Developments linked to Eliza Fletcher case shift violent crime discourse
Alicia Franklin was allegedly raped by Cleotha Henderson, aka Abston, in 2021. However, the rape kit results were not completed until August 2022, a few days before Eliza Fletcher was kidnapped and murdered. (Ben Wheeler/The Daily Memphian)
The city’s discussion about violent crime has moved in a new direction in the three weeks since Eliza Fletcher failed to return home from her Sept. 2 pre-dawn run and dramatic events since then.
After decades of reaction that has ebbed and flowed from shock, outrage, criminal charges, candlelight vigils, crime summits and a lingering wariness, the reaction this time feels different for several reasons.
The long tail of the reaction to the violence is the dominant topic discussed in a reporters’ roundtable on the WKNO Channel 10 program “Behind The Headlines.”
The discussion features Marc Perrusquia, director of the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis, Abigail Warren of The Daily Memphian and Toby Sells of The Memphis Flyer.
“Behind The Headlines,” hosted by Eric Barnes, CEO of The Daily Memphian, airs on WKNO Fridays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 8:30 a.m. Watch the discussion now via the video link atop this story or listen to the podcast version that includes extended discussion not in the television version of the show.
Even as Memphis Police were still in pursuit of Ezekial Kelly, the suspect charged in a Sept. 7 shooting spree that left three dead and three others wounded, a police portal showed he had been charged with first-degree murder that same day.
Memphis Police, it turned out, had been looking for Kelly almost 12 hours earlier for the first in the series of shootings.
Police began urging citizens to shelter in place the evening of Sept. 7 after Kelly allegedly broadcast on Facebook Live his random shooting at an AutoZone store. But that was the tail end of the spree.
Meanwhile, as Cleotha Henderson, aka Abston, was in custody for the kidnapping and murder of Fletcher and her body was found days after her abduction, police filed a rape charge against him in another case from 11 months earlier.
Questions from The Institute for Public Service Reporting and The Daily Memphian about the charge led to the revelation that police had just gotten DNA evidence from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation linking Henderson to a 2021 rape in Memphis.
This week, the victim in that case, Alicia Franklin, told reporters for the Institute and The Daily Memphian that she provided police with even more evidence that would have linked Henderson to the attack on her.
The TBI said Memphis Police didn’t indicate getting DNA results in Franklin’s case were a priority.
Meanwhile, DNA analysis of a shoe found near where Fletcher was abducted was analyzed in a day’s time and allegedly linked Henderson to the abduction.
Franklin said police didn’t appear to take her case seriously. She also said she was coming forward and identifying herself in the hopes her story could help other women.
Franklin was among those who expressed sympathy for Fletcher and her family while being open about her feelings that there was a difference in how seriously police took the two crimes.
The comparison and contrast are not new in the city’s reaction to violent crime.
The solidarity, sympathy and support are more vocal, more upfront and reflect. what is likely to be a more pointed and sustained questioning of how police are responding to violent crime.
Even before Franklin followed her decision to speak out publicly with a federal lawsuit against the Memphis Police Department for negligence, the handling of the evidence brought back memories of 12,000 rape kits the MPD left on shelves at several sites for decades and just began processing in 2012.
The civil lawsuit over the handling of those rape kits is still pending.
The first discussion of the handling of the Franklin case by Memphis Police by the Memphis City Council included several calls for the city to fund a crime lab for the police department instead of relying on the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
The funding necessary for cutting ties to the TBI lab drew commitments from council members who have previously questioned the high percentage of funding the police department gets in the annual city budget.
State lawmakers began talking of fully funding the TBI crime lab as estimates on how long it would take to work through a backlog of cases given its current staffing levels varied widely.
Gov. Bill Lee came to the city the day runners in Memphis and in other cities across the country held pre-dawn runs in Fletcher’s memory.
He touted the passage of anti-crime laws he proposed but made no mention of the newly-enacted “truth in sentencing” law he opposed but let become law without his signature.
Other Republicans cited the law that took effect in July, saying if enacted sooner, it would have stopped the early release of Henderson after serving most of a 20-year sentence for kidnapping and the early release of Kelly after serving 11 months of a three-year sentence for aggravated assault in a 2011 guilty plea.
Kelly’s plea deal was cited by Lee as an example of “soft-on-crime” plea deals he wants the state to review.
Republican Amy Weirich, the former District Attorney who was the county’s chief prosecutor when the deal with Kelly was made, said it was the best her office could do given that a key witness against Kelly in the 2021 case refused to cooperate.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who, along with Weirich, was a vocal backer of “truth in sentencing” over several legislative sessions, came to Weirich’s defense, saying she was not “soft on crime.”
In the past, such violence usually sees calls for longer sentences and tougher stances by the criminal justice system taking the lead with calls for criminal justice system reform receding temporarily.
This time, the competing calls are coexisting.
It’s a coexistence that highlighted this year’s election campaigns for two key posts in the criminal justice system — District Attorney and Juvenile Court Judge.
The reform campaigns of Steve Mulroy and Tarik Sugarmon, respectively, toppled Weirich and incumbent Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael. The campaigns included a lot of distinctions made about different treatment and definitions of accountability for violent offenders as opposed to nonviolent offenders.
Reformers who might have thought it better tactically to give community outrage — including officialdom — time to vent before continuing to talk about different approaches to crime are now holding the offices that will handle the cases of Cleotha Henderson and Ezekiel Kelly and others charged in cases that have gotten less attention.
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Behind The Headlines violent crime Memphis Police Department Eliza Fletcher Alicia FranklinBill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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