MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) A Tennessee man pleaded guilty Monday to kidnapping a Memphis school teacher while she was on an early morning run and then killing her.

Cleotha Abston entered guilty pleas to first-degree murder and especially aggravated kidnapping in the abduction and death of Eliza Fletcher.

Abston, 40, had been set to stand trial in February . Prosecutors had said they would seek the death penalty if Abston were convicted of first-degree murder. Instead, Judge Lee Coffee sentenced Abston to life in prison without parole after he entered the guilty pleas.

Fletcher was grabbed from a street while she was jogging before dawn near the University of Memphis on Sept. 2, 2022, and forced into an SUV. Her body was found days later near a vacant duplex.