Tag: memphis

An uncle of the convicted kidnapper now charged with snatching Eliza Fletcher has said his “whole f—ing family’s wacky” — and he’s convinced his nephew was involved with abducting the Tennessee heiress.

“I’m 100% sure he had something to do with her abduction,” Nathaniel Isaac, 69, told DailyMail of his nephew, Cleotha Abston, who was charged Sunday with violently abducting jogger Fletcher, 34, early Friday.

“Can I prove it? No,” he said.

Isaac — who married into the family — spoke out before a body was found in the hunt for Fletcher, a Memphis teacher and mom of two. The identity remained unconfirmed Tuesday.

However, the uncle tried to distance himself from the clan as police searched the Memphis apartment complex looking for family members, including Abston’s mother, who he said was “in hiding.”

“My whole f—ing family’s wacky … They always have been,” Isaac told the Mail.

“They’re not beloved to me because they’re nuts. It’s the truth.

“Go check the police records for the Abstons. You’ll find they’re all perpetrators of something,” he said.

He noted that Abston’s younger brother, Mario Abston, 34, was also arrested at the weekend “for drugs and carrying a gun.”

Police have stressed those charges — including allegations that he was manufacturing and selling fentanyl and heroin — were not tied to Fletcher’s kidnapping.

He said he had little interaction with the accused kidnapper — but knew enough to suspect his involvement in the monstrous crime.

“I believe that he probably did it — but I have no proof,” he told a videographer at the complex.

The damning interview came as Abston was hit with further charges late Monday, court records show.

He was charged with identity theft, theft and fraudulent use of a credit card after a woman reported her wallet being stolen on Thursday, the day before Fletcher’s abduction, ABC 24 noted. He allegedly used the stolen cards at two gas stations for more than $910.

Fletcher, who comes from a pedigreed Tennessee family that founded a $3.2 billion private hardware company, was caught on camera being violently snatched during her regular 4 a.m. run.

Abston was busted after DNA testing on a pair of slides left at the scene, with his phone also linking him to the crime scene.

Surveillance footage showed him running “aggressively toward the victim, and then [forcing] the victim Eliza Fletcher into the passenger’s side of the vehicle,” according to a police affidavit which also said, “there appeared to be a struggle.”

He was later seen cleaning his car and scrubbing his clothes while acting “strange,” the affidavit said.

He remains behind bars on $510,000 bond and is set to be arraigned Tuesday morning.