Kemper Durand Wiki – Kemper Durand Biography
The man charged in the kidnapping of Tennessee heiress Eliza Fletcher was charged with rape as a teenager and previously served 20 years for violently kidnapping a prosecutor. According to court records obtained by the Memphis Business Appeal, Cleotha Abston, 38, has a juvenile criminal record dating back to when she was just 12 years old with charges including aggravated assault with a weapon and rape.
Abston was just 16 years old when she kidnapped a Memphis resident. prosecutor Kemper Durand at gunpoint in the early hours of May 25, 2000, reports the Time program. Durand had testified that only luck had saved him from being killed that day. 13 years later, Durand’s former law firm, Lewison Thomason, recalled in an obituary after the attorney’s death that Abston “pointed a gun at Kemper’s face and demanded his car keys” and forced him inside. in the trunk
Kemper Durand Age
Kemper Durand is 73 years old.
Incident Detail
“For the next few hours, Kemper was trapped in the cold darkness of the trunk of his car,” while Abston and an even younger teenager with him “drove the car around town,” the firm’s obituary recalls. “From time to time, the car would stop. The men opened the trunk, took Kemper out and forced him to withdraw money from an ATM,” the obituary says. It was only “after several hours” that the attorney saw an armed security guard near one of the ATMs, according to the report. “Kemper yelled for help” and his attackers fled, the document states.
Abston was later found guilty of aggravated robbery, as well as especially aggravated kidnapping, the latter being one of two charges brought against him again on Sunday, September 4, for allegedly kidnapping Fletcher, the 34-year-old teacher and heiress to the hardware it still had was not found on Monday. He was sentenced in 2001 to serve 24 years in prison and Durand fought to keep him locked up when he tried to contest the sentence, according to records obtained by the Business Resource.
“My feelings about being a victim of this crime, and the feelings of those around me, are that I was very lucky to be able to escape Cleotha Abston’s custody,” the attorney wrote in a victim impact statement objecting to the accusation. 2003 offer, the newspaper noted. “It was very fortunate that an armed and uniformed guard from the Memphis Housing Authority ran into them,” he wrote. “It is very likely that I would have been killed if I had not escaped.”
It was in that impact statement that Durand detailed Abston’s background, noting how he had appeared in juvenile court records in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999. The report did not detail whether he was convicted or exactly what led to the charges. including the alleged rape. Durand also criticized Abston for taking more than a year to sign a plea, citing the refusal as “jail braggadocio,” the records reported.
In stark contrast, Durand had testified on behalf of Abston’s co-defendant, Marquette Cobbins, to try to get a lighter sentence, his law firm said. “As Kemper saw it, the man was in the wrong place with the wrong person at the wrong time,” his law firm said, making it clear that the late attorney always viewed Abston as his sole kidnapper. He testified that he heard Cobbins pleading with Abston to “stop the car, let this man out, give him the keys and go!” After his appeal, the judge agreed to give Cobbins the lightest sentence possible, the obituary says. He was sentenced to 7 1/2 years and was eligible for parole after 18 months, the Memphis Flyer noted at the time.
Durand died in early February 2013. Abston was released in November 2020, the Commercial Appeal said. He does not appear to have any documented charges against him in the last two years in the Memphis area, although neighbors called him “creepy” and “perverted,” saying he would offer them money for sex. Abston was arrested Sunday after a DNA test on a pair of sandals left at the scene of Fletcher’s kidnapping, with video footage allegedly showing him violently kidnapping his mother during their daily early morning jog. Prior to his arrest, he was also seen washing the inside of his work truck and washing his clothes while he “acted very strange,” according to the document. Abston, 38, is being held on $500,000 bond on charges of tampering with evidence and specially aggravated kidnapping.
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