{"id":1642098,"date":"2022-09-15T16:04:47","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T20:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1642098"},"modified":"2022-09-15T16:05:10","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T20:05:10","slug":"sen-blackburn-eliza-fletcher-would-be-alive-if-suspect-was-jailed-for-prior-rape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sen-blackburn-eliza-fletcher-would-be-alive-if-suspect-was-jailed-for-prior-rape\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Blackburn: Eliza Fletcher \u2018Would Be Alive\u2019 If Suspect Was Jailed for Prior Rape"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsen-blackburn-eliza-fletcher-would-be-alive-if-suspect-was-jailed-for-prior-rape%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1642098&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-eliza-fletcher\">Eliza Fletcher<\/a>, a mother of two and a kindergarten teacher,\u00a0\u201cwould be alive today\u201d if her accused killer had been jailed for a prior <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-rape\">rape<\/a> he allegedly committed, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Fletcher, 34, was jogging near her home on the University of Memphis campus on Sept. 2 during the early morning hours when she was abducted, forced into an SUV, and murdered.<\/p>\n<p>Cleotha Abston, a 38-year-old career criminal who spent decades behind bars for kidnapping and also appeared in court for prior rape cases, was arrested several days later in connection to Fletcher\u2019s murder. He was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals after investigators found his DNA on a pair of sandals recovered near where Fletcher was last seen, according to an arrest affidavit.<\/p>\n<p>Blackburn said on Sept. 14 that Fletcher wouldn\u2019t have been murdered if officials hadn\u2019t taken a year to process a rape kit backlog from Abston\u2019s alleged victim in a suspected rape incident that happened in September 2021.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTragically, the rape kit was returned the same day that Fletcher\u2019s body was discovered with DNA allegedly matching that of Fletcher\u2019s killer,\u201d the senator told a <a href=\"https:\/\/senatorblackburn.app.box.com\/s\/1s4dnucf4wb30wykdf0vnz4vzjomfqpf\">press briefing<\/a>\u00a0on Wednesday. \u201cHad it not taken so long, Eliza Fletcher would be alive today and her killer would be behind bars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2022\/07\/06\/GettyImages-1239745666-1200x800.jpg\"><\/a> Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee business meeting to vote on Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Capitol Hill in Washington, on April 4, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images). <\/p>\n<p>Blackburn made the remark while hosting a news conference where a number of Republican senators called out Democrats\u2019 \u201cpro-crime policies,\u201d while also accusing \u201cthe radical left\u201d of using soft-on-crime policies to embolden criminals who are making American cities and suburbs less safe.<\/p>\n<p>In a Sept. 14 letter (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.blackburn.senate.gov\/services\/files\/1315770B-6C35-4023-BF39-2BD1E5DDA99C\">pdf<\/a>) to President Joe Biden, Sen. Bill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eliza Fletcher, a mother of two and a kindergarten teacher,\u00a0\u201cwould be alive today\u201d if her accused killer had been jailed for a prior rape he allegedly committed, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said on Wednesday. Fletcher, 34, was jogging near her home on the University of Memphis campus on Sept. 2 during the early morning hours [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1642098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1642098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1642098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1642098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1642098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}