The story of the unsolved disappearance of eight-year-old Relisha Rudd is particularly tragic because, in her short life, she had already survived so much: Neglect, poverty, homelessness and a cycle of trauma within her family. Her mother, Shamika Young, grew up in foster care, struggled with behavioural issues and at one point even had to be placed in a mental facility.
Now, Relisha was living with her mom, stepdad Antonio, and little brothers in an overcapacity homeless shelter. It was here that her mother would entrust her to the care of a shelter worker, a janitor named Kahlil Tatum, who had taken a special interest in the little girl. After Shamika handed her precious daughter Relisha over to this practical stranger, 30 days would pass before anyone noticed she was missing. It was the staff at her school who felt something was amiss when they were given a note from her mother stating she was absent due to health issues. Authorities would learn that the note signed by a “Doctor Tatum,” was actually written up by the shelter the janitor, Kahlil Tatum.
An investigation into her whereabouts would reveal two sightings of Relisha had hotels in the area, where she was seen walking down the hallway with Tatum. On the same day an Amber Alert was put out for Relisha, Tatum’s wife would be found shot dead. Shortly after that, Tatum himself would be discovered deceased from an apparent suicide - leaving everyone to ask the question, where was Relisha Rudd?
10 years have passed since Relisha vanished. Her family remains hopeful that she is alive while police have stated this is now a recovery mission. In any case, it is time she is found and brought home. We’re going to talk about the incredible little girl known as Relisha Rudd, the ways she was let down by basically everyone in her life, the details surrounding her disappearance and where the case is at today in 2024.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/03/relisha-rudd-missing-decade-dc-homeless/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4MenKD07QA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmAplZuIKQ8
https://medium.com/@themissingfound/case-7-the-disappearance-of-relisha-rudd-d42a2c98379d
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[00:02:14] I'm back with another true crime story to lull you to sleep or perhaps to give you nightmares.
[00:02:20] The story of the unsolved disappearance of 8-year-old Raleesha Rudd is particularly tragic
[00:02:26] because in her short life, she had already survived so much.
[00:02:31] Neglect, poverty, homelessness, and a cycle of trauma within her family.
[00:02:37] Her mother, Shamika Young, grew up in foster care, struggled with behavioral issues, and
[00:02:42] at one point, even had to be placed in a mental
[00:02:45] facility.
[00:02:46] Now, Raleesha was living with her mom, stepdad Antonio, and little brothers in an overcapacity
[00:02:53] homeless shelter.
[00:02:55] It was here that her mother would entrust her to the care of a shelter worker, a janitor
[00:02:59] named Khalil Tatum, who had taken a special interest in the little girl.
[00:03:05] After Shameika handed her precious daughter, Ulisha, over to this practical stranger, 30
[00:03:11] days would pass before anyone noticed that she was missing.
[00:03:14] It was actually the staff at her school who felt that something was amiss when they were
[00:03:19] given a note from her mother stating that she was absent due to health issues.
[00:03:25] Authorities would learn that the note, signed by Dr. Tatum, was actually written up by the
[00:03:30] janitor at the shelter, Khalil Tatum.
[00:03:34] An investigation into her whereabouts would reveal two sightings of Raleesha at hotels
[00:03:38] in the area, where she was seen walking down the hallway with Tatum.
[00:03:43] On the same day an Amber Alert was put out for Raleisha,
[00:03:46] Tatum's wife would be found shot dead in a hotel room.
[00:03:50] Shortly after that, Tatum himself would be discovered
[00:03:53] deceased from an apparent suicide,
[00:03:56] leaving everyone to ask the question,
[00:03:58] where was Raleisha Rudd?
[00:04:01] 10 years have passed since Raleisha vanished.
[00:04:04] Her family remains hopeful that she's alive, while police have stated that this is now
[00:04:09] a recovery mission.
[00:04:11] In any case, it's time that she is found and brought home.
[00:04:15] We're going to talk about the incredible little girl known as Raleisha Rudd, the ways
[00:04:20] that she was let down by basically everyone in her life, the details surrounding her disappearance,
[00:04:26] and where the case is at today in 2024.
[00:04:29] So let's jump right in.
[00:04:32] Relysha Rudd was born on October 29, 2005 in Washington, D.C. to her mother Shamika Young.
[00:04:39] Her father wasn't in the picture.
[00:04:41] Shamika became pregnant by Irving Rudd when she was just 19 years old and he was 34, so
[00:04:48] it was a really unhealthy age gap.
[00:04:50] Beyond that, this man had been convicted of killing one of his other children years before
[00:04:55] Raleesha was born, leaving Shamika to raise her daughter on her own at least in the beginning.
[00:05:02] That is until Shamika met her boyfriend, Antonio Wheeler in 2008, when Raleisha was just 3
[00:05:08] years old.
[00:05:09] So Antonio became her stepfather from a really early age and she just saw him as dad.
[00:05:15] Raleisha was a proud big sister to her little brothers and was said to be like a second mother
[00:05:20] to them.
[00:05:21] The family had lived in a small apartment located in the diverse community of Congress
[00:05:25] Heights, DC. Things were really difficult for Rulisha from an early age, and child protective
[00:05:32] services had to be utilized at least three times, including one instance where it was
[00:05:38] alleged that Shemika had physically abused the children. Shemika also had a history of child neglect charges.
[00:05:46] The first investigation in 2007 alleged that the family was living in squalor.
[00:05:51] The home was very dirty and unsafe for children and there wasn't enough food in the cupboards
[00:05:56] to go around.
[00:05:58] Even though there was said to be a lot of love in the home, love simply isn't enough
[00:06:03] and Shemika was failing to care for
[00:06:06] her babies properly.
[00:06:08] Somehow, Shemika was able to keep custody of her children, and it was likely due to the
[00:06:13] lack of foster care resources.
[00:06:15] They probably just didn't have anywhere to send her or her little brothers.
[00:06:20] While Raleisha's living conditions weren't the greatest, thankfully there were other
[00:06:25] adults in her life to ensure that at least the bare minimum was being done.
[00:06:29] She had her grandmother Melissa Young and her aunt Ashley in her life.
[00:06:34] Otherwise things likely would have been even worse for Raleesha.
[00:06:39] In an interview with the Washington Post, Raleesha's former cheerleading coach Shannon
[00:06:44] Smith recalled how the little girl loved hugging everyone that she came into contact With the Washington Post, Raleisha's former cheerleading coach, Shannon Smith, recalled
[00:06:45] how the little girl loved hugging everyone that she came into contact with.
[00:06:50] It was during one of these hugs that Shannon had noticed it had likely been a while since
[00:06:56] Raleisha had been bathed.
[00:06:58] So together, they developed a routine of self-care, where every morning, Raleesha would visit the nurse's office with Shannon to wash up and apply lotion to her skin.
[00:07:09] Raleesha would come to school with dirty clothes, and it was obvious that she was being neglected
[00:07:16] at home.
[00:07:17] The family moved from place to place, shelters and hotel rooms, so there wasn't really
[00:07:23] any consistency in her life.
[00:07:26] Despite all of the troubles that Raleisha had to endure from a very early age, she was
[00:07:31] said to be the kind of person that you fall in love with immediately after meeting them.
[00:07:37] She has been described as kind-hearted and sweet with a positive attitude, and this
[00:07:43] kid loved to dance.
[00:07:46] Raleesha was also very mature and responsible for her age, probably because she had to grow
[00:07:51] up quickly and deal with adult issues like poverty.
[00:07:55] She was known to care for her little brothers and other children in the neighborhood as
[00:08:00] well as help at home with the housework.
[00:08:03] It wasn't always easy, but it was life as she knew it.
[00:08:07] In 2014, Raleisha's family was unfortunately evicted
[00:08:11] from their apartment due to non-payment of rent.
[00:08:14] They would move into the DC General Homeless Shelter,
[00:08:18] infamous in the area for being overcapacity
[00:08:22] and highly dysfunctional.
[00:08:24] When I say that this shelter was inhabitable,
[00:08:28] I mean it. At any given time, there were around 800 people suffering from homelessness living
[00:08:35] at that shelter, way over their capacity of under 200 people. It was supposed to be a warm
[00:08:42] and safe place for some of the city's most vulnerable people to stay,
[00:08:46] but it was anything but.
[00:08:48] Bedbugs were rampant, and at least 30 people had to be taken to the hospital to be treated for bedbugs and rashes
[00:08:56] due to the dirty facilities like dirty toilets and showers in the last two years that it remained operational. Beyond that, this mini-city
[00:09:05] was ridden with crime committed by both the residents and the staff members.
[00:09:11] There were complaints of staff sexually assaulting the people that they were
[00:09:16] charged with caring for, including offering to pay them for sex and taking
[00:09:21] lewd photos of them without their consent.
[00:09:25] This uninhabitable shelter filled with disease and dirt was often times home to more than
[00:09:31] 450 children at a time.
[00:09:34] These kids were subjected to living rooms with cockroaches, no running water or electricity
[00:09:40] at times, mold and decay.
[00:09:43] But for families like Raleesha's, it was all they had.
[00:09:48] While living at the DC General Homeless Shelter
[00:09:50] with her mom, stepdad and little brothers,
[00:09:53] the family meets a man, 51-year-old Khalil Tatum.
[00:09:58] Tatum worked at the shelter as a janitor.
[00:10:00] He befriended the family
[00:10:02] and was particularly fond of little Raleisha.
[00:10:05] Her mother, Shamika, allowed him to take her daughter out to enjoy events like Disney on
[00:10:11] Ice.
[00:10:12] It's said that Tatum even purchased the little girl her own tablet.
[00:10:16] He was in a position to basically be able to buy them off, knowing that the family had
[00:10:22] very little and would jump at the opportunity
[00:10:25] to possess the things that he was offering them.
[00:10:28] Allegedly, Tatum would take Raleesha away from the shelter
[00:10:32] for days at a time, saying that he was taking her shopping
[00:10:36] to the park or back to his house, whatever they had planned.
[00:10:41] Then Tatum asked Shamika if he could take Raleesha out of the shelter for
[00:10:46] a few nights and spend it with him at his grandmother's house. Now I have to assume
[00:10:51] here that Shamika believed this would be a good opportunity for her daughter to get out
[00:10:56] of the grimy, dilapidated shelter at least for a little bit. But she trusted this stranger
[00:11:02] with her baby far too much.
[00:11:05] Off, Raleesha went with this janitor who was known to be inappropriate with some of the
[00:11:10] younger girls living at the shelter.
[00:11:13] It was a little known secret amongst the residents that Tatum would give these girls
[00:11:18] money and candy, though the shelter would later say that no official complaints had
[00:11:24] been filed
[00:11:25] with regards to this inappropriate behavior.
[00:11:28] At the end of February 2014, Raleesha left the shelter with Tatum, and Shamika had no
[00:11:35] idea that this would be the last time she'd get to see her baby girl.
[00:11:39] A few nights would turn into a week, and then another week.
[00:11:43] The exact details surrounding what Shamika knew and didn't know are murky.
[00:11:49] What was Tatum telling Shamika each time that he saw her at the shelter and hadn't returned
[00:11:54] her daughter to her?
[00:11:56] Did he make up an excuse that Shamika believed enough to let slide?
[00:12:01] Or did Shamika know where Raleisha was?
[00:12:04] It's all really unclear. What we do know is that
[00:12:07] Raleesha's school was concerned enough about her whereabouts to contact Shamika and ask her where
[00:12:13] her daughter was. Shamika told them that her daughter was suffering from a severe migraine
[00:12:19] condition that was keeping her out of school and she brought them a doctor's note to prove it.
[00:12:25] It was keeping her out of school, and she brought them a doctor's note to prove it. The note, which said that Raleesha was being treated for a neurological condition, including
[00:12:30] migraines, was signed by a doctor Tatum.
[00:12:35] Still, Raleesha had 10 unexcused absences from school, so the administration was required
[00:12:42] to notify DC's Child and Family Services Agency.
[00:12:46] About a week later, a social worker visited the shelter to speak with Dr. Tatum directly
[00:12:51] about release's condition.
[00:12:53] By this point, she had already missed almost three weeks of school without a written excuse.
[00:13:00] So they had called Dr. Tatum on the phone to set up an appointment where they could get some more details about what was causing her to miss so many school days.
[00:13:09] Dr. Tatum did not show up to this meeting, so the school social worker went to the shelter directly and asked one of the case managers about this Dr. Tatum and what the treatment program was, what the plan was.
[00:13:23] To his shock, the social worker was told that there was no Dr. Tatum and what the treatment program was, what the plan was. To his shock, the social worker was
[00:13:26] told that there was no Dr. Tatum. Instead, the social worker had been speaking to Khalil Tatum,
[00:13:34] the Shelter's janitor.
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[00:17:50] This was the same tatum that Raleisha's mother had claimed was treating her
[00:17:55] daughter's medical condition. He immediately called the DC hotline to
[00:17:59] report a suspected case of child abuse and then waited for the police to arrive
[00:18:04] because he was shook. Something was clearly very wrong here. report a suspected case of child abuse, and then waited for the police to arrive because
[00:18:05] he was shook.
[00:18:07] Something was clearly very wrong here.
[00:18:09] Why would the janitor be signing his name as a doctor?
[00:18:12] Where was Raleesha?
[00:18:14] This is when an official investigation was launched to find out where Raleesha Red was.
[00:18:20] But first, they needed to find out where Khalil Tatum was.
[00:18:25] Tatum was a 51-year-old married man who had a way with words.
[00:18:30] People tended to gravitate towards him and believed the things that he said.
[00:18:34] Married to a woman named Andrea Kelly, the couple shared a daughter who Andrea had from
[00:18:39] a previous marriage.
[00:18:41] Much like Raleesha and her family, Tatum had his own struggles with poverty
[00:18:46] and the law. He had been in and out of jail pretty much his whole life,
[00:18:51] serving time for burglary and larceny. At times, he and his wife struggled with addiction and
[00:18:57] keeping a job, but they were pretty well liked amongst their friends and acquaintances.
[00:19:03] As I said, Tatum had a way with words, because given his criminal history, he should have
[00:19:10] never been allowed to work with vulnerable adults and children at the shelter.
[00:19:15] But he was hired by the non-profit organization Community Partnership for the Prevention
[00:19:20] of Homelessness, initially as kitchen staff, but later he was moved to an
[00:19:25] open janitorial position. Some shelter residents called him godfather, and many of the parents
[00:19:32] trusted him to be around their children. He showered them with kindness, gifts, and money,
[00:19:39] things that they lacked and dreamed of having, so it's not difficult to see how this situation unfolded.
[00:19:46] He continued to work at the shelter while breaking several of their rules, including
[00:19:51] the no fraternizing policy.
[00:19:54] The shelter would claim that there were never any complaints filed, so they had no idea.
[00:20:00] But in speaking with the people who lived and worked at the shelter, this just isn't true.
[00:20:06] People took notice that he built relationships with many of the residents, particularly the
[00:20:12] young girls.
[00:20:13] And nothing was done to stop it.
[00:20:16] On March 19, 2014, Raleesha's mom and stepfather, Shamika and Antonio, were both questioned
[00:20:24] by the police.
[00:20:25] Shamika was insistent that Raleesha was fine and safe, staying with Tatum, and the police
[00:20:31] were just making a big deal out of nothing.
[00:20:34] However, when the police visited Tatum's home, they found it to be completely empty.
[00:20:39] There was no sign of Tatum, no sign of Raleesha.
[00:20:43] Investigators then had to be the ones to tell Shamika that
[00:20:47] her daughter was in fact missing, which is really sad that it wasn't the other way around.
[00:20:52] It's like Shamika didn't care enough to notice.
[00:20:56] As for Antonio, the stepfather, well he said he was working a time so he just trusted whatever
[00:21:01] Shamika told him with regards to where her daughter was.
[00:21:05] The following day on March 20th, the police sent out a news release with the known details
[00:21:10] of Raleisha's disappearance.
[00:21:12] They state that the 8-year-old little girl had been missing for 19 days and may be in
[00:21:18] the company of Tatum, the last person to allegedly see her alive.
[00:21:23] That same day, the body of Tatum's wife, Andrea,
[00:21:27] would be discovered in a motel room
[00:21:29] located in Prince George's County.
[00:21:32] She had been shot in the head.
[00:21:34] Surveillance video would show Khalil Tatum and his wife
[00:21:37] checking into the motel
[00:21:39] and then going to their room the evening prior.
[00:21:42] According to their daughter,
[00:21:43] the couple went to the motel because the heat in their home
[00:21:46] wasn't working.
[00:21:47] That's at least what he told her.
[00:21:50] The following morning, only Tatum would be seen leaving the hotel room alone, making
[00:21:55] him suspect number one in the disappearance of Raleesha Rudd and the murder of his wife,
[00:22:01] Andrea.
[00:22:02] There were murmurings about the married couple's crumbling relationship.
[00:22:06] Some believed that Andrea was getting ready to divorce her husband.
[00:22:10] Is that why he killed her?
[00:22:13] Or did she find out about what he had done to Raleisha?
[00:22:17] Police weren't going to be able to ask her now, unfortunately.
[00:22:21] At this point, an Amber Alert was sent out with the details about the missing little
[00:22:25] girl and an arrest warrant was issued for Tatum for murder.
[00:22:29] There was a $25,000 reward offered for any information leading to his arrest.
[00:22:34] Meanwhile, investigators began retracing Tatum's steps during the weeks that Raleisha had been
[00:22:40] missing.
[00:22:41] They want to know what he was doing during that period of time. This is when they discovered surveillance footage from February 26th. It showed Tatum and Raleesha
[00:22:51] walking down a hallway together at a Holiday Inn Express northeast Washington. They also find footage
[00:22:58] from March 1st of Tatum and Raleesha. Again, they're walking down the hallway of a hotel at the days in towards a
[00:23:05] hotel room that they have booked. Raleesha was still alive up until March 1st at least. She was
[00:23:12] last seen wearing pink boots and a purple Helly Henson jacket. Later that day, the video showed
[00:23:18] Tatum leaving the room alone. Police also learned that on March 2, Tatum was seen purchasing a shovel, lime, and garbage
[00:23:27] bags from a nearby home hardware store.
[00:23:31] Not a great sign.
[00:23:32] For those who aren't aware, lime can be used to basically destroy, break down a body quickly,
[00:23:38] which would help someone to destroy a body and any evidence right along with it.
[00:23:43] There are details that the police have kept close to their chest, because this is still
[00:23:47] an ongoing, open investigation, so we don't know if there was ever footage of Tatum carrying
[00:23:53] anything out of the hotel room, maybe something that looked like a body.
[00:23:58] But we do know that the last time Raleesha was seen alive was on that March 1st video,
[00:24:03] the day before he bought those supplies.
[00:24:06] Either way, the hunt for the only person with answers, Khalil Tatum, was on.
[00:24:12] On March 26th, his name was added to the FBI's most wanted list.
[00:24:17] Investigators also make it clear that while they maintain hope that Raleisha is somewhere still alive,
[00:24:24] at this point they
[00:24:25] have to believe that she is deceased, and the investigation has turned into a recovery
[00:24:30] operation.
[00:24:31] But the search for the little girl continued.
[00:24:35] Then on April 1, 2014, a gruesome discovery.
[00:24:40] Search teams scouring Kennelly Worth Park looking for Alicia would instead find the
[00:24:45] body of Khalil Tatum in a park storage room.
[00:24:49] He had shot himself in the head using the same gun that he had allegedly used to kill
[00:24:54] his wife Andrea.
[00:24:56] Many of the answers that the police had been looking for died right along with him.
[00:25:01] It has now been 10 years since Raleisha Rudd disappeared.
[00:25:05] Over the years, there have been many who blame her mother,
[00:25:08] Shamika, for trusting her daughter with a man
[00:25:11] that she didn't know, even letting him take her
[00:25:14] to his home for extended periods of time.
[00:25:17] Others believe that she may have been involved
[00:25:20] in her daughter's disappearance.
[00:25:22] It can sometimes be difficult to sympathize with her.
[00:25:25] Raleesha missed nearly three weeks of school, which alarmed the school administration, and
[00:25:30] in turn, Shamika went along with the forged doctor's note to keep them off her back and
[00:25:35] to protect Tatum.
[00:25:36] But what about her daughter?
[00:25:38] Whether she knowingly protected the man who harmed her daughter or not, she is complicit
[00:25:43] in some capacity.
[00:25:45] For this reason and more, her other children would be removed from her custody and put into
[00:25:51] foster care.
[00:25:52] And they were victims in this too.
[00:25:55] The three little boys were very close with their big sister, Raleisha, and they had her
[00:25:59] just disappear from their lives.
[00:26:03] Then they were taken from their mother and father
[00:26:05] and put into a stranger's home. Hopefully it has been a better living
[00:26:09] situation for all of them than the derelict shelter that they were in. But
[00:26:14] sadly foster homes can sometimes be far worse than the neglect that children are
[00:26:20] experiencing at home. Two years after Risha went missing, the DC General Homeless Shelter was shut down
[00:26:27] and it was replaced with six smaller shelters
[00:26:30] throughout the area.
[00:26:31] However, due to a lack of funding,
[00:26:34] many problems of the past continue to exist
[00:26:37] in these new facilities.
[00:26:39] It's just a newer, shinier, smaller building.
[00:26:42] There just aren't enough resources available
[00:26:45] for families like Rolisha's to ensure that children
[00:26:47] of poverty aren't continuing to slip through the cracks.
[00:26:51] These are some of the most vulnerable people
[00:26:53] of our society trying to survive in the care of parents
[00:26:58] who can't or just won't provide for them
[00:27:00] or keep them safe.
[00:27:02] For people like Rolisha's old cheerleading coach,
[00:27:04] the one who ensured that she was cleaned up
[00:27:07] before class started, her disappearance was a stark reminder
[00:27:11] that it truly is up to the whole community
[00:27:14] to keep an eye out, watch out for these children,
[00:27:17] and to step in whenever necessary to keep them safe.
[00:27:21] Children who are neglected can grow up
[00:27:23] to be neglectful parents. It's a vicious cycle,
[00:27:26] and that's one that's been repeated with Shemika and her daughter. Shemika grew up in foster care,
[00:27:32] because her mother didn't properly care for her. Shemika repeated that behavior with Raleesha,
[00:27:39] and in this situation, it's unfortunate that Raleesa wasn't put into foster care before this horrible
[00:27:45] thing happened to her. In October 2017, Shamika, her mother Melissa, and Raleigha's stepfather
[00:27:53] Antonio, they all went on the Steve Wilco show. In my opinion, this is a trash show that
[00:28:00] serves absolutely no value, and it certainly didn't help Shamika's image.
[00:28:06] All three of the adults were offered polygraph tests. I'm not sure if they were done by
[00:28:10] actual professionals or just some of the regular staff members, but Relisha's grandmother
[00:28:16] Melissa and stepfather Antonio both took and passed the test. Shamika refused to take it.
[00:28:24] And for this I can defend her. I can
[00:28:25] understand why. I've mentioned it before, but those tests, they're not 100% accurate.
[00:28:30] And so, because of that, it's never a good idea to take one. The results will
[00:28:36] never be used to exonerate you, only to prove your guilt. However, she probably
[00:28:41] should have never appeared on the show if she wasn't going to be taking the test because to everyone else, it only makes it look like she's hiding something.
[00:28:51] Here's a short clip.
[00:28:52] And Sonia, you know I didn't have anything to do with my daughter's disappearance.
[00:28:56] Why would you come out your mouth like that?
[00:28:58] You don't act like a mother.
[00:29:00] It was grieving.
[00:29:01] You got an eight-year-old child missing.
[00:29:04] I've never seen you cry. Oh, you've seen child missing. I've never seen you cry.
[00:29:06] Oh, you've seen me cry.
[00:29:07] I never see you cry.
[00:29:09] You f***ing cry.
[00:29:11] What do you believe happened to your daughter?
[00:29:13] When I called a family member up,
[00:29:15] she didn't make it to the destination
[00:29:17] where she was supposed to go at.
[00:29:19] She was supposed to been going to the emergency room.
[00:29:22] Who was taking her there?
[00:29:23] My mother.
[00:29:24] How did you not know that she had been missing for 18 days?
[00:29:28] I didn't have any contact.
[00:29:30] Why not?
[00:29:31] I didn't have a phone.
[00:29:33] This janitor that you see in the video,
[00:29:35] what was your relationship with him?
[00:29:37] Khalil?
[00:29:37] I didn't have a relationship with him.
[00:29:39] He had a relationship with a family member of mine.
[00:29:42] Do you believe that your daughter had something
[00:29:44] to do with your granddaughter's disappearance? Of course. I believe. Your daughter's adamant that you gave
[00:29:52] your granddaughter to me. Tell me how to take the test. I took it. Tell me how. You came here,
[00:29:57] took a lot of the test, only asked you. That's why I'm here. Did you participate in any way in the disappearance of Relisha?
[00:30:06] You answered no.
[00:30:07] Have you ever had any sexual physical contact with Relisha?
[00:30:12] You answered no.
[00:30:13] Did you ever strike any of your children leaving marks or bruises?
[00:30:17] You answered no.
[00:30:18] The results came back the same to each and every question and they came back that Antonio
[00:30:22] told the truth.
[00:30:23] Melissa, you took a lie detector
[00:30:26] test and we asked you, did you participate in any way in the disappearance of your granddaughter?
[00:30:32] You answered no. Did you give your granddaughter to Khalil Tatum around the time of her disappearance?
[00:30:39] You answered no. And the results came back that you, you Melissa told the truth. You don't
[00:30:47] have to take a test but you're not eliminating yourself as a suspect in
[00:30:52] the disappearance of your daughter. The two main theories regarding what
[00:31:01] happened to Alicia Rudd are that she was sexually abused
[00:31:05] or sold to other adults and then murdered by Tatum.
[00:31:09] The second one is that she's alive
[00:31:11] and she was sex trafficked, sold across the country.
[00:31:15] Though DC Metropolitan Police detectives,
[00:31:18] they don't believe that to be the case.
[00:31:20] It is more commonly accepted that Raleisha Rudd
[00:31:23] is probably no longer with us, but she still
[00:31:27] deserves to be recovered so that she may finally find some peace. Anyone with any information on
[00:31:33] the disappearance of Raleesha Rudd should call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or the DC Metropolitan Police Department at 202-727-9099.
[00:31:46] And I will also have all of those details
[00:31:49] over in my show notes.
[00:31:51] That's it for me tonight.
[00:31:53] If you wanna reach out,
[00:31:54] you can find me on Facebook at Serial Napper.
[00:31:57] I also have a Serial Napper true crime discussion group.
[00:31:59] It's called Serial Society,
[00:32:01] and I'll have the link in my show notes.
[00:32:03] You can find my audio on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
[00:32:08] I post all of my episodes in video format too over on YouTube.
[00:32:12] So if you're on YouTube, go check it out.
[00:32:14] And if you are watching on YouTube, I'd love if you can give me a thumbs up and subscribe.
[00:32:19] I'm over on X, formerly known as Twitter, at serial underscore napper, and I post things on TikTok.
[00:32:26] Serial napper Nick, and that's all one word.
[00:32:30] Until next time, sweet dreams, stay kind,
[00:32:34] especially in the comments.
[00:32:37] Bye.
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