MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Today marked day two in the Cleotha Abston-Henderson trial. Abston is accused of the rape of Alicia Franklin in September of 2021. He is also accused of raping and killing Memphis school teacher Eliza Fletcher in 2022, the same week as forensics completed Franklin’s rape kit results.
Today the jury in this 2021 rape case heard from several witnesses including Abston’s ex-girlfriend, Gwendolyn Brown, a friend of Franklin’s, police officers that took reports and processed the scene the night of Franklin’s alleged rape and the nurse practitioner that examined Franklin for her rape kit.
“She was crying, she didn’t seem like herself,” Franklin’s friend Kierra Harveille said. “I knew something was wrong.”
During the Wednesday court date, evidence was shown to the jury including police body-worn camera footage from the night prosecutors say Abston kidnapped and raped Franklin, after they met on a dating app.
“She said that the suspect, well walked behind her and forced her to the vehicle that was parked outside the apartment,” Lt. Shameka Love a Memphis police Sex Crime Bureau officer said.
Love also said in court that she tried to call Abston multiple times. During one call, a man answered the phone, said, “You don’t have nothing on me,” and then hung up. Love testified after the attempts to get any answer were unsuccessful.
Diary Prater, a former nurse practitioner who examined Franklin at the Shelby County Crime Victims & Rape Crisis Center, testified that Franklin did not show any physical injuries from the assault. But, Prater, who took the stand as an expert witness, says the majority of rape victims don’t show any physical injuries.
In the new video, you see officers returning to the vacant Hickory Hill apartment, with Franklin. This is where the prosecution alleges Abston lured Franklin to, a unit right next door to his ex-girlfriend’s unit, placed a shirt over Franklin’s head and a gun to her neck before raping her in a car behind that unit.
“She made it to the location, and she saw him in the doorway, and he waved her down and before she could walk in the door, he stepped back in the door frame,” Jermaine Jameson the officer who took Franklin’s report at Regional One Hospital testified. “And she walking in anyway and she noticed that the apartment was abandoned or like an empty apartment.”
Prosecutor Deputy District Attorney Paul Hagerman said Abston threatened to kill Franklin by pointing a gun at her.
Hagerman also asserted the fact that Abston’s request to switch the white Dodge Charger he usually drove for his girlfriend’s black GMC terrain pointed to guilt.
This case dealing with the rape of Alicia Franklin will continue Thursday and he will not take the stand in his trial.
Abston’s other cases dealing with the charges, for the murder and kidnapping of Eliza Fletcher, is expected to start by the end of this year.
Abston is charged with first-degree murder, especially aggravated kidnapping and tampering with evidence in Fletcher’s death. He faces the death penalty in that case.