On Friday, his community will complete the race for him.
“We created this race as a way to honor Liza and deal with her feelings,” the event’s description read on the Facebook event page. “Our goal is to stand up for women in the Central South and emphasize that women should be able to run safely at any time of the day.”
Road closures and detours will be effective from 4:00 a.m., when participants begin to gather, until 7:30 a.m., when they expect the race to be complete and the route cleared.
Fletcher was a junior kindergarten teacher at St. Mary’s Episcopal School in Memphis. Earlier this week, school teachers and staff lit candles in his memory.
The 34-year-old was also a wife and mother of two children.
“Liza was a light to all who knew her. Her infectious smile and laughter could light up any room. Liza was pure and innocent of heart, who saw her as the best of everyone she met,” Canale Read his obituary posted on Thursday by Funeral Directors.
The man, identified as Ezekiel Kelly, will appear in court on Friday, according to prison records. He is being charged with first-degree murder, although officials said they anticipate additional felony charges.
Fletcher’s murder suspect appears in court
The man accused of kidnapping and murdering Fletcher was identified as 38-year-old Cliotha Henderson. He appeared in Shelby County court on Thursday after he filed a motion for a change of attorney because of an alleged conflict of interest.
Judge Louis J. Montesi Jr. said the Shelby County Public Defender’s Office, which was appointed this week in Henderson’s case, had previously represented him in a kidnapping conviction more than 20 years ago.
Monteci said Henderson’s former attorneys would not be involved in his current case, but ruled that “there is no ground or grounds to disqualify the public defender as an attorney.”
The judge said Henderson would remain in the Shelby County Jail without bond for the murder charge against him.
Henderson was reportedly passed by Fletcher in an SUV while she was jogging in the neighborhood near the University of Memphis. Officials say Henderson got out of the vehicle and followed Fletcher until he forced her into the passenger seat around 4 a.m. on Sept.
It is unclear at this point what kind of sentence prosecutors plan to pursue if Henderson is convicted.
“It is too early for us to discuss what punishment we are seeking,” Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said Wednesday. In Tennessee, a first-degree murder sentence carries a sentence of life in prison – with or without parole – or the death penalty.
The search began when Fletcher did not return from the run.
According to the affidavit, the police later found surveillance video of the area, which showed a black GMC area passing by it. According to the affidavit, the footage shows a man getting out of the SUV and running towards it “aggressively”. The affidavit said that the SUV left the spot about four minutes after the two men entered.
Police also analyzed a pair of sandals found near the victim’s phone at the abduction site. According to the affidavit, the DNA found in the shoes matched with Henderson’s DNA.
Henderson’s employer told investigators he drove to the GMC area and confirmed his phone number. According to the affidavit, cell phone records show that Henderson was near the abduction site at the time of the abduction.
The affidavit said members of the US Marshals Task Force found a GMC Terrain that matched the descriptions seen in surveillance video near Henderson’s home on Saturday morning. The court document said the task force took Henderson into custody on Saturday from near his home.
According to the affidavit, two witnesses, including Henderson’s brother, told police that they saw Henderson acting strangely at the brother’s Memphis house after the kidnapping. The affidavit said both said that Henderson cleaned the interior of the GMC area with floor cleaner and that he washed his clothes in the sink of the house.
CNN’s Aya Elamrousi and Holly Yan contributed to this report.