TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Kate Prince on Oct 4, 2022

An amended lawsuit claims Memphis police failed to arrest Cleotha Henderson for a 2021 rape even after a second witness implicated him in the crime, the Daily Memphian reports. Alicia Franklin, who sued the city last month for failing to properly investigate her case, claims the Memphis Police Department’s inaction played a role in the kidnapping and murder of Memphis jogger Eliza Fletcher. Henderson was charged in Fletcher’s case in September and days later charged with Franklin’s rape. The amended lawsuit claims MPD detectives questioned an unnamed woman described as Henderson’s girlfriend shortly after Franklin reported her rape to police and that the girlfriend gave evidence to the police that implicated Henderson in the crime. The suit states that, if the police had acted then, “the abduction and murder of Eliza Fletcher would not have occurred.”