They Neglected Her Case, Until Her Attacked Killed Someone A Year Later

woman looking off into the distance in the dark
Zain Murdock
September 28, 2022

The 2022 murder of white teacher and heiress Eliza Fletcher unsettled not just Tennessee but the entire nation. And equally unsettling? 

Fletcher's killer, Cleotha Abston, also raped 22-year-old Alicia Franklin a year prior - but authorities waited until after Fletcher's disappearance to report DNA results from her rape kit.

After Abston forced a pregnant Franklin into his car at gunpoint, then blindfolded, raped, and robbed her, she drove herself to the hospital. There she completed a rape kit and gave police all of Abston’s information. But according to Franklin, "They didn't care. I was just an average Black girl in the city of Memphis."

Since 2020, Women in Abston's neighborhood had been uncomfortable with him constantly staring at and propositioning them for sex. He’d been justice-involved since he was 11.

Abston's unacceptable violence is why we need more transformative measures.. 

A bigger picture affects us all: the criminal legal system consistently ignores Black women, doesn't rehabilitate like it claims, and does not prevent violence or address it at the root.

The system was never designed to protect us. So don't we deserve better? Don't we - and all survivors and victims of sexual violence - deserve true justice?

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