A Tennessee man accused of raping a woman a year before he was charged with kidnapping and murdering a schoolteacher will have his fate decided by a Memphis-area jury as he goes to trial in a sexual assault case. The judge ruled that.
Shelby County Judge Lee Coffee on Wednesday denied a motion for change of venue filed by Juni Ganguly, Cleosa Abston's attorney, news outlets reported. Ganguly argued that intense media coverage surrounding the 2021 rape case and the 2022 murder of Eliza Fletcher prevented Abston from receiving a fair trial from a Shelby County jury.
Abston was not arrested on rape charges before Eliza Fletcher's murder because of long delays in processing his sexual assault kit, authorities said. Abston has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
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Coffee has scheduled Abston's trial for April 8 on charges of kidnapping and raping a woman in September 2021. Abston is accused of snatching Fletcher on the street near the University of Memphis on September 2, 2022, during an early morning run. She forced her into the SUV. Her body was found several days later near an abandoned house.
On Wednesday, September 7, 2022, murder suspect Cleotha Abston appears in the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Memphis, Tennessee. (Matt Simmons, Fox News Digital)
The April rape trial will precede the Fletcher case. Prosecutors have said they will pursue the death penalty if Abston is convicted of first-degree murder in Fletcher's death, but a trial date has not yet been set for the case.
Abston, who also used the name Cleotha Henderson, was charged with rape in 2021, days after being charged with Fletcher's murder. After Fletcher's death, the Legislature passed a law requiring the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to issue quarterly reports on testing times for sexual assault kits.
Ganguly had asked the judge to bring jurors from Nashville to his rape trial in April. Mr. Coffee cited the 2022 murder trial of former NBA player Lorenzen Wright as an example of a case that received media attention but retained a local jury, and Mr. Abston said he wanted a fair trial with a Shelby County jury. He said there is a possibility of receiving it.
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The murder of Fletcher, a 34-year-old kindergarten teacher and mother of two, shocked the Memphis community and led to an outpouring of support for her family. Runners in Memphis and several other cities held early morning running events in her honor a week after she was kidnapped. The second annual competition honoring Fletcher was held last year.
