Alicia Franklin.Photo: Good Morning America/YouTube
Boththe Institute for Public Service Reportingand theDaily Memphianspoke Sunday to Alicia Franklin, who says she left Tennessee last summer, moving to Mississippi afterCleotha Abston— whom she had met through a dating app — allegedly blindfolded and then raped her.
“He put a gun to my neck,'' Franklin told the two outlets, with her eyes tearing up as she spoke. “I really thought he was going to shoot me in the back of my head.”
Abston, 38, has been charged with rape in connection with Franklin’s case, in addition to kidnapping and murder in connection to Fletcher’s case. He has pleaded not guilty to the rape charge but has not entered pleas to the kidnapping and murder charges. PEOPLE has not been able to reach his attorney.
The Washington Postand other outlets report Franklin filed a lawsuit against the city of Memphis. In the suit, Franklin says that Fletcher, who was 34, would still be alive if her claims had been investigated properly, according to thePost.
In the suit, Franklin says she reported the alleged assault to police and sought medical attention immediately. She agreed to a rape kit and a forensic medical examination, which yielded DNA evidence.
But Franklin says it took the Tennessee crime lab 11 months to test her rape kit, and that the testing was only conducted after Fletcher’s killing andAbston’s murder arrest. Subsequently, police linked the two cases.
The suit states that police “took no physical evidence directly from the crime scene itself.” Days later, according to the suit, Franklin was asked to look at a photo lineup of potential suspects, but she couldn’t identify Abston because the photo was from too long ago.
Fletcher’s remains were recovered on Sept. 5, within walking distance of where Abston was believed to have been seen cleaning a GMC Terrain hours after the kidnapping.
‘Fight for Yourself, Because Nobody Else Will’
Franklin, who is Black, notes that Fletcher was a white woman from a well-known and wealthy family — Fletcher’s grandfather, Joseph “Joe” Orgill III, was a Memphis hardware businessman and philanthropist.
“I was just an average Black girl in the city of Memphis, you know,” she said, alleging Memphis Police failed to pursue obvious leads and never obtained prints from her phone, which she said Abston had handled. “They didn’t care. … I just think it wasn’t a priority.”
She claims she followed up several times with investigators, but was brushed aside.
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The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation told the Institute for Public Service Reporting the average turnaround time for testing on a rape kit through its crime lab in Jackson “ranged from approximately 33 weeks to 49 weeks'' between last September and this August.
Franklin urged victims to be their own advocates.
“Fight for yourself, because the justice system is not going to really help you,” she said. “You know, that’s just my personal experience. You have to stand up for yourself. You have to fight for yourself, because nobody else will.''
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go torainn.org.
source: people.com
