A woman is suing the city of Memphis, alleging that the police department failed to investigate Cleotha Abston Henderson, 38, who she says raped her in September 2021. Henderson is the suspect accused of abducting and murdering Eliza Fletcher this month.
Alicia Franklin, 22, a mother of one, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday, two days after she came forward to the Daily Memphian as the victim of Henderson’s alleged assault from a year prior.
Henderson was charged with rape and kidnapping in connection to Franklin’s case, two days after Fletcher’s body was discovered.
Franklin claims that had the Memphis Police Department investigated her own alleged rape case, Fletcher may still be alive.
According to the lawsuit via the Memphian, Fletcher and Henderson met on a dating app. Knowing him as “Cleo,” she met him at 5783 Waterstone Oak Way, the same apartment complex where Henderson was arrested for Fletcher’s murder.
Upon arriving, she claims that Henderson put a gun on her and forced her into a vehicle behind the complex, where he then sexually assaulted her.
After the attack, Henderson stole Franklin’s cash and fled the area.
Franklin reported the rape to the Memphis Police, taking them to the crime scene and providing them with a rape kit.
However, Franklin alleges in the lawsuit that investigators did not take any evidence from the crime scene, including not collecting fingerprints.
She also accuses the police of not promptly investigating her rape kit.
According to the Memphian:
Franklin’s rape kit was placed in an “unknown suspect queue’’ and sat on a shelf for months before it was pulled for testing in June. Testing was finally completed on Aug. 29, 2022 — four days before Fletcher’s disappearance — and results were uploaded to an FBI database on Sept. 5, 2022, when a DNA match came back for Henderson.
Fletcher was found dead the day after, on September 6.
The suit claims that even without the rape kit, charges could have been filed against Henderson as she had provided police with his dating app profile, social media, phone number, and a description of the vehicle he drove.
When Franklin was asked in an interview why she thought it took them so long to come back with the DNA results, she responded, “I was just an average Black girl in the city of Memphis, you know.”
“I just think it wasn’t a priority,” she added.
Her lawsuit named the City of Memphis as the sole defendant.
You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.
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