Cleotha Abston, 38, has a juvenile record dating back to when he was just 12 years old — with charges including aggravated assault with a weapon and rape, according to court records obtained by the Memphis Court of Commercial Appeals. He was still just 16 when he kidnapped Memphis District Attorney Kemper Durand at gunpoint in the early morning hours of May 25, 2000, according to reports from time. Durant had testified that only luck had saved him from being killed that day. Abston was just 16 when he kidnapped former district attorney Kemper Durand at gunpoint in 2000.yale1961.org Abston “held a gun to Kemper’s face and demanded his car keys” and forced him into the trunk, Durand’s former law firm Lewison Thomason recalled after the lawyer’s death 13 years later. “For the next several hours, Kemper was trapped in the cold darkness of the trunk of his car,” as Abston and an even younger teenager with him “drove the car all over town,” the company’s obit recalled. “At times, the car would stop. The men would open the trunk, take Kemper out, have him withdraw money from an ATM machine,” the obit said. Only “after several hours” did the lawyer spot an armed guard near one of the ATMs, the report said. “Kember yelled for help” and the attackers fled, the document states. Abston was later convicted of aggravated robbery, as well as aggravated kidnapping — the latter of which was one of two charges brought against him again Sunday for the alleged kidnapping of Fletcher, the 34-year-old teacher and hardware heiress who had not yet been found Monday. He was sentenced in 2001 to 24 years in prison — and Durant fought to stay locked up when he tried to challenge the sentence, according to records obtained by the Commercial Appeal. “My feelings for the victim of this crime, and the feelings of those around me, are that I was extremely fortunate to be able to escape the custody of Cleotha Abston,” the attorney wrote in a victim impact statement opposing the 2003 bid. , the newspaper notes. “It was very fortunate that an armed, uniformed Memphis Housing Authority security guard happened to meet them,” he reportedly wrote. “It is very likely that I would have been killed if I had not escaped.” It was in that impact statement that Durand described Abston’s record, noting how he had appeared in juvenile court records in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999. The report did not specify whether he was convicted or what exactly led to the charges, including of alleged rape. Durant also fired Abston for taking more than a year to sign a guilty plea, referring to the refusal as “prison braggadocio,” the records said. In sharp contrast, Durant had testified on behalf of Abston’s co-defendant, Marquette Cobbins, to try to get him a lighter sentence, his law firm noted. “As Kemper saw it, the man was in the wrong place with the wrong person at the wrong time,” his lawyer’s office said, making it clear that the late lawyer always considered Abston to be his only abductor. She testified that she heard Cobbins plead with Abston to “stop the car, let this man out, give him his keys and go!” After his appeal, the judge agreed to give Cobbins the lightest possible sentence, the obit said. He was sentenced to seven and a half years and was eligible for parole after 18 months, the Memphis Flyer noted at the time. Tennessee teacher and hardware heiress Eliza Fletcher was abducted Friday during her regular 4 a.m. jog. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Durant died in early February 2013. Abston was released in November 2020, the Commercial Appeal reported. He doesn’t appear to have any documented charges against him in the past two years in the Memphis area — although neighbors called him “creepy” and “perverted,” saying he would offer them money for sex. He was arrested on Sunday following DNA testing on a pair of sandals left at the scene of Fletcher’s abduction, with video later showing him violently abducting the mum during her daily early morning jog. His phone also put him at the scene, and video showed him watching the area for at least 24 minutes before Fletcher was grabbed, according to an affidavit. Before his arrest, he was also seen washing the interior of his work SUV and scrubbing his clothes while “acting very strangely,” according to the document. Abston, 38, is being held on $500,000 bail on charges of tampering with evidence and especially aggravated kidnapping. His trial is scheduled for Tuesday. “He refused to give investigators the location of the victim,” the affidavit said as the massive search for Fletcher continued Monday.
