♪ ♪ this is "nightline." >> tonight, an unthinkable connection. a young memphis woman says she was raped by the same suspect accused of kidnapping and killing kindergarten teacher eliza fletcher. >> everything he did to her was similar. >> alicia franklin speaking out in her first tv interview. >> he was like, don't look at me, if you look at me i'm going to kill you. >> raising troubling questions about why investigators did not act sooner. her rape kit untested for months and a dna match only after eliza fletcher disappeared. >> you believe that if your case had been processed sooner, that eliza would be alive today? >> i definitely believe she would have still been alive today.

and the fight for justice amid disturbing allegations of sex crime cases mishandled in memphis for decades. some evidence even destroyed. >> this is something that we absolutely need to fix, and we need to fix immediately. >> what's being done to break the backlog and hold authorities accountable? and why this issue is playing out in cities and towns across america. >> we need to value the lives of rape victims, of sexual assault victims, and we need to do so without regard to race or socioeconomics. >> "nightline," "body of evidence," will be right back. g. they help you fall asleep naturally with an optimal dose of melatonin. and a complementary botanical blend. so you can wake up refreshed. for better sleep, like never before. (cat 1) friskies world! so you can wake up (cat 2)shed. look at that! (cat 1) it's made with real farm-raised chicken! (cat 2) i gotta get my paws on that!

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♪ ♪ good evening. thank you for joining us. tonight, a young woman from memphis shares her story, describing a rape exactly one year ago. the suspect now in custody. but not before he allegedly kidnapped and killed another woman in the same city. alicia franklin says that murder may have been prevented if only her case received the urgency it deserved. here's abc's erielle reshef. >> i knew something just kept drawing me to do research on her case. i don't know what it was. >> reporter: alicia franklin and eliza fletcher.

two women from memphis who never met but have an unthinkable connection. >> he was like, "don't look at me, if you look at me, i'm going to kill you." i made sure i didn't look at him. >> on september 21st, 2021, alicia says she drove to a memphis apartment complex to pick up a man she'd met online after they'd texted for weeks. the two had planned to go out for dinner. but instead, when she arrived, alicia says he quickly put a gun to her head and violently raped her. >> i begged him to let me go, i told him i was pregnant. he didn't care. but he said something in the nature of, "all you bitches say the same thing" like he does this every day. >> reporter: fast forward almost a year, september 2nd, 2022. >> an urgent search, a 34-year-old kindergarten teacher reported missing friday after she did not return from an early morning run. >> reporter: eliza fletcher, kindergarten teacher and mother

of two, went out for an early morning run, but she never returned. nearly four days later her body was found behind an abandoned house. security camera video from that morning shows the moment fletcher was pulled into a dark car by her alleged killer. >> everything he did to her was similar. like, he forced her in a car. >> reporter: now authorities have arrested this man, 38-year-old cleotha abston henderson, and charged him with eliza's kidnapping and murder. he hasn't entered a plea yet in eliza's case. days later, henderson also charged with alicia's rape. in her case, he's pleaded not guilty. alicia says her alleged rapist should have been behind bars much sooner but her rape kit was not tested until nine months after it was submitted. police would have gotten a hit on henderson's dna, which was already in the system due to his extensive criminal history. instead, the match came just

weeks ago on september 5th. but it was already too late for eliza fletcher. >> do you believe that if your case had been processed sooner, that eliza would be alive today? >> yeah. i definitely believe she would have still been alive today if the police did what they were supposed to do. it wouldn't have gotten to that point. they had more than enough evidence that night when they interviewed me to get him off the streets. but they didn't. >> reporter: survivors, advocates, and lawmakers say this is one more tragic example of the memphis police department and state of tennessee's history of mishandling sexual assault cases. >> our priorities when it comes to protecting women in our state, now the nation's eyes are focused on the state of tennessee and what we're doing and how we're going to fix this. and this is something that we absolutely need to fix, and we need to fix immediately. >> reporter: alicia franklin says this nightmare all began with an online dating app.

it was september 2021. after recently escaping what she says was an abusive relationship, the then 21-year-old was finally ready to date again. what drew you to the profile of this man? >> he was nice. he had actually wanted to take me on a date. and i had actually brushed him off for about -- i would say about two months. >> reporter: but she says after they talked over text, she finally agreed to meet the man who called himself cleo at an apartment complex in southeast memphis where he told her he worked as a maintenance man. what alicia didn't know, cleo was a convicted felon, recently released from a 20-year prison sentence for kidnapping. when she arrived at the apartment, she says it was abandoned. seconds later, henderson put a shirt over her head, stuck a gun to her neck, and threatened to kill her. >> i was crying, like please let

me go, i wouldn't tell anybody. but he wasn't listening. he threatened to kill me. >> reporter: she says he led her into a door and a dodge charger behind the apartment. >> i could still see through this black shirt that i had over my face, because it wasn't to the point i couldn't see through it. i could see because of the way he had it tied on my face. he forced me in the car, he raped me. >> reporter: she says he then led her back into the empty apartment. >> he's like, when you hear me rev my engine, that's when you leave. but i thought he was going to shoot me in the back of my head, because i didn't see him letting me go because he raped me with no protection, texted me from his real number. >> reporter: when she heard him drive off, she ran to her car and drove right to the hospital. then a rape crisis center, where they administered a rape kit. and she was interviewed by a sex crimes detective. >> i told her everything. >> reporter: she says she gave the detective the man's phone number, his profile from the dating app, including his first name. she described his car and every detail of her assault. >> i probably interviewed with her for about an hour and 30 minutes at the most. she asked me everything.

i told her everything. they ran his number. that's how they were able to find him. >> reporter: that same night, alicia says she even painstakingly walked police through the crime scene, but didn't see them take any physical evidence. did they give you any explanation about why you had all these details about him and still they didn't track him down? >> they said they didn't have enough evidence, like, they was like, this is not enough evidence to charge him for rape. >> even though you had taken a rape test, they said they still didn't have enough evidence? even though you had the phone number and the location and all the details, you still didn't have enough? >> yes. >> reporter: alicia also says the police asked her to identify her attacker in a photo lineup. >> the person i picked out in the photo lineup was not who it was, because the photos that they showed me had to have been old pictures. i heard a detective whisper to the other detective, "hey, maybe we need to get some newer

pictures because these pictures are about 10, 12 years old." >> it is pretty clear that the police knew who did it. because they did the photo lineup. now, you don't randomly select ten pictures out of the tens or hundreds of thousands that they have on file, hoping you get lucky. they knew who it was. >> reporter: alicia says she made multiple calls, seeking updates on her case. >> i called. they just always gave me the run-around. sent me in circles. the day it happened to me, i knew nothing was going to happen. >> why did you feel that way? >> because they don't take anything seriously. they don't unless it's one of their people. the only reason why my case was brought back up was because of the lady that was murdered by him, you know. >> they had all of this other information pointing to the perpetrator. they had fingerprints on her phone that they did not take. they had the name. they had the dating app connection. they knew where it happened. they did not canvass the

neighborhood. there are all sorts of failures. >> reporter: after a tip that her attacker was the same as eliza fletcher's, alicia says she confronted police herself last week. >> all they had to say was, "we're so sorry that you had to find out that way, we were going to call you." that's all they said. i asked them, i said, can you just be honest with me and just tell me, is this the same guy? they were like, "yeah." >> reporter: according to the tennessee bureau of investigation, memphis pd submitted alicia's sexual assault kit on september 23rd, 2021, two days after she was attacked. but tbi tells abc news, memphis pd did not provide suspect information with alicia's kit, nor did mpd request the analysis to be expedited. >> you have somebody that's one of your primary suspects that is already proven to be a violent criminal. that's when you ask for it to be expedited. there's no reason why you don't ask for it to be expedited.

>> reporter: tbi says nine months later, on june 24th, 2022, they processed alicia's rape kit. the preliminary results came back on august 29th. then, on september 4th, two days after eliza fletcher went missing, memphis police flagged a possible link between the two cases. abc news has repeatedly reached out to memphis police department, but they have declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation. what was it like for that year, knowing that your rapist was still out there? >> i have always been paranoid since then. i'm always on edge. i don't trust people. i'm always looking over my shoulder. then the scary part about it for me was, he knew who i was. i didn't know who he was. coming up -- >> the pain that i have is on a daily basis. mentally and physically. and i will live with that pain for the rest of my life. >> another rape survivor in memphis has been searching for justice in her case for decades.

>> i put my faith in the city of memphis. they need to catch this perpetrator. >> they should care about this story. because it may not be them today, but it can be them tomorrow. it can be their daughter, sister, aunt, mother, grandmother tomorrow. announcer: type 2 diabetes? discover the power of 3 in the ozempic® tri-zone. in my ozempic® tri-zone, i lowered my a1c, cv risk, and lost some weight. announcer: ozempic® provides powerful a1c reduction. in studies, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack, or death in adults also with known heart disease. and you may lose weight. adults lost up to 14 pounds. ozempic® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. don't take ozempic® if you or your family ever had

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debbie dalhoff is all too familiar with the plaguing fear so many rape survivors endure. >> i feel as though i've been betrayed. hurt deeply. a lot of pain. >> reporter: in 1985, debbie says she was brutally raped and tortured for three hours in her memphis home. in the aftermath, she says she did everything she could to help police with her case,including undergoing a rape kit. >> that's a disgusting process. to have to go through. however, i went through it because i felt like there's a reason to go through this. you think that the city will take care of you, will do everything that they can to investigate your case, catch your perpetrator. >> reporter: for nearly three decades, debbie waited for updates. then in 2013, she found out her rape kit was among at least 12,000 in memphis that had never been tested.

not only that, the county's district attorney's office said her kit was actually destroyed in the mid-'90s with hundreds of others. no perpetrator in her case was ever arrested. >> they took hundreds, possibly thousands, of kits and collateral evidence and took it to a dump site. that's very difficult. >> there are lots of laws that have been passed in many states that require rape kits to be audited, that require rape kits to be analyzed in a certain period of time. but we still suffer in this country from a tremendous backlog of rape kits. >> reporter: debbie is now part of a proposed class action lawsuit against the city of memphis, along with dozens of other women with similar stories. daniel lofton is representing the survivors in this suit. he says alicia franklin's case is symbolic of systemic

negligence by the city and shelby county, which includes memphis. >> we call it the ultimate insult to what is more or less the ultimate injury. >> how is suing the city going to move the ball down the field on this? >> a settlement in this case would be a vehicle for the victims to receive compensation, but it would also have built into it a vehicle for money to be specifically earmarked for the management of rape kits. >> when you speak to the women who have signed on to this lawsuit, what do they want to see? >> they want to be heard. they want to know that they matter. and that they're not being ignored. and that there's some real action being done to prevent that from happening in the future. >> no matter who you are in this country, no matter what your race, your ethnicity, your age, your socioeconomics are, you deserve to have your rape kit immediately tested, to have that information made available to law enforcement. >> reporter: police departments

across the country have struggled to address their rape kit backlogs. in 2015, then vice president biden allocated $41 million in federal funds to help clear them, saying it was an absolute priority for the united states. the city of detroit processed over 11,000 untested kits, leading to over 4,000 investigations and 224 convictions. in memphis, tennessee state representative antonio parkinson has been trying for years to tackle the problem, introducing legislation in 2014 that he thinks could have prevented the recent tragedies. >> miss fletcher might be alive today had we passed that bill in 2014. had we seen that as a priority. but because of our inaction, as leaders in our state, she's not with us anymore. >> reporter: he's now planning to reintroduce legislation that would increase tbi's testing resources. >> we can't bring eliza fletcher back, but we can make sure that we have policies in place that

will ensure the safety of our women and ensure that they get the results back and the justice that is absolutely needed in these situations. >> reporter: tbi says they're working to fix the problem and are in the process of hiring more staff in their crime labs, telling abc news in part, "we are committed to improving the process for all stakeholders, especially victims and survivors." >> there's a high probability that someone that has committed a sexual assault will reoffend. and we've seen in many cases where rape kits have sat for years in warehouses and individuals have been able to go out and revictimize. they've been able to go out and commit additional crimes. >> it's estimated that even in 2022, thousands of rape kits still sit untested at police departments and crime lab facilities across this country. what do you say to that? >> i just don't think women are

cared about when it comes to domestic violence, when it comes to rape. i don't -- you know, sex trafficking. i don't think anyone cares until something like this happens. >> reporter: alicia is now suing the city of memphis and the property managers of the apartment where she says the attack occurred. >> she felt dismayed and a little bit of guilt and shame that she was part of the story that affected eliza fletcher. and she truly doesn't want this to happen to anybody ever again. >> hopefully this case will be the one. it's got the community's attention. there is outrage over this issue. the system, in this case law enforcement and the administrations, have failed the citizens. and we want that corrected. >> do you feel like the system failed you and eliza? >> yes, i do. if i had anything to say to

them, it would really just be, do better. you know, don't wait until it's one of your people, you know what i'm saying? >> if you could talk to eliza's family, what would you say to them? >> i would just say that i'm really sorry. really sorry that the happened to her. but i really feel like if they, the police did what they were supposed to do, it wouldn't have gotten to that point. >> reporter: a tragedy that may have been prevented by placing higher priority on testing rape kits, each representing a woman seeking justice. what would you say to other women out there who have been through something traumatic like you have and feel hopeless? >> to stand up for yourself. to fight for yourself. because nobody's going to fight for you unless you do. a once-daily pill. when uc got unpredictable,... i got rapid symptom relief with rinvoq. check.

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♪ ♪ finally tonight, a thank you to those courageous women who share their truths in hopes, in part, to bring about change. it was nelson mandela who said, courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. that's "nightline" for this evening. thanks for the company, america. good night.