The mom of the person accused of kidnapping and killing Tennessee {hardware} heiress Eliza Fletcher known as her son a “good particular person” — and doesn’t imagine the profession felony is responsible of homicide within the high-profile case, based on a report.
Virgie Abston, 65, instructed the Each day Mail that her 38-year-old son, Cleotha Abston, is being “railroaded” for the violent crime that rocked town of Memphis earlier this month.
“I talked to him and he mentioned he didn’t do it,” Virgie Abston mentioned of her son. “He mentioned [to me]: ‘They’re attempting to place me in some stuff, mother,’” she instructed the outlet from exterior of her low-income condo constructing.
“I imagine him,’ she added. “I don’t imagine he did it. If it comes out of his mouth, that’s what I imagine.”
Cloetha Abston has been behind bars since his Sept. 2 arrest on prices of kidnapping and homicide of the 34-year-old elementary college instructor and mom of two whereas she was out for an early morning jog close to the College of Memphis.
Days afterward Sept. 9 he was charged with raping a girl at gunpoint in 2021 in a separate case. He had beforehand served 20 years in jail for kidnapping a prosecutor in 2000 when he was simply 16-years-old
“He’s only a good particular person, type, lovable,” Virgie Abston mentioned of her son, denying media portrayals of her son as a monster.
Virgie Abston sells sweet and sodas to neighborhood youngsters from her ground-floor condo, the Each day Mail reported. She mentioned she has been struggling since each of her sons have landed in jail.
“I simply take at some point at a time, at some point at a time child,” she mentioned. “’Issues have been happening a lot.”
Her son Mario was arrested on unrelated drug and weapons prices after police executed a search warrant at his dwelling after Cloetha Abston was noticed cleansing his automotive and garments there.
Whereas she defended her sons, she additionally distanced herself from their actions.
“The boys are on their very own. What they do, I have no idea,” she instructed the Each day Mail. “They haven’t instructed me nothing. I don’t know nothing,” she mentioned.
She famous that Cleotha had spent most of his life behind bars after the 2000 abduction. He has a juvenile document courting again to when he was simply 12 — with prices together with aggravated assault with a weapon and rape, based on court docket data obtained by the Memphis Business Enchantment.
“They held Cleo within the juvy,’ she instructed the Each day Mail. “They railroaded him, had him signal the papers with out no father or mother round, with out our consent. We didn’t know he signed no papers. We didn’t know nothing.”
“He left me when he was 16,” she mentioned . “They took 20 years of my son’s life. They should repair that jail [system].”
Fletcher, the granddaughter of a billionaire, was jogging round 4:20 a.m. on Sept. 2 when Cleotha Abston approached her and compelled her into his GMC Terrain earlier than rushing away, cops mentioned.
He was arrested the subsequent day after DNA linked him to a pair of sandals discovered close to the scene of the kidnapping.
Fletcher’s physique was present in a wooded space behind an deserted dwelling in southern Memphis on Sept. 5 in an space near the place police mentioned Cleotha Abston was caught on surveillance digital camera cleansing his garments and the within of the automotive.
It stays unclear precisely how or the place Fletcher died.
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