Shelby County’s district attorney Wednesday announced more than two dozen new charges against the man who went on a rampage killing spree in Memphis on September 7.
“Ezekiel Kelly has been indicted on 26 additional charges related to the September 7th shooting spree, including two homicides,” Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy said in a release issued from Mulroy’s office.
“A grand jury indicted 19-year-old Ezekiel Kelly on two counts of First-Degree Murder in the shooting deaths of Richard Clark and Allison Parker, as well as 24 additional charges including 5 counts of Reckless Endangerment, 4 counts of Criminal Attempt First-Degree Murder, and Commission of an Act of Terrorism,” according to the release.
A total of three people were killed during the rampage.
Mulroy said that Kelly terrorized the community, and that his office plans to do all it can to “see that justice is done.”
Kelly had already been charged with murder in the death of his friend Dewayne Tunstall, whom he killed prior to the September 7 killing spree.
He is currently being held without bond in the Shelby County Jail.
“The case is being handled by Chief Prosecutor Chris Lareau and Assistant District Attorneys Jimmy Thomas, Forrest Edwards, and Brad Reasonover of the District Attorney’s Vertical Team 3 which prosecutes cases in General Sessions Division 11 and Criminal Court Division 3,” according to the release.
Mulroy campaigned for his role as district attorney by pledging “criminal justice reform.”
During the same week as Kelly’s alleged killing spree, a man called Cleotha Abston was arrested for his alleged kidnapping and murder of jogger and Memphis schoolteacher Eliza Fletcher.
Mulroy called that an “isolated incident.”
But later, Abston was charged with rape after his DNA matched a sample from a rape kit that was processed by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) around the time of Fletcher’s alleged kidnapping and murder.
Alicia Franklin claimed that Abston raped her in September of 2021.
“Every time I said something he threatened to kill me,” Franklin said. “He forced me in the car [and] he raped me.”
Previously, Abston spent nearly 20 years in prison for kidnapping an attorney.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
