Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / BRUTAL MURDER OF MEMPHIS MOM ELIZA COULD HAVE BEEN STOPPED? Explosive Claim

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BRUTAL MURDER OF MEMPHIS MOM ELIZA COULD HAVE BEEN STOPPED? Explosive Claim · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Greece. We just read the headlines
0:16
Speaker 1: about a brutal beating, kidnap, and murder of a young
0:21
Speaker 1: Memphis mother of two, Eliza Fletcher. But now we are
0:27
Speaker 1: learning the whole thing could have been avoided. Eliza could
0:35
Speaker 1: very well be alive today, teaching at her church school
0:42
Speaker 1: where she taught, taking care of her two little boys.
0:47
Speaker 1: I'm so mad I could chow a nail in half
0:51
Speaker 1: because I firmly believe her murder could have been avoided.
1:00
Speaker 1: I'mancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being
1:02
Speaker 1: with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM one eleven.
1:06
Speaker 1: Where did it all start? Listen? It's been just over
1:09
Speaker 1: twelve hours since Elijah Fletcher disappeared and multiple agencies have
1:13
Speaker 1: joined forces, and I can tell you there's a lot
1:15
Speaker 1: of concern in the community as time passes by. Where
1:19
Speaker 1: is the lines of Fletcher? That's the question many are
1:22
Speaker 1: asking across the Mid South after investigators say the avid
1:25
Speaker 1: jogger was abducted. It's very important that if anybody knows
1:29
Speaker 1: the whereabouts of miss Fletcher to contact the police immediately.
1:33
Speaker 1: Fletcher was jogging down Central Avenue around four thirty this
1:36
Speaker 1: morning when investigators say she was approached by someone who
1:40
Speaker 1: forced her into a dark colored suv and drove off.
1:44
Speaker 1: You don't want to hear that that's going on. We
1:49
Speaker 1: want to find her. We don't know, we don't know
1:51
Speaker 1: what's going on. Hart Robinson is a friend of Fletcher
1:53
Speaker 1: and got the news this morning and immediately came to
1:56
Speaker 1: the area of Central Avenue and Zach Curling Street where
2:00
Speaker 1: he was last seen. Where everybody's just really looking forward.
2:03
Speaker 1: The search was on for the missing mom up to
2:06
Speaker 1: Eliza Fletcher. You were just hearing our friends at WRG
2:12
Speaker 1: Channel three. There were only two clues left behind listen.
2:17
Speaker 1: Fletcher cell phone and a water bottle were found in
2:20
Speaker 1: front of a home owned by the University of Memphis
2:23
Speaker 1: and a safety alert sent to students. They say she
2:25
Speaker 1: was reported missing after not returning home from her run.
2:30
Speaker 1: The suv that she was last seen and was spotted
2:33
Speaker 1: driving westbound down Central Avenue. Multiple agencies, including the FBI
2:38
Speaker 1: or assisting with the case with one goal in mind,
2:41
Speaker 1: find Eliza Fletcher. Our concern is to locate miss Fletcher.
2:45
Speaker 1: So if anybody knows where she's at, call the police immediately.
2:48
Speaker 1: Really just think her life could have been spared. I
2:53
Speaker 1: firmly believe it. And then the frantic search. Listen to
2:58
Speaker 1: our friends at NBC around seven to fifty am, roughly
3:01
Speaker 1: three hours after the abduction, the suspect's brother and another
3:04
Speaker 1: witness telling investigators they saw him wash his clothes in
3:07
Speaker 1: a sink and clean the inside of the car with
3:10
Speaker 1: floor cleaner, according to an affidavit, the brother also saying
3:13
Speaker 1: he was acting very strange that bizarre scene allegedly unfolding
3:18
Speaker 1: less than a mile from where police discovered the unidentified
3:21
Speaker 1: body late Monday. The affidavit also says Abstin left sandals behind,
3:25
Speaker 1: Authorities using DNA from those shoes to zero in on him. So,
3:29
Speaker 1: while the frantic search throughout the Memphis area is ongoing
3:34
Speaker 1: for the missing mom, you see Cleota Abstin frantically cleaning
3:40
Speaker 1: the back of his GMC, washing his clothes, and his
3:45
Speaker 1: brother's sing Wow, isn't that quite the coincidence? And then
3:54
Speaker 1: the gruesome discovery our friends w RG A good wrenching
3:59
Speaker 1: discovery south Memphis, as detectives confirm a body was located
4:03
Speaker 1: a few yards away from where Eliza Fletcher's alleged abductor
4:07
Speaker 1: came hours after her kidnapping. Monday, Memphis police swarmed this
4:11
Speaker 1: area after finding a body in an overgrown lot near
4:15
Speaker 1: a vacant home on Victor Street. The scene just a
4:18
Speaker 1: stone's throw away from where Memphis police say thirty eight
4:22
Speaker 1: year old Cleota Absent came hours after abducting Fletcher. They
4:26
Speaker 1: believe he cleaned blood from the interior of the suv
4:29
Speaker 1: used in the abduction and washed his clothes in his
4:32
Speaker 1: brother's sink in the past ten minutes. Memphis police confirming
4:36
Speaker 1: those new details, saying that the body they found yesterday
4:39
Speaker 1: is that of missing mother Eliza Fletcher, and now the
4:44
Speaker 1: man they had in custody already charged with her kidnapping,
4:47
Speaker 1: faces murder charges. And this is coming just about sixteen
4:51
Speaker 1: hours after they discovered a body here not far, they said,
4:55
Speaker 1: within walking distance to an apartment complex where the thirty
4:59
Speaker 1: eight year old Cleota Absen was seen cleaning his suv
5:04
Speaker 1: shortly after the abduction. Our friends at Fox thirteen joining
5:08
Speaker 1: w RG when Eliza went missing, the search ensued. You
5:16
Speaker 1: see the defendant, the suspect caught on video just cleaning, cleaning, scrubbing, scrubbing,
5:27
Speaker 1: trying to get rid of blood. He would need some
5:31
Speaker 1: sort of hydrochloric acid to do that trick. It didn't work,
5:36
Speaker 1: blood throughout his suv, and then a couple of hundred
5:41
Speaker 1: yards away, the body of Eliza Fletcher found just discarded
5:47
Speaker 1: in tall grass. Her Lululemon running shorts found in a
5:53
Speaker 1: garbage bag not far away, also discarded. And now today
6:01
Speaker 1: we find out her abduction, her likely rape, her murder
6:12
Speaker 1: could have all been avoided. How taking listen to our
6:20
Speaker 1: friends at wat N. The man accused of kidnapping and
6:24
Speaker 1: killing Eliza Fletcher is facing three new criminal charges tonight.
6:29
Speaker 1: The charges are from another case in twenty twenty one.
6:33
Speaker 1: In this case, he's facing charges for aggravated rape, kidnapping,
6:37
Speaker 1: and unlawful possession of a gun. Memphis Police confirm a
6:40
Speaker 1: sexual assault report was taken on September twenty one of
6:45
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. The sexual assault kit was submitted to
6:48
Speaker 1: the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations two days later on September
6:51
Speaker 1: twenty third of last year, but that kit was not
6:54
Speaker 1: tested until he was connected to Eliza Fletcher's disappearance. Did
6:59
Speaker 1: you hear that? Another aggravated kidnap and rape? All the
7:05
Speaker 1: way back almost a year ago? Twenty twenty one, a
7:10
Speaker 1: rape kit was taken. It was sent to the Tennessee
7:15
Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigations the TBI, and not a thing was done.
7:23
Speaker 1: It sat on a shelf and in that Manila evidence
7:31
Speaker 1: bag sealed shut with the investigators initials over it to
7:38
Speaker 1: maintain the chain of custody. Was the evidence that would
7:44
Speaker 1: have put Cleotha Abstin behind bars at the time Eliza
7:51
Speaker 1: was kidnapped and murdered. Joining me right now in All
7:54
Speaker 1: Star panel to make sense of what we know right now.
7:57
Speaker 1: But first I want to go to Dave Matt Crime
8:00
Speaker 1: online dot Com investigative reporter, Dave, what went wrong? Nancy?
8:05
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about how quickly they were able
8:09
Speaker 1: to identify the DNA of Cleota Abstin on the slides
8:14
Speaker 1: that they found at the kidnapping scene Proliza fledgerd. They
8:18
Speaker 1: turned that around in less than eighteen hours from the
8:21
Speaker 1: moment they found the slides to the moment they identified
8:24
Speaker 1: the DNA clumbing from Cleotha Abstin in the case from
8:28
Speaker 1: September twenty first, twenty twenty one, a woman reported the rape,
8:33
Speaker 1: They did a rape kit, and forty eight hours later,
8:36
Speaker 1: on September twenty third of last year. The rape kit
8:39
Speaker 1: was submitted to the TBI DNA case files. The problem
8:45
Speaker 1: is unless they order a rush on the DNA, it
8:51
Speaker 1: goes into the regular file. Just stop, no affairs, Dave Matt.
8:56
Speaker 1: But I really don't want to hear that because that
8:59
Speaker 1: is all by I know you're reporting whether TBI wants
9:05
Speaker 1: me to hear. But when it comes to a life
9:09
Speaker 1: threatening violent crime, why is there a weight? I pay
9:14
Speaker 1: half my paycheck every year. I have ben since I
9:19
Speaker 1: was a lowly assistant in the District Attorney's office, since
9:23
Speaker 1: before that, when I worked at the library at Mercy University.
9:28
Speaker 1: Why do I pay taxes so Cleota Absent can walk
9:33
Speaker 1: free and murder Eliza Fletcher leaving her two children with
9:40
Speaker 1: no mother. You know how much that screws a kid
9:44
Speaker 1: up forever. And you're telling me it sounds like, with
9:48
Speaker 1: a straight face, that it was in line to get analyzed.
9:53
Speaker 1: You know what, I don't want to hear it. She's
9:57
Speaker 1: dead and she endured a horrible death. That Stuving was
10:03
Speaker 1: covered in blood. I put money on it. She was
10:07
Speaker 1: forcibly raped, likely sodomized as well. Why because of align
10:14
Speaker 1: a queue for evidence time stories with Nancy Grace with
10:31
Speaker 1: me now. Lisa Daddy, I a former police lieutenant, New Haven,
10:35
Speaker 1: PD and she is the director of the Center for
10:40
Speaker 1: Advanced Policing and Graduate program coordinator, University New Haven. Lisa,
10:47
Speaker 1: could you please interpret what Dave Matt was just trying
10:51
Speaker 1: to say? Honestly, Nancy, the police department messed up on
10:54
Speaker 1: that one, and you know, I really don't wait, wait, wait,
10:58
Speaker 1: messed up. Let's just analyze what you just said. Messed up.
11:04
Speaker 1: This is more than just messing up that didn't fall
11:08
Speaker 1: through the cracks. They screwed up horribly and Eliza is
11:14
Speaker 1: dead because they couldn't analyze a rape kit to Rachel
11:21
Speaker 1: Dfish are joining me special guest, registered nurse, sex assault
11:26
Speaker 1: nurse examiner. She's an expert witness. She's offered author of
11:30
Speaker 1: Taking Back the Pen and you can find her at
11:34
Speaker 1: Legal are In Consult dot org. Rachel, do you ever
11:39
Speaker 1: get tired of hearing about one fell after the next.
11:44
Speaker 1: You deal with rape victims every day, and I keep
11:50
Speaker 1: screaming from the rooftops. A rape victim is never the
11:55
Speaker 1: same like a child molestation victims. Yes, they can go
11:59
Speaker 1: on about life same light. They're having a normal life,
12:02
Speaker 1: but they're never the same after a rape. Maybe you
12:07
Speaker 1: can say it better than me, right, Yeah, the impact
12:09
Speaker 1: that a victim has after being assaulted, it's lifelong. It
12:14
Speaker 1: never goes away. A murder is one thing that's the
12:18
Speaker 1: end result. But there are people living with the effects
12:21
Speaker 1: of this for the rest of their lives. And it
12:23
Speaker 1: comes down to the fact that jurisdictions, communities don't put
12:27
Speaker 1: an emphasis on crimes of violence against women are the vulnerable.
12:31
Speaker 1: These sex crimes are just tossed the side. There's not
12:34
Speaker 1: proper funding, we don't adequately staff or law enforcement agency
12:39
Speaker 1: their crime labs. And then the statutes. I mean Tennessee,
12:42
Speaker 1: you don't even have to the law enforcement agency does
12:44
Speaker 1: not even have to turn over the kit until sixty
12:47
Speaker 1: days to the crime lab. So the statutes are showing, okay,
12:53
Speaker 1: there's not a priority. What can happen in sixty days.
12:56
Speaker 1: A lot can happen. Other rapes can happen. Yeah, like
12:58
Speaker 1: a Lis of Fletcher get murdered. And you know another thing,
13:02
Speaker 1: Rachel D. Fisher, who is a rape sex assault nurse examiner.
13:08
Speaker 1: It's a very very specialized area. I wonder what that
13:12
Speaker 1: says to the rape victim like Cleotha Abstin's other rape victim.
13:17
Speaker 1: I mean, we already know of one when he was
13:20
Speaker 1: nearing adulthood, this one in September twenty twenty one. I
13:25
Speaker 1: wonder how that rape victim felt when she would call
13:30
Speaker 1: and say, um, what the status of my brutal rape case?
13:35
Speaker 1: And she said oh, and she hears, oh, yeah, well
13:38
Speaker 1: it's in the queue. It's like you're at Target and
13:41
Speaker 1: there's a long line, or you're at Kroger and the
13:44
Speaker 1: line wraps around the cash register. H No, she's not
13:49
Speaker 1: buying a dozen apples. She's trying to find out about
13:53
Speaker 1: her rape case that forever altered her life. And she
13:57
Speaker 1: gets told, yeah, you're in the line. Still analyze it. Meanwhile,
14:02
Speaker 1: this guy is walking free. But am I talking gibberish?
14:06
Speaker 1: Karen Start, because I feel like I'm not getting through.
14:10
Speaker 1: I don't think I can scream any louder in a studio.
14:13
Speaker 1: Karen starting joining me now a psychologists at a New
14:16
Speaker 1: York at karen Start dot com. That's Karen with a
14:18
Speaker 1: se Karen, help me, please, Nancy, You're not talking gibberish.
14:23
Speaker 1: This is how it happens. I feel like crying and
14:26
Speaker 1: fighting and hitting someone all at the same time, people
14:31
Speaker 1: don't take it seriously enough. Here's something that will damage
14:37
Speaker 1: someone's life forever. And I don't understand because police are
14:42
Speaker 1: supposed to be trained, they're supposed to know that they
14:46
Speaker 1: need to do something right away. And it is outraged,
14:51
Speaker 1: just outrageous that they did not make sure that that
14:55
Speaker 1: came back as soon as possible. And who knows whatever
15:00
Speaker 1: he was up to. Nancy, Oh oh, this is the
15:03
Speaker 1: tip of the iceberg. Karen, Karen, Karen Stark. This guy, CLARITHA.
15:08
Speaker 1: Abstin started committing violent felonies at age eleven that we
15:14
Speaker 1: know of. And you know, Matthew Mangino, I'm not asking
15:19
Speaker 1: you to speak. I'm just referring to you former prosecutor,
15:24
Speaker 1: now civil and defense attorney and author. He would argue, Oh,
15:31
Speaker 1: he was just eleven, the sweet little boy. You know.
15:35
Speaker 1: I might buy that at eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, but
15:39
Speaker 1: then at sixteen, seventeen eighteen, I'm not buying it anymore. So, Karen,
15:45
Speaker 1: start when people say he started his one man crime
15:48
Speaker 1: wave at age eleven, how many rapes has this guy committed,
15:55
Speaker 1: culminating in the murder of Eliza Flasher and Mangino, don't
15:59
Speaker 1: even by they're jumping in and say he's innocent until
16:02
Speaker 1: proving guilty. I know that we all know that, and
16:05
Speaker 1: I believe there is a snowball's chance in hell that
16:08
Speaker 1: he may not be guilty. Okay, So that said, what Karen,
16:14
Speaker 1: start say something so I can quit feeling like I
16:18
Speaker 1: want to kill somebody. You're not going to clift of
16:20
Speaker 1: the sorry fancy, but this is outrageous and people, do
16:25
Speaker 1: you know that psychochasts start at an early age, so
16:29
Speaker 1: it doesn't surprise me that this began at eleven. The
16:33
Speaker 1: outrageous part of this is that he is not already
16:36
Speaker 1: under lock and kids walking free to grab a line. Okay,
16:41
Speaker 1: so what is the excuse? Take a listen to our
16:45
Speaker 1: friend Marcus Hunter. Scientists pulled the recently tested kids matching
16:50
Speaker 1: Gapson Henderson for analysis nine months after it was received
16:56
Speaker 1: on to June twenty fourth of this year, and completed
17:00
Speaker 1: and initial report of the results on August twenty ninth.
17:03
Speaker 1: The sample was then entered into coodas, which returned a
17:07
Speaker 1: match on a September fifth, which was within hours of
17:11
Speaker 1: Memphis police finding Fletcher's body on Victor Street and forty
17:16
Speaker 1: nine weeks after MPD submitted the rape kit to TBI,
17:21
Speaker 1: the match of the September twenty one assault came back
17:23
Speaker 1: to Cleiota Abston Henderson. The results were then reported to
17:28
Speaker 1: Memphis police. According to court documents, Thursday, he was indicted
17:32
Speaker 1: all the charges of aggravated rape, especially aggravated kidnapping, and
17:37
Speaker 1: gun charges in connection to the crime from a year ago.
17:41
Speaker 1: You know, it's just all blah blah blah words. Now
17:45
Speaker 1: am I supposed to believe Matthew Mengino. I'm coming to
17:50
Speaker 1: you just as a legal expert. Don't put on your
17:53
Speaker 1: defense hat yet, okay, because we all know you're a
17:57
Speaker 1: former prosecutor or former parole board member, author of the
18:00
Speaker 1: Executioner's Toll, So please don't start telling me he was
18:03
Speaker 1: only eleven years old when he committed his first balloting.
18:06
Speaker 1: I lets just say that for the shrink what you know,
18:11
Speaker 1: all this is bs right, because they're saying that it
18:15
Speaker 1: was just a coincidence that when Eliza Fletcher goes missing
18:19
Speaker 1: and they go, oh, you know what, you're at the
18:22
Speaker 1: front of the line. Now, let's do that DNA kit. No,
18:26
Speaker 1: that's not a coincidence. There's no such thing in criminal law.
18:31
Speaker 1: So they're trying to tell me that Eliza goes missing,
18:34
Speaker 1: and then they go, wow, I think it's time that
18:38
Speaker 1: we do the DNA on that file way back there
18:42
Speaker 1: on the shelf. What really happened, Mangino? Well, I think
18:45
Speaker 1: what really happened is they were able to find DNA
18:50
Speaker 1: on the sandals that were found at the crime scene,
18:55
Speaker 1: and they immediately did an analysis. I'm not talking about that,
19:00
Speaker 1: Matthew claith Austin DNA as on a September twenty twenty
19:06
Speaker 1: one rape victim. Okay, right, So why when Eliza gets
19:12
Speaker 1: kidnapped and there's a search going on, did they go wow,
19:16
Speaker 1: I think I'll sir, oh think I'll run that DNA test.
19:20
Speaker 1: Let's total b S. Why did they suddenly decide to
19:23
Speaker 1: run it then, you know, to cover their butts? I
19:27
Speaker 1: mean they failed. This was a systemic failure to test
19:33
Speaker 1: DNA that was found at a crime scene and as
19:36
Speaker 1: simple as just running a code combined DNA index system
19:42
Speaker 1: exactly know. It was cover your ass, That's what it was. Yeah,
19:49
Speaker 1: And I'm just wondering, Matthew Mangino, why did they select
19:54
Speaker 1: that particular rape kit to suddenly test. I'm guessing that
19:59
Speaker 1: the rape occurred in the same m O modus operandi
20:03
Speaker 1: method of operation as Eliza's kidnap, that the victim may
20:10
Speaker 1: have described the same kind of vehicle. Something about that
20:15
Speaker 1: rape kit, about that rape maybe it was in the
20:18
Speaker 1: same area, just I don't know, but something made them
20:23
Speaker 1: reach back on that shelf and pull out that file
20:27
Speaker 1: and perform that DNA test is submitted to CODUS, the
20:31
Speaker 1: Combined DNA Index System. Before I go to special guest
20:35
Speaker 1: doctor Kristen Middleman from authorm Labs, I want to circle
20:40
Speaker 1: back to Rachel D. Fisher, registered sex assault nurse examiner. Rachel,
20:46
Speaker 1: could you please describe what is the procedure that you
20:52
Speaker 1: go through when you examine a rape victim and what
20:55
Speaker 1: is a rape kitnam comes to hospital, we do head
21:00
Speaker 1: to assessment and the detailed general exam where we colect
21:02
Speaker 1: evidence from all the intimate parts of the body and
21:06
Speaker 1: anywhere based on the history, we submit this kit to
21:11
Speaker 1: law enforcement and law enforcement slowdown place, as I like
21:14
Speaker 1: to say, Rachel, we're not having tea at High Grown
21:19
Speaker 1: with King Charles. Okay, when you say we connect, we
21:25
Speaker 1: collect DNA from all parts of the body. That is
21:28
Speaker 1: certainly putting perfume on the pig. The rape victim, who
21:34
Speaker 1: has already been brutally raped, probably beaten, terrified, then has
21:40
Speaker 1: to go for a rape kit. Then it's basically a
21:44
Speaker 1: pelvic exam and it takes a long time. What do
21:49
Speaker 1: you have to do. It's a very intrusive exam. We
21:53
Speaker 1: spread their legs, we touch, we look, we examine, we
21:56
Speaker 1: go into all the genitalia. We swab, but we insearch speculums.
22:03
Speaker 1: It's re traumatizing for the victim. Essentially, it is what
22:06
Speaker 1: it is because we're going back into these places. Okay,
22:08
Speaker 1: wait a minute. See, See you are an expert, and
22:11
Speaker 1: when you just roll off comments like that, not everybody
22:16
Speaker 1: knows what you mean when you say a speculum, isn't
22:20
Speaker 1: that kind of like a reverse eyelash curler where you
22:26
Speaker 1: squinch the curler together Instead, A speculum is something you
22:31
Speaker 1: stick inside the ladies vagina and anus and then you
22:35
Speaker 1: open up those cat female cavities and then you go
22:39
Speaker 1: in there basically with a searchlight like a flashlight, and
22:43
Speaker 1: you look around with a really long Q tip and
22:48
Speaker 1: you look in there and you try and find with
22:53
Speaker 1: a swab. Yeah, everybody in the studio is grimacing and
22:57
Speaker 1: looking away right now for a reason. And you swab
23:01
Speaker 1: around inside the anus in the vagina and hopefully you
23:06
Speaker 1: will get naked to the human eye sperm DNA, right.
23:15
Speaker 1: That's the intent to get any any sort of DNA
23:18
Speaker 1: off of the internal orifices of the patients. Yeah, and
23:21
Speaker 1: that includes the anus. Correct. We do also swab the anus. Yes,
23:26
Speaker 1: And then you have the rape kit combing as if
23:31
Speaker 1: I would comb my hair, what is that. We take
23:34
Speaker 1: a comb and we go through the head hair, pubic hair,
23:38
Speaker 1: getting any debris that can link it back to potentially
23:42
Speaker 1: the scene of where it happened, to corroborate that as well.
23:46
Speaker 1: Sometimes we do plucking of the hair in order to
23:49
Speaker 1: get DNA as well. So it's a very painful, intrusive
23:53
Speaker 1: examine some in some points of it. But when the
23:56
Speaker 1: victims are that brave enough to come eaten for that,
24:00
Speaker 1: that's right there, the first step in they're healing. And
24:02
Speaker 1: the first victim of this case with a positive hit
24:05
Speaker 1: was brave enough to do that. So I can only
24:07
Speaker 1: imagine her seeing this, that she was brave enough to
24:10
Speaker 1: go in and then nobody tested it until it was
24:13
Speaker 1: too late. I can only imagine what she's feeling right now.
24:16
Speaker 1: She was brave enough to do that initial rape kit
24:19
Speaker 1: back then, over a year ago, and here we are,
24:22
Speaker 1: and the only way her case was finally processed was
24:27
Speaker 1: because Eliza was murdered. It took a murder to get
24:31
Speaker 1: her rape kit done. That's the harsh truth of what
24:36
Speaker 1: we're dealing with. Rachel day Fisher, could you plays described
24:40
Speaker 1: the spectrum of demeanors your right victor impatience have displayed.
24:47
Speaker 1: They come in sometimes completely with no effect meeting their faces,
24:51
Speaker 1: don't smile, they don't frown, they're just quiet, they don't
24:53
Speaker 1: make eye contact. Sometimes they laughed to distracted themselves. Sometimes
24:57
Speaker 1: they're crying trauma sense in very different ways. And each
25:02
Speaker 1: victim is different. And I've seen law enforcement or even say, well,
25:05
Speaker 1: she doesn't seem like anything happened. We're not even sure
25:08
Speaker 1: if it's real because of her demeanor. Like I've heard
25:11
Speaker 1: it all, But each victim processes their trauma differently, So
25:15
Speaker 1: regardless of how they respond to it, if they're brave
25:19
Speaker 1: enough to come get an intrusive exam in a busy
25:22
Speaker 1: er and have an examiner stick things into their bodies,
25:26
Speaker 1: something happened nobody willingly does that. They're regardless of what
25:30
Speaker 1: their demeanor is. They're there for help, and we help
25:33
Speaker 1: them all the same, and we prioritize it on our end,
25:37
Speaker 1: and then we do the next step in our process
25:39
Speaker 1: is handed over to law enforcement for them to do
25:42
Speaker 1: their due diligence, which is supposed to me to take
25:45
Speaker 1: it to the crime lab. But Tennessee has a statute,
25:47
Speaker 1: but they have sixty days for it to sit on
25:49
Speaker 1: their shelf before they're mandated to give it to the
25:52
Speaker 1: crime lab. Karen start as Rachel day fish or our
25:57
Speaker 1: sex assault and ours exam or was speaking. I saw
26:00
Speaker 1: of another unrelated case and it's the case of Ellen Greenberg.
26:04
Speaker 1: She was stabbed over twenty times in the back, in
26:08
Speaker 1: the back of the head, the back of the neck,
26:11
Speaker 1: and spine and it was deemed a suicide. And I
26:15
Speaker 1: flew to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to meet with her parents and
26:20
Speaker 1: go through the case. The mother, Ellen's mother was just
26:25
Speaker 1: stone faced and just the devastation was so apparent. It
26:31
Speaker 1: just hurt her to even talk. The father, Ellen's father,
26:37
Speaker 1: and she was a daddy's girl, was cracking jokes and
26:42
Speaker 1: like nothing was wrong. And then I noticed when he
26:45
Speaker 1: went to the cemetery, her father kept looking away. He
26:49
Speaker 1: couldn't stand to look at where she was buried. But
26:54
Speaker 1: then as soon as we left, he was jovial and
26:57
Speaker 1: cracking jokes. You know what, Karen Stark. When I got
27:00
Speaker 1: on the plane to come home and the day, the night,
27:04
Speaker 1: the whole thing was over, I cried and cried on
27:08
Speaker 1: that plane for the father, Allen's father, because it's so painful.
27:17
Speaker 1: As you were just hearing Rachel Fisher describing some women
27:20
Speaker 1: might giggle, it was so painful for him he couldn't
27:25
Speaker 1: even really address it, and so he muddled through. And
27:32
Speaker 1: I don't know why that just you know, I'm thinking
27:35
Speaker 1: of these rape victims, and I'm thinking about him when
27:38
Speaker 1: it's so horrible, they can't even begin to grapple with it.
27:44
Speaker 1: Karen Start. That's right, Nancy, it is it's they disassociate.
27:49
Speaker 1: And you really can't pay attention to have someone reacts
27:53
Speaker 1: to trauma and to death because everyone, each one of
27:57
Speaker 1: us is very very different in their people that cry.
28:01
Speaker 1: Think about you know, when people sometimes get nervous and
28:04
Speaker 1: they start laughing, and they're not laughing because it's funny,
28:09
Speaker 1: it's just their response that they have no choice. That's
28:12
Speaker 1: how they deal with that kind of a situation. And
28:16
Speaker 1: that's what you're describing. I've been to funerals where somebody
28:21
Speaker 1: was so angry at the death of their spouse. They
28:26
Speaker 1: were they were furious, and you would never know that
28:30
Speaker 1: this was happening because they're greeting and loving and in pain,
28:36
Speaker 1: and it all gets mixed up when they have to
28:38
Speaker 1: deal with this kind of a situation. Terrible. And now,
28:43
Speaker 1: having spoken to the rest of our panel, I'm going
28:48
Speaker 1: to lay it all in your lap, Doctor Crystal Kristen Middleman.
28:54
Speaker 1: She is this chief development officer and they highly respected
28:59
Speaker 1: off for am Inc. You can find them at DNA
29:03
Speaker 1: solves dot com. One of their specialties I have learned
29:08
Speaker 1: is taking old or degraded DNA and somehow pulling a
29:15
Speaker 1: miracle and getting a match. I'm talking about DNA that's
29:20
Speaker 1: been in mud, been underwater, been through a fire, fifty
29:25
Speaker 1: sixty years old, and they have the technology to bring
29:31
Speaker 1: us justice. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, Doctor Kristin Millman,
29:53
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for being with us here
29:57
Speaker 1: on Clime Stories today. Do you have First of all,
30:01
Speaker 1: I want to know how they made the match of
30:03
Speaker 1: what likely statistical identification we have of Cliotha Abston, and
30:10
Speaker 1: any insight you can give us as to why they
30:14
Speaker 1: so horribly failed the first rate victim, well, the last
30:20
Speaker 1: rate victim that we know of, and Eliza, how did
30:24
Speaker 1: that happen? I mean, you deal with this kind of
30:27
Speaker 1: thing every day, and we are we're going to deal
30:30
Speaker 1: with this kind of thing every single day, and I,
30:32
Speaker 1: like you and everyone here at often believe that it's
30:36
Speaker 1: an outrage that we do not have the technology implemented
30:41
Speaker 1: that would be able to stop this from happening. You know,
30:44
Speaker 1: we talked about this every single day, but the CODIS
30:48
Speaker 1: testing system was created thirty years ago and nothing new
30:52
Speaker 1: has come to forensics since in order to help these investigators.
30:56
Speaker 1: You know, you say the investigators might have failed. I
30:59
Speaker 1: don't think the invested it as a failing. We work
31:01
Speaker 1: with these guys every single day. So after we work
31:03
Speaker 1: with CBI and they work day and night trying to
31:06
Speaker 1: make things work, they're not given the technology that's necessary
31:10
Speaker 1: to be able to clear these cases at scale. The
31:14
Speaker 1: government is who's failing. The government has failed to fund
31:18
Speaker 1: and adopt new technologies that would allow the backlogs to
31:22
Speaker 1: truly clear. We have backlogs everywhere because this technology is
31:27
Speaker 1: the way that it's written right now, is not scalable.
31:29
Speaker 1: You can't hire enough people to do run every single
31:34
Speaker 1: test immediately and have a result in eight hours. It
31:36
Speaker 1: is just not possible. And so but there is new
31:39
Speaker 1: technologies here. Are there one of the new technologies that
31:43
Speaker 1: could help clear a lot of the backlog that gets
31:45
Speaker 1: stuck when there's no DNA answer. But there are other
31:48
Speaker 1: new technologies here. Could you imagine doing this podcast on
31:52
Speaker 1: computers from thirty years ago? No, you wouldn't. You would
31:55
Speaker 1: get the new computer, you would get the best mic,
31:58
Speaker 1: You would do the next best thing you did just
32:00
Speaker 1: for your business. Why isn't friends exchanging? Okay, hold on
32:04
Speaker 1: Dodgora Middleman, It is far far beyond me your knowledge
32:12
Speaker 1: regarding DNA and scientific testing. But I'm not asking for
32:18
Speaker 1: a result in eight hours? What about eight days? What
32:22
Speaker 1: about eight weeks? What about eight months? This was a year.
32:26
Speaker 1: The last rape victim that we know of cloth Aston's
32:31
Speaker 1: was September twenty twenty one. It is now September twenty
32:37
Speaker 1: twenty two, and you're preaching to the choir, doctor Middleman.
32:42
Speaker 1: I spent a third of my time as a prosecutor
32:46
Speaker 1: as a Georgia state crime lab. And can I tell
32:49
Speaker 1: you those people work like dogs, scientists and ballistics in
32:55
Speaker 1: fiber analysis, hair analysis, DNA, blood, you name. They weren't
33:00
Speaker 1: like dogs. They already were over time. What more do
33:04
Speaker 1: we want them to do? So where is the fail?
33:08
Speaker 1: And I guarantee you the TB I tenn A CEBR
33:11
Speaker 1: Investigation crime lab is the same. So how is it
33:16
Speaker 1: he's walking the street to murder Eliza because the system
33:21
Speaker 1: has failed to implement all the necessary tools. You know,
33:25
Speaker 1: let me tell you, Nancy, It's just like if I
33:27
Speaker 1: gave you a bicycle and I told you go ahead
33:30
Speaker 1: and deliver mail all over the United States. Well, how
33:34
Speaker 1: can you possibly deliver mail all over the United States
33:36
Speaker 1: that bicycle. It would never happen. It's not possible. But
33:40
Speaker 1: if there were cars and planes and roads and everything
33:43
Speaker 1: else there and the infrastructure put all together, then you
33:46
Speaker 1: could deliver that mail all over the United States. Unfortunately,
33:50
Speaker 1: we are at the bicycle states of forensic science when
33:53
Speaker 1: it comes to solving these backlogs with texicult and murders.
33:57
Speaker 1: We are DNA testing. Is that it's see still and
34:01
Speaker 1: there are so many ways. I mean, our technology, we
34:04
Speaker 1: don't need a code of database to identify someone. You
34:07
Speaker 1: don't have to have raped someone else in order for
34:09
Speaker 1: us to identify you. That's the biggest key. You can
34:12
Speaker 1: rate one person and get identified the very very first time.
34:17
Speaker 1: Yet our technology isn't widely used everywhere because people scream
34:21
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. Oh well, it's new, we don't
34:23
Speaker 1: know if the worst Oh my god, privacy, Oh so well,
34:26
Speaker 1: the government's slow and funding it. I want to perpetrator
34:29
Speaker 1: in jail the first time they commit a crime. I
34:31
Speaker 1: don't want to have to wait till the second victim,
34:33
Speaker 1: in the third victim, or the eleventh or twelveth victim.
34:35
Speaker 1: And trust me, we've identified those as well. They're in
34:38
Speaker 1: codeed so many many times then no one's ever identified them.
34:42
Speaker 1: They come to us finally, and now they're identified and
34:44
Speaker 1: all these crimes are solved. That's devastating. You're hearing the
34:48
Speaker 1: voice of doctor Kristen Middleman, chief development officer at all
34:53
Speaker 1: Ram Lab. You can find her at dnasolves dot com
34:57
Speaker 1: explaining how we don't even need another rate or murder
35:03
Speaker 1: to identify CLEOTHA. Abston from his last rate last September,
35:10
Speaker 1: but it was never done. Take a listen to Marcus
35:13
Speaker 1: Hunter WRG. The TBI accepts rush DNA cases when requested
35:19
Speaker 1: by a local investigative agency, as we did in the
35:23
Speaker 1: recent Eliza Fletcher case. It went on to say, our
35:26
Speaker 1: scientists identified Cliota Abston as a suspect less than eighteen
35:31
Speaker 1: hours after receiving a key evidence. The agency said at
35:35
Speaker 1: the soundfool they received in September of last year was
35:39
Speaker 1: not submitted as a rushcase. Therefore, it was placed with
35:43
Speaker 1: the standard casework, which can have an average turnaround of
35:48
Speaker 1: thirty three to forty nine weeks. So, Lucia Daddy, Oh,
35:52
Speaker 1: what does it take to be a rush case? I mean,
35:56
Speaker 1: Cleiota Abston in court today, our new charges of a
36:00
Speaker 1: violent rape and as they say, especially dangerous kidnap. Why
36:05
Speaker 1: was that not a rush case back in September twenty
36:08
Speaker 1: twenty one? It should have been when you have a
36:11
Speaker 1: stranger rape and given the circumstances of what we know,
36:16
Speaker 1: that should have been a rush because we know they're
36:20
Speaker 1: gonna hit again. It's not just one and done. So
36:24
Speaker 1: I don't understand how a year ago that case was
36:27
Speaker 1: not rush To try to identify the who a violent
36:31
Speaker 1: rate of brutal kidnapping is not a rush? Then what
36:35
Speaker 1: is it? Took this before we knew the truth. It
36:39
Speaker 1: took this before that rape kit was tested. Listen to
36:43
Speaker 1: our friends at Fox thirteen and after David released Tuesday
36:46
Speaker 1: reveals new details about Fletcher's final moments. Investigators say data
36:51
Speaker 1: from the FBI Cast team, which is used to track
36:54
Speaker 1: cell phones, led them to East Person Avenue and Victor Street.
36:59
Speaker 1: While searching that area Monday, just after five, they say
37:02
Speaker 1: officers noticed high grass at a vacant home, as well
37:06
Speaker 1: as vehicle tracks in the high grass. Officers also smelled
37:10
Speaker 1: an older of decay. We're told the officers fanned out
37:14
Speaker 1: and walked to the back of the property. Immediately to
37:18
Speaker 1: the right of the steps, they say they found a
37:21
Speaker 1: woman's body. To give you an ideal why it was
37:25
Speaker 1: so hard for officials to find her is because even
37:28
Speaker 1: though they're in the middle of a neighborhood, you can
37:31
Speaker 1: see the very tall grass shielding the view from the street.
37:35
Speaker 1: I'm five five. Take a look at this grass, It's
37:38
Speaker 1: towering over me. Then there's this abandoned home, and we're
37:42
Speaker 1: told Fletcher's remains were found behind this housewalk with me
37:46
Speaker 1: so you can see beside these steps here and you
37:50
Speaker 1: can even see an imprint in the dirt right here.
37:54
Speaker 1: Why did it have to take the murder I'll Eliza
37:59
Speaker 1: Fletcher for there to be justice and a rate that
38:05
Speaker 1: occurred one year ago. A lot of hard questions today,
38:13
Speaker 1: But will we ever get answers? Nancy Grace Clands story
38:19
Speaker 1: siding off, Keep my friend