It took police four days to track the kidnapped Memphis heiress and mother of two Eliza Fletcher’s body. The body was finally located on Monday after a pungent smell of her decaying body led officers and a rescue team to look for its origin behind an abandoned house. Officer tracked vehicle marks and an “odor of decay” that led them to the body behind the house.
Police spotted the missing mother-of-two in some long grass close to where her Lululemon running shorts were discovered in a trash bag, according to authorities. Cleotha Abston, 38, was charged by police with both her murder and kidnapping.
Tracking the Missing Mother
Fletcher, of Memphis, vanished on Friday while out for a morning jog, and after a multi-day search, authorities found her on Monday. Authorities shared grisly new details about how they discovered Fletcher, 34, in thick grass close to an abandoned home on Victor Street in south Memphis in the affidavit that was made public on Tuesday.
“The officers noticed vehicle tracks in the grass … and the officers smelled an odor of decay,” according to the affidavit.
After following the stench, one of the officers found “an unresponsive female laying on the ground.”
Photos of the house and area where Fletcher’s body was discovered were obtained by Fox News. Fletcher’s cause of death has not yet been determined by the authorities, but the identity of the body, which was discovered seven miles from her last known location, has been established.
After tracking the decaying smell, Fletcher’s body was found at a place which is just a few yards from the location where authorities last saw the vehicle she was forced into.
Flies were still swarming the area, and nearby residents described a “stench of decay,” while a bloodstain remained at the bottom of the stairs next to the dirt patch where her body was discovered.
Abston, the man accused of abducting the motivated jogger, was seen turning into the road where her death was found after driving with her for an hour and a half in his GMC terrain. The body was discovered about 100 yards from the Longview Gardens apartment building, where Mario Abston, Abston’s brother, lives.
Shocking Details
According to law enforcement, the purple Lululemon running shorts that Eliza Fletcher was last seen wearing were found in a garbage bag after the discovery. The location where police claim Abston was seen cleaning out the GMC Terrain featured in security footage of Fletcher’s horrific kidnapping is near to where Fletcher’s body was discovered.
She was snatched off the street about five miles east from her home. Abston, who previously served 20 years in prison for a violent kidnapping, refused to reveal where Fletcher was after his bust.
Meanwhile, new video has emerged that shows Abston cleaning his SUV in which he allegedly kidnapped Fletcher, hours after her disappearance on Friday. The video captures Abston driving to his brother Mario’s residence in the Longview Gardens apartment building around 8 a.m. on Friday.
According to WREG, the video was taken outside Mario Abston’s house on Friday morning, about the time when Fletcher’s disappearance was reported to the police.
According to the station, the 95-second video shows Abston driving a GMC Terrain back to his apartment in Longview Garden in South Memphis at 7:57 a.m.
In the video, Abston can be seen parking his car after reaching the complex where his brother lives.
After a while, Abston is seen getting up as he starts walking over to the car’s trunk. It’s not clear what he took out of the trunk but it appears to be supplies. Police claim in an affidavit that Abston washed clothes in a sink after kidnapping Fletcher on Friday morning and cleaned the inside of the GMC Terrain used in the kidnapping.
According to the police, Fletcher had suffered serious injuries in the attack, and an inspection of the SUV revealed that she had lost a substantial amount of blood.
Abston, however, hasn’t been cooperating yet and police are yet to speak on the manner in which Fletcher was killed. Also, the time of her death and the motive is unknown as police continue with their investigation.
