know, they got the death penalty in Tennessee, right,
29:21
Speaker 1: they can have the needle. If you could save his life,
29:24
Speaker 1: that would be That would be the best the defense
29:27
Speaker 1: attorney could probably do. Yeah, if you could save his life,
29:30
Speaker 1: have fun with that. Jennifer Coffin daffer with me, former
29:34
Speaker 1: FBI agent and crime victim. You know we're talking, Jennifer
29:39
Speaker 1: about him washing likely Eliza's blood out of his shirt,
29:45
Speaker 1: her two little babies at home, probably still asleep. Is
29:48
Speaker 1: seven thirty seven fifty in the morning. He's trying to
29:51
Speaker 1: get rid of evidence. What do you think haven't been
29:55
Speaker 1: a crime victim yourself or her last moments? Jennifer, describe
30:02
Speaker 1: what you went through. Oh, Nancy, you just gave me
30:05
Speaker 1: a chill bumps in recalling this. But essentially, you know,
30:11
Speaker 1: people think this is some sort of organized situation. When
30:14
Speaker 1: you're attacked, it's not. It's chaos. You're fighting for your life.
30:19
Speaker 1: He's fighting to take your life, and you know, flip
30:23
Speaker 1: flops are flying, you know you're in pain. You do
30:29
Speaker 1: the best you can to keep your head about you
30:32
Speaker 1: so that you can survive. You do the best to
30:35
Speaker 1: get out of the grasp and U Sometimes it's extremely
30:40
Speaker 1: difficult when someone is much larger than you. You know,
30:44
Speaker 1: I was really it hit home with me when I
30:47
Speaker 1: saw him at his hearing. His hands were so big
30:52
Speaker 1: and he was tall. They look like too Virginia hands.
30:56
Speaker 1: His hands are huge, And I was thinking about those
31:00
Speaker 1: last moments Nancy, and she was terrified. But I have
31:05
Speaker 1: to believe she fought for her life and was just
31:09
Speaker 1: overcome with the power of him. Time stories with Nancy Grace.
31:32
Speaker 1: Dave Matt correct me if I'm wrong on these facts.
31:35
Speaker 1: But the jeep cleotha absence jeep. His GMC sat there
31:43
Speaker 1: for about four minutes before he took off. I bet
31:47
Speaker 1: he was beating her to subdue her. Think about it, Nancy.
31:52
Speaker 1: He aggressively attacked her on the street to get her
31:56
Speaker 1: inside the vehicle, and she oh, this is a woman
31:59
Speaker 1: for his size. She was in good shape. She qualified
32:03
Speaker 1: for the Boston Marathon. She's five six, one hundred and
32:05
Speaker 1: thirty plus pounds. She's not a weak woman, and she
32:10
Speaker 1: fought hard. He still got her in that vehicle, and
32:14
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, four minutes after the attack, he gets
32:18
Speaker 1: her and he's got her inside that vehicle. We don't
32:21
Speaker 1: know what goes on, but we know that for four
32:24
Speaker 1: minutes he did anything and everything he possibly could and
32:29
Speaker 1: then took off. Yahy, what do we know about Cleosa
32:34
Speaker 1: absintakelist and our cut twelve our friends at Boston. As
32:39
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old in the year two thousand, he
32:41
Speaker 1: was charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery. A
32:45
Speaker 1: press account from the Memphis Flyer written in October two
32:48
Speaker 1: thousand and one, tells the story of his victim, an
32:51
Speaker 1: attorney had a well known Memphis law firm, kidnapped at
32:54
Speaker 1: gunpoint as he was leaving Bill Street and thrown into
32:56
Speaker 1: the trunk of his own car. Abston, the Flyers said,
33:00
Speaker 1: drove the victim's car around to pick up friends before
33:02
Speaker 1: showing up at a Mapco station. That's where Abston demanded
33:06
Speaker 1: the victim withdraw money from an ATM before running away
33:09
Speaker 1: after getting spooked by a Memphis Housing Authority officer walking
33:13
Speaker 1: into the store at the same time running away. That victim,
33:19
Speaker 1: the first kidnapping victim of Cleotha Absence that we know of,
33:23
Speaker 1: went on to recount how he believed he would have
33:26
Speaker 1: been killed if not for a codefendant that kept talking
33:30
Speaker 1: to Abson saying, don't don't kill this man. You gotta
33:33
Speaker 1: let him go, You gotta let him go, and the
33:35
Speaker 1: victim was in the trunk hearing all this. He also
33:40
Speaker 1: described Cleotha Absen as braggadocious behind bars, bragging about the event.
33:48
Speaker 1: This guy will probably bragg about murdering Eliza Fletcher, and
33:54
Speaker 1: I can al as distasteful as that is, I can
33:57
Speaker 1: only pray that he does so it could be used
34:00
Speaker 1: at trial against him. Speaking of his long and notorious
34:07
Speaker 1: rap sheet take a Listen to Our cut thirteen our
34:10
Speaker 1: friends at Fox thirteen. He was eventually arrested in charge
34:12
Speaker 1: with especially aggravated kidnapping, and after waiting in jail sixteen
34:16
Speaker 1: months before a trial, eventually decided to plead guilty to
34:20
Speaker 1: both charges. He was sentenced to twenty four years with
34:23
Speaker 1: credit for time served. State Department of Correction record show
34:26
Speaker 1: absten was released from prison in November twenty twenty, less
34:30
Speaker 1: than two years later. Police accused Abstin of doing the
34:33
Speaker 1: same thing and refusing to tell them where Eliza Fletcher
34:36
Speaker 1: is located. Was there a chance of saving her life?
34:40
Speaker 1: We don't know, but he sat there angel after it's
34:45
Speaker 1: revealed that's him on the video kidnapping her, refusing to
34:48
Speaker 1: tell police where she was. Could she have been saved?
34:55
Speaker 1: Let's talk about his past rape, aggravated assault, theft, kidnapping,
35:01
Speaker 1: and now this, why was this guy out walking around?
35:07
Speaker 1: Why wasn't he behind bars? Number one? Jennifer Coffin Daff
35:12
Speaker 1: joining me, former fed with the FBI. He was treated
35:15
Speaker 1: as a juvenile when the rape occurred. He was a juvenile.
35:19
Speaker 1: Now he started committing felonies at age eleven. The rape
35:23
Speaker 1: that he committed I believe was when he was sixteen.
35:25
Speaker 1: He could have been treated as an adult then, but
35:28
Speaker 1: he wasn't. Somebody let him off and rape as one
35:32
Speaker 1: of the seven deadlies. And what I mean by that,
35:34
Speaker 1: Jennifer Coffin Daff, is the seven felonies which will send
35:40
Speaker 1: you straight to adult court if you are a juvenile
35:44
Speaker 1: over let's just say thirteen fourteen, and they are obviously murder, rape, sodomy,
35:52
Speaker 1: child molestation, aggravated assault, armed robbery, arson BAM not hard
35:59
Speaker 1: to figure out. That means you have a propensity for
36:03
Speaker 1: violence on other human beings. And I mean, would it,
36:06
Speaker 1: could have? Should it? That doesn't do anything for me.
36:08
Speaker 1: But if if he had been treated as an adult
36:12
Speaker 1: on the rate which should have with that level of severity,
36:17
Speaker 1: he would have been in jail. It's very simple. But
36:21
Speaker 1: instead he's out, as doctor Angie has described, heckling co
36:27
Speaker 1: eds and propositioning them for sex at the university. And
36:33
Speaker 1: then who shows up four o'clock am jogging Eliza Fletcher?
36:39
Speaker 1: What about it, Jennifer Well, Nancy, I think many of
36:45
Speaker 1: us stand believing that these early releases, these light sentences
36:52
Speaker 1: treating juveniles who are doing adult criminal acts need to
36:58
Speaker 1: receive the harsh to punishment and in my view, should
37:03
Speaker 1: not receive early release options. It's pretty clear Cliosa Absen
37:09
Speaker 1: was not rehabilitated in any way, and it's just a
37:14
Speaker 1: failure to society to early release these types of criminals.
37:19
Speaker 1: In my opinion, the video footage is going to be
37:23
Speaker 1: damning I think there's a strong possibility, since he stought
37:26
Speaker 1: Eliza for thirty minutes, and because he committed a murder
37:30
Speaker 1: according to police, in the commission of a felony, I
37:34
Speaker 1: believe that felony will be rape. I don't know what
37:36
Speaker 1: assumption you can draw from her Lululemon jogging shorts, being
37:41
Speaker 1: in a trash bag away from her body, but to me,
37:44
Speaker 1: that's his rape. And given his propensity to proposition teen
37:49
Speaker 1: girls for sex, I mean I think two and two
37:53
Speaker 1: stillcals four. Those are both qualifying aggravating circumstances for the
37:59
Speaker 1: Tennessee penalty, which again, as I mentioned, is a choice
38:04
Speaker 1: between the needle where you just drift off to sleep,
38:07
Speaker 1: unlike your victim that dies in pain and fear, or
38:10
Speaker 1: the electric chair. To doctor Kendall Crowns, in this scenario,
38:17
Speaker 1: what do you believe is a likely co d cause
38:20
Speaker 1: of death? Most likely because of death on this point
38:23
Speaker 1: would be a strangulation, would be by as function. He
38:28
Speaker 1: could have met her about the head of doctor unconscious
38:30
Speaker 1: but or continued to beat her. But it's more than
38:34
Speaker 1: likely a strangulation, you know. To Jennifer Coffin Daffer, a
38:37
Speaker 1: lot of people are trying to make connections between The
38:41
Speaker 1: first kidnapped victim was at the same law firm as
38:45
Speaker 1: Eliza's uncle, who was the family spokesperson. Was somebody in
38:49
Speaker 1: the family involved. Was this for money because our grandparents
38:53
Speaker 1: were super rich because they started a really big hardware store.
38:58
Speaker 1: Everybody's looking for a connection, and maybe there is. But
39:03
Speaker 1: what's even scarier to me, Jennifer, is there's a very
39:07
Speaker 1: strong possibility there's not a connection. And you know why
39:11
Speaker 1: people don't like that, Jennifer. They don't like it because
39:15
Speaker 1: that means this could happen to them. If there's a connection,
39:19
Speaker 1: you can go, oh, well, it's the cousin who was
39:22
Speaker 1: related to this, and there was a vendetta, blah blah,
39:24
Speaker 1: what had nothing to do with me. That's simply not true.
39:28
Speaker 1: This can happen to anybody, and nobody wants to think that, Jennifer. Well,
39:33
Speaker 1: no one wakes up in the morning, Nancy and says,
39:35
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to be a victim this morning.
39:38
Speaker 1: No one does it. They find themselves in a situation
39:41
Speaker 1: where they're alone, they're vulnerable, and somebody with no conscious
39:47
Speaker 1: somebody who's evil, preys upon them. So I agree with
39:51
Speaker 1: you Nancy that it's a situation that everybody needs to
39:55
Speaker 1: prepare for and to be aware of so that they
39:59
Speaker 1: can avoid or at least lessen their possibilities of being attacked. Yeahs,
40:05
Speaker 1: I wanted to hear our cut seven that we obtained
40:09
Speaker 1: from kW A M as we sign off, this little
40:14
Speaker 1: light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, this little
40:19
Speaker 1: light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine, Let it shine,
40:24
Speaker 1: let it shine, let it shine. This you girls, and
40:30
Speaker 1: you need to let the light shine at your house
40:33
Speaker 1: and I will see you later. Good bye, friend.