The search for a missing 34-year-old woman abducted while jogging on the University of Memphis campus went into a second day, as police said Saturday they are still receiving tips.
Memphis police on Saturday in a tweet that they are following all leads into the disappearance of Eliza “Liza” Fletcher, who was last seen around 4:20 a.m. Friday.
St. Mary’s teacher kidnapped:FBI, TBI join search for Eliza ‘Liza’ Fletcher
A Commercial Appeal reporter watched Friday night as police searched the Old Forest section of Overton Park in midtown Memphis. Police declined to say who or what they were searching for.
Police also removed multiple items from the Fletcher home on Friday, but have not said what was taken or why.
Memphis and university police said Fletcher, a mother of two and a teacher at St. Mary’s Episcopal School, was forced into a dark SUV after a brief struggle. Police said the vehicle appears to be a dark-colored GMC Terrain.
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Fletcher was reported missing at about 7 a.m. Friday. The FBI and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation joined the investigation and law enforcement released grainy images of Fletcher running and the dark SUV believed to be the one she was forced into. Fletcher, who is 5′ 6″ tall, weighs 137 pounds, and has brown hair, was wearing purple shorts and a pink sports bra.
Fletcher’s disappearance grabbed the city’s attention ahead of Labor Day weekend. The Memphis Police Department Facebook post detailing Fletcher’s kidnapping was shared thousands of times. City police also sent out multiple notices about the abduction and descriptions of the car throughout Friday.
Her family is offering a $50,000 reward through Crimestoppers and said in a statement Friday night they are praying for Fletcher’s safe return.
Her church, Second Presbyterian, just blocks away from where she was last seen, opened its sanctuary for prayer. Dozens came, a church staff member said. The parking lot was full Friday afternoon.
The church’s senior pastor, George Robertson, noted in an interview Friday that Fletcher’s kidnapping was not the first in Memphis this year or even this week.
“Someday we’ll eliminate this kind of tragedy,” Robertson, the senior pastor at Second Presbyterian Church said. “We also grieve the abduction that occurred a couple of days ago near Wolfchase. We grieve all of this kind of violence and evil in our city. It just makes us grieve. We grieve for ourselves, we grieve for the Fletchers and we also grieve for our city. Our whole city is hurting.”
Three children were abducted in Whitehaven on Sept. 2 and were later found three miles away. A mother and her one-year-old were abducted last weekend near Wolfchase and forced to withdraw money from an ATM before being released. And on Aug. 18, two children were kidnapped and later recovered by police in South Memphis.
There have been at least 100 incidents classified as kidnapping in Memphis this year, according to public safety data posted on the city’s website.
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