Murder in Memphis
A woman named Eliza Fletcher was forcibly abducted while jogging in the early morning in Memphis, and her suspected killer has been apprehended, with a wealth of evidence to tie him to the violent crime, including video of the abduction itself.
One of the many disturbing things about this crime is his history:
Court records show Abston, 38, is a previously convicted kidnapper: He pleaded guilty to especially aggravated kidnapping and robbery in 2001. He was sentenced to 24 years and 11 years in prison, respectively, although it is unclear how long he remained incarcerated and if he served his sentences concurrently…
Abston previously pleaded guilty to kidnapping local attorney Kemper Durand around 2 a.m. May 25, 2000, walking up behind him with a gun and forcing him to get into the trunk of a car, local paper the Memphis Flyer reported at the time. Abston was a minor when he kidnapped Durand and brought him to an ATM to withdraw money.
And here’s an article written not long after Durand’s kidnapping – yesterday I was able to access it, but today for some reason I get an error message. However, I recall it mentioned that at the time of the Durand kidnapping Abston already had a long history of prior juvenile offenses, many of them violent.
Abston obviously has been a very dangerous person for most of his life and certainly was not rehabilitated in prison, and just as obviously although the criminal justice system managed to keep him off the streets for quite a few years, once his time was up within that system, he reverted to his old ways and upped the ante by killing his victim. However, even back in 2000, when he abducted Durand, it was only by chance that Durand was rescued and the court had reason to imagine that if that hadn’t occured, Durand would have been murdered. However, there was no way to prove it and Abson only was sentenced for the crime he actually had committed, not the one he may have intended.
I wonder if anything different might have been done to prevent the murder of Eliza Fletcher. I don’t think, given Abston’s actual crime, there was any way to have justified an even longer sentence, but obviously one might have been in order. The problem is whether the criminal justice system is able to distinguish incorrigible likely-repeat-offenders such as Abston from those who, after serving a long term, don’t go on to commit additional violent crimes.
We don’t know much about Abston’s behavior while in prison, but that could be a clue. Did he get time off for good behavior, or was he making trouble all the time? He obviously didn’t serve the entire 24 years, and he seems to have served the 11 additional years concurrently.
RIP Eliza Fletcher.
The Memphis Flyer piece was inconvenient for the powers that be, and no longer exists. It still shows up in Google search, but even that will likely be gone in a day or so.
A few things,
If Abston is 38 now; then in 2001, he’d be about 17, which seems young for kidnapping and murder.
If 17 and he plead guilty, was that as an adult?
Even as an adult, my understanding with sentences is you are in prison for half and the other half is used as incentive for good behavior. Behave, and you might get your sentences cut in half. IF that is the case for this Abston, then 12+5.5=17.5, which leaves some slack between 2001 and now.
If Abston was 38 at the original crime, then I think the criminal justice system was too lenient, especially in hindsight. If Abston was 17 and pleaded guilty, then I can’t imagine a criminal justice system being tougher than it was. Right now, our criminal justice system is completely whack. Violent criminals are barely arrested before being let back on the street. Every other month in Houston, there is a new story of a criminal out on bail committing murder. Here’s a similar case in Minnesota. Sadly, Eliza Fletcher won’t even become statistic, because her killer murdered his victims one at a time instead of all at once and with a firearm.
As I read it, Abston was 16 or 17 on the first offense, and got a sentence consistent with his age and his crime. There is no way to prevent evil people from doing awful things.
RIP Eliza.
There is no way to prevent evil people from doing awful things.
Try deterrence and incapacitation.
Here is the article archived at Wayback
http://web.archive.org/web/20220904084206/https://www.memphisflyer.com/a-samaritans-tale-2001-10-01
“Seven in 10 incarcerated people released in 34 states in 2012 were rearrested within five years, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report on recidivism rates for prisoners in 34 states between 2012 and 2017.”
https://thecrimereport.org/2021/07/30/us-recidivism-rates-stay-sky-high/
3 felony strikes: no release until age 67… no possibility of parole.
Castration for child abusers and rape.
Reinstate the death penalty for child rape, kidnapping, voluntary manslaughter and murder.
What is the use of a “concurrent” sentence? is your cell half as big as if you had only one sentence? Half as many desserts at meal time?
Here’s hoping the death penalty is alive and well in Tennessee.
Fletcher’s murder reminded me that it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a woman jogging alone in my neighborhood. There are plenty of joggers, because the streets are wide and the area is middle-class, but the women take their daily runs in pairs or small groups, and the men usually run in pairs too. It’s probably as much a precaution against speeding or smartphone-distracted drivers as against criminals, but it does make sense. Now I don’t want to be misunderstood as blaming Fletcher or Durand for jogging or walking alone; Abston’s evil behavior is no one’s responsibility but his own. But the number of elderly, Asian, or other innocent pedestrians knocked down, mugged, or otherwise attacked on the streets of our cities in broad daylight is on the rise.
Just today there was an incident in NYC in which an 82-year-old concierge was leaving the building where he works after his shift ended “when 20-year-old Deashe Calhoun lunged at him in an unprovoked attack, slashing him in the face [with a machete] at Stone Street and Broadway, MTA police and sources said. Calhoun was out free after seven prior arrests involving a machete or other weapons, including a similar attack just days ago, sources said.” Calhoun, BTW, is (or maybe identifies as) a female.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/07/woman-randomly-slashes-man-82-with-machete-pepper-sprays-him-in-nyc/
here is his enabler, a southern fried chesa
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/09/07/far-left-memphis-district-attorney-eliza-fletchers-murder-an-isolated-attack-by-a-stranger/
Running in a group is always better. Broken bones, heart attacks, automobiles, animals, weather, take their toll. We runners can be oblivious to risk. Sad and tragic sometimes so.
In North Dakota, in the spring of 2011, a woman was running alone along a country road and was abducted and murdered. She also was a school teacher IIRC. The perps were caught BTW. They weren’t locals. Boom times brought bad folks.
And just to show the failings of memory, the lady runner was murdered in Jan. 2012 in Sidney MT, very near the western North Dakota border. Murder in those parts is pretty rare.
https://morbidology.com/the-murder-of-sherry-arnold/
Kidnapping used to be a capital offense.
Some people commit crimes for economic gain, others like the piece of trash in the article do it because they love it
God bless Eliza Fletcher and her family. What an awful tragedy.
Its not her farking fault its a rancidly corrupt legal political system that puts innocent people at the mercy of these predators and that brain damaged homunculus fetterman wants to spread this to the whole country
Looking at the early-out judges and prosecutors from an imagined liability insurance point of view:
Early out is described by various circumstances including nature of crime and perp’s history…. Look in the table…..
Anything earlier than that and any crime committed comes to rest on the judge or prosecutor for very large sums. He files a claim.
The premium is going to be….based in part on claims history. As would be the annual policy renewal.
What behavioral differences would we see?
Okay. From that hypo we can tell that the easy out folks don’t care what happens to the rest of us. Or maybe they enjoy the prospect.
There is no other way to say it: the whole “there are too many people incarcerated” shibboleth is a load of BS a mile wide. We as a country need to prosecute more people and jail them for longer periods, and if that means doubling prison capacity, so be it.
Memphis looks like a city to avoid in general: there’s a shooting spree going on as I type, and the cops haven’t yet caught the perp:
https://www.fox13memphis.com/live-breaking/
I wonder how many priors this guy has.
Update on the shooting spree: suspect in custody as of 10:25 pm; multiple squad cars and SWAT teams, as you’d expect.
I live in the south and know a few people who have lived in Memphis either long ago (40+ years) or more recently (past 10 years). Both remark on how violent the city has become. The first group mourns, because they knew it before it was this way. The second group posts cynical memes like this one:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ed/02/c7/ed02c745733718f38cfc5836e2163903.jpg
In case the link doesn’t work, the text is:
‘I saw a parked car with a bumper sticker that said “I Miss Memphis.” So I shot out the windows, stole the stereo, slashed all the tires, and left a note that said “Hope this helps.”‘
The French had a good idea at one time. Their penal colony was on remote islands off of Guiana, and effectively placed predators far from society. Whether or not it was a deterrent is another question; but, the extreme mortality rate did effectively thin the herd of society’s outcasts. The most notorious of the sites, although not necessarily the most brutal, was Devil’s Island. (Its notoriety stemming largely from the infamous Dreyfus affair.)
Brutal? Yes. The penal colony was not designed for rehabilitation, it was intended to isolate the enemies of society.
Being murdered and/or raped by a habitual predator is also brutal. So, I would advocate isolating anyone guilty of particularly brutal crimes; or anyone with multiple convictions for crimes against person, in an environment that is far removed from civilization. Since the risk to guards would be prohibitive, I would place this facility on a remote island, with patrol craft to prevent unauthorized entry/exit. The bare necessities of life could be dropped by helo. Initially anarchy would prevail. Eventually the strongest, most brutal would emerge as ruler. Much like many parts of the world today. The internal society would take on the characteristics of the jungle–which would be appropriate.
Would we do this? Of course not. We will continue to wring our hands, and perhaps shed a tear, when innocent people are ravaged by predators that society does not have the will to control. We will continue to pretend that people with the instincts of wild animals are amenable to rehabilitation. Our large, and growing , underclass will continue to breed criminals; and our society will continue to degenerate.
One of the few real reporters
https://mobile.twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1567700174868303875?cxt=HHwWhsC-1ZjAy8ErAAAA
Detail, with photo, on the Memphis shooter. Nineteen years old, out on early release after a previous assault conviction, where attempted murder charges had been dropped.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11191713/Memphis-man-loose-police-believe-shot-multiple-people.html
We as a country need to prosecute more people and jail them for longer periods,
About 40% of all those convicted are remanded to state prison, where they serve a mean of 30 months ‘ere release. I suspect it would do more good to (1) clear out procedural bottlenecks, so cases are disposed of within a year if they go to a jury trial, within 10 weeks if a plea is negotiated; and (2) incarcerate all convicts bar those for which you substitute a corporal punishment. Fines should be for corporate offenders, offenses defined outside the penal code, or supplementary penalties for the most minor crimes. Restitution and forfeiture should be supplementary penalties. Labor services should be imposed on those who do not pay their fines, restitution, or forfeitures. The use of probation should be limited to convicts under 25, and should seldom if ever completely replace incarceratio. Also, be sparing with deferring punishment pending appeal, instead indemnifying people whose appeals were successful. Michael Kinsley’s speculation a generation ago was that ‘a year in jail, starting next week’ would be more of a deterrent that ‘playing roulette for 5-10 at some hazy point down the line’ I suspect is correct.
Solution to all the above:
Hang, hang, HANG!!!