In the matter of only a few days Memphis has seen two high profile murders from released criminals.
A convicted felon could face the death penalty after being charged with murdering mother-of-two Eliza Fletcher after ‘violently’ forcing her into an SUV.
Cleotha Abston-Henderson, 38, is accused of killing elementary school teacher Fletcher, 34, after bundling her into his car on Friday – with prosecutors confirming the pair had never met before.
When asked whether Abston-Henderson should have been released early after spending 22 years in prison for kidnapping a lawyer, Mulroy said: ‘It’s easy to talk about things 20202 hindsight.
‘In this particular case clearly, he shouldn’t have been on the street. Our office opposed parole at the time and in hindsight the parole decision was a tragic one.
When asked by DailyMail.com if Fletcher was sexually assaulted, the DA refused to answer.
It comes after court documents reveal that he was previously convicted of raping a man when he was a teenager.
He was detained 16 times from October 1995 to May 2000 for rape, aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a weapon.
Abston-Henderson was previously jailed for 22 years after kidnapping a lawyer in Memphis in 2000, driving him around at gunpoint.
A career criminal, kidnapper, and rapist was released from prison only to kidnap (and probably rape, details were not released but Fletchers’ shorts were found in a trash bag away from her body) again.
Then only a few days later…
What we know about Ezekiel Kelly, suspect in Memphis mass shooting
A shooting rampage across Memphis came to an end Wednesday night at 9:20 when Memphis Police took 19-year-old Ezekiel Dejuan Kelly into custody.
On social media, where he allegedly live-streamed one of the killings, he went by various spellings of the name Zeek Huncho.
Shelby County court records revealed authorities quickly filed a warrant for first-degree murder for Kelly on Wednesday as the search for him continued in the city.
Court records also showed more about the teen’s background: He faced four felony charges, including two counts of attempted murder, one count of reckless endangerment and one count of possession of a firearm in 2020 at the age of 17.
Sources told WREG he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated assault in the case in 2021. He got three years in that case, but was already out of jail.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said Kelly had been released from jail March 16 after serving 11 months of a three-year sentence for an aggravated assault plea.
Now we know how he turned out.
Soft on crime policies lead to recivist criminals.
People like this cannot be returned to society without causing problems.
The cruelty isn’t to the criminals but to the people that are hurt by them.
More and more, I think the time is ripe for a penal colony approach. Surely there are some unused islands in the middle of the Pacific?
Yes. About 10 foot by 10 foot with a height of about 3 feet above mean low tide.
We have prisons, and those prisons have graveyards. I’m sure we still know how to make rope — all the states with legalized pot can provide hemp fibers.
Seems to me we don’t need penal colonies, we just need to man up.
Years ago we had a young gal abducted from just outside a college ( she was jogging alone) she was raped and killed. The perp was a mentally ill man released on parole and sent home to maine to his parents. Turned out HE told the parole board he would do it again and begged them not to release him. A guy that knew he was ill and nope, go home, you “paid yer debt to society “…. And a young lass paid for it. Typical liberal policies…