http://charleyproject.org/cases/t/tuders_tabitha.html





http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...EWS01/604300375

Sunday, 04/30/06

Tuders still missing after three years

By CLAY CAREY
Staff Writer


Saturday marked the three-year anniversary of the disappearance of another Middle Tennessee child, then 13-year-old Tabitha Tuders.

She was last seen on her way to a bus stop in east Nashville on the morning of April 29, 2003, just a block from her Lillian Street home.




But authorities say she never got on the bus or made it to Bailey Middle School on that day. Her parents reported her missing that evening.

Since then, police have had little luck establishing solid leads.

Her case attracted national attention, resulting in a host of reported sightings across the country and widespread speculation about her disappearance. America's Most Wanted aired a segment on the case, and authorities used sophisticated NASA video technology to analyze surveillance footage thought to show the teen.

Authorities still do not know what happened to her.

Tabitha Danielle Tuders



Top Row and Bottom Left and Center: Tuders, circa 2003;
Bottom Right: Age-progression to age 15 (circa 2005)


Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

Missing Since: April 29, 2003 from Nashville, Tennessee
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date of Birth: February 15, 1990
Age: 13 years old
Height and Weight: 4'9 - 5'1, 90 - 100 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Sandy blonde hair, blue eyes. Tuders has a birthmark on her stomach and a scar on her finger. Her ears are pierced. Tuders has a fair, freckled complexion.


Details of Disappearance

Tuders was last seen by her family at approximately 7:00 a.m. on April 29, 2003, when her father woke her up in their home in the 1300 block of Lillian Street in Nashville, Tennessee. She was watching television when he went to work. She was supposed to board the school bus at 8:00 a.m. at 14th & Boscobel Streets. Tuders did not get on the bus and never arrived at Bailey Middle School, where she attended.
Tuders's parents contacted the school that evening when she failed to return home. When they found out she had been absent from school that day, they reported her missing shortly before 6:00 p.m. She does not have a history of a runaway and her parents cannot think of any reason why she would want to leave her home. She was a straight-A student with a perfect attendance record, and there is no evidence that she had a boyfriend. She was supposed to go visit the Six Flags of America amusement park in Louisville, Kentucky two weeks after she disappeared, and was very excited about the trip. Tuders left behind all her possessions, including her clothes, makeup, and $20.

A neighborhood boy told police he saw Tuders get into a red car with a thirty- to forty-year-old man on the morning of her disappearance. He says once Tuders was inside the vehicle, it reversed course and headed up a hill. The boy's story has not been confirmed, but tracker dogs traced Tuders's scent along a route similar to the one described by the boy. The dogs eventually traced her scent into an alley, a place Tuders's friends say she would never have gone to alone.

Authorities have not ruled out the possibility that Tuders left of her own accord, but as more time passes with no contact from her it becomes more unlikely that she ran away. Her mother and adult siblings have both taken and passed polygraph tests in connection with her disappearance. They and Tuders's father have all been cleared as suspects.

A piece of paper found in Tuders's room after her disappearance may have some connection to her case. A picture of it posted below this case summary. The paper reads, in Tuders's handwriting, "T.D.T. - N - M.T.L." T. D. T. are Tuders's initials; the initials of the other person are unknown. Also found was a business card with Tuders's name, address, phone number, and the notations "call me" and "sexy girl," the latter of which was crossed out and rewritten as "ghetto girl." The card turned out to have been given Tuders by a friend, though, and had no connection to her disappearance. Police searched the logs of a computer at the local public library where Tuders is said to have visited Internet chat rooms, but turned up no information pertaining to her disappearance.

Martin Tim Boyd, who was arrested for trying to lure an eleven-year-old girl into his car four months after Tuders's disappearance, was looked at as a person interest in Tuders's case because of the nature of the crime he is charged with and because the alleged incident happened just a few blocks from Tuders's home. There is no evidence connecting Boyd and Tuders, however, and he was eventually taken off the suspect list.

On October 30, 2003, a trucker reported a possible sighting of Tuders from Linton, Indiana. The trucker saw a girl accompanied by a man and another teenaged girl. The girl who looked like Tuders appeared to be anxious and afraid. Later, when he saw a missing persons flier of Tuders, he realized that she resembled the girl he'd seen and contacted police. A hotel clerk in Linton also saw a girl resembling Tuders with a man and a teenaged girl and reported it. These sightings has not been confirmed.

August 19, 2003, almost five months after Tuders's disappearance, an eleven-year-old girl named Heaven "Shae" Ross disappeared while on her way to school in Northport, Alabama. A photograph of Ross is posted below this case summary. Both she and Tabitha are both girls of similar age with light-colored hair who disappeared in the morning hours on the way to school, and neither girl is thought to have run away. Authorities are considering a possible connection between the girls' disappearances, though the distance between Nashville and Northport is great and so far no evidence has been uncovered to link the two cases. Both Tuders and Ross remain missing.
Tuders's case remains unsolved. Investigators are not sure what happened to her, but they believe she is in danger.



Above: Card found in Tuders's room


Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Nashville Metro Police Department
615-862-8600



Source Information
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Nashville Police Department
Laura Recovery Center
News Channel 5 Network
Missing Child Alert - Nashville, TN
WKRN-TV
MSNBC
The Polly Klaas Foundation
Operation Lookout
The Linton Daily Citizen
The Oak Ridger
America's Most Wanted



Updated 2 times since October 12, 2004.

Last updated May 8, 2005.

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http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=5934080

Child's Family Has Hope

Jan 12, 2007 11:23 PM EST






The case of a child found in Missouri that had been missing for years, brought new hope Friday to a Nashville family who has been searching for almost four years for their daughter.

Tabitha Tuders disappeared in April of 2003 from her neighborhood in East Nashville.

The Hornbeck Foundation assisted in the search for Tabitha. They came to Nashville twice to offer assistance and cadaver dogs. The search came up empty, but the Tuders family said the story out of Missouri showed there was was hope.

"We're always gonna have a little big of hope," Tabitha's mother Debra Tuders said

Last year, Tabitha Tuders and Sean Hornbecks' pictures were featured on two race cars at the Highland Rim Speedway in Ridgetop.

Tabitha still missing but not forgotten
Saturday, 04/30/05

On the surface, nothing has changed.

Tabitha Tuders has not come home after disappearing on the way to her bus stop in east Nashville two years ago yesterday. Nobody knows what happened to her.

Or, assuming the ''worst-case scenario,'' as investigators now do, at least one person knows the story. And that person isn't talking.

''It's like it was from day one,'' her mother, Debra Tuders, said this week. ''No one can seem to find anything to lead us to her.''

Beneath the surface, 23 binders and folders, which occupy an entire cabinet at Metro police headquarters, show that investigators have not given up, despite having little to publicly show for their efforts.

Without physical evidence or solid leads from witnesses, searching for Tabitha has been a monumental task. If someone in a car abducted the 13-year-old on the morning of April 29, by the time police began searching for her after school let out, she could have been anywhere in Tennessee or in one of 13 other states.

Youngsters just don't go missing and stay missing in Nashville very often, police say. Department figures show that last year 145 youths were reported missing and 56 were reported kidnapped or taken as part of a custodial dispute. All those cases have been solved.

Of the almost 1,600 runaways reported last year, 28 cases remain open, police said.

The police department, then led by interim chief Deborah Faulkner, was highly criticized in 2003 for initially treating Tabitha more like a runaway case than a victim of foul play. Some have speculated that her handling of the case damaged her candidacy for the chief's job, now held by Ronal Serpas.

Since the day Tabitha vanished, the highly publicized case has been beset with rumors, speculation and theory. Family members were given polygraph tests. Police searched surrounding neighborhoods with cadaver dogs. Detectives hunted down and questioned area sex offenders. America's Most Wanted aired a segment on the case. NASA lent its high-tech video technology to analyze surveillance images from a local hotel security camera thought to show the teen. Sometimes armed with only a nickname to go on, investigators followed lead after lead after lead.

At several points, officers thought they had sure things, only to have them suddenly turn into dead ends, police said.

One thick folder is dedicated solely to the Tabitha lookalikes police have tracked down and made sure were not the missing girl.

Printed out, the investigators' log summarizing each day's developments in the case ? who they talked to, tips that came in, Tabitha sightings from across the country, psychics offering visions, houses that had been searched ? comes to more than 250 pages and is being updated almost daily.

Recently, the department's most experienced homicide investigators have begun going back through the case, looking for unturned stones. Earlier this year, the Metro Police Department's homicide unit was tasked with investigating ''cold cases'' as detectives in the six precincts tackled more killings.

''We're bringing a different set of eyes to the case,'' homicide detective Pat Postiglione said.

Cold-case detectives would like to see Tabitha walk through the door at 1312 Lillian St., safe and sound, but work the investigation under a ''worst-case scenario.''

''Two years without a word ? that's not a good sign,'' Postiglione said.

Faye Okert, a detective from the Police Department's Youth Services Division who has been involved with the case from early on, will continue her work on the case.

In a recent interview, she had little to say about the avenues that police explored and developments in the case over past year.

''Some things are less likely than a year ago,'' she said, but would not elaborate.

Still, investigators agree that every day the likelihood of Tabitha returning home alive diminishes. Even so, they want to bring her home, and bring closure to the family ? and the city ? no matter what the circumstance.

http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/0...ent_ID=68933470

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar.../610010375/1006

Sunday, 10/01/06

Longtime local lawman Bernard dies

By CLAY CAREY
Staff Writer


E.J. Bernard, a well-known and at times controversial detective and police chief, died early Saturday morning. He was 59. Authorities believe he may have had a heart attack.

Bernard spent more than 25 years in law enforcement, most of it in Nashville. Later he was police chief in Coopertown, where he became a central figure in efforts to remove the small Robertson County town's mayor from office.




During his time in Metro, he came to be known as one of the department's star homicide investigators. His investigation solved the high-profile 1998 murder of David "Skull" Schulman, a Printers Alley nightclub owner killed during a robbery. Bernard was also among the detectives assigned to investigate the disappearance of Tabitha Tuders, an east Nashville girl who came up missing in 2003 and has not been found.

He retired from the Metro Police Department in the fall of 2004 in the midst of accusations he'd intimidated and harassed a man he suspected was responsible for a murder.

Mayor Danny Crosby named him chief of police in Coopertown in May 2005. Fourteen months later, Bernard questioned Crosby's mental stability during a court hearing that resulted in the suspension of Crosby's mayoral powers.

Crosby was accused of telling officers to target Hispanic and military motorists and running speed traps to raise revenue. Bernard resigned days after Crosby's suspension.

"I think (Bernard) was a very fine man," said Coopertown Alderman Terry Scott, adding: "I know there are going to be a lot of people who miss him." •

http://z13.invisionfree.com/PorchlightUSA/...opic=2251&st=0&

*** REWARD ***

Age: 13 Height: 4'9"
Gender: Female Weight: 100 lbs.
Hair: Sandy DOB: 2/15/1990
Eyes: Blue Missing: 4/29/2003

Birthmark on her stomach, scar on her finger, and her ears are pierced


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department is asking for your assistance in the April 29th disappearance of 13-year-old Tabitha Tuders, a student at Bailey Middle School. The Youth Services Division telephone number is 862-7417. Information can also be given to Crime Stoppers staff at 74-CRIME or directly to police at 862-8600.

http://www.police.nashville.org/get_involv...ha_danielle.htm

Tabitha Tuders, who lives on Lillian Street, was awakened by her father at 7 a.m. on 29-APR-2003. He then left for work. Tabitha was to have boarded a school bus at 14th & Boscobel Streets shortly after 8 a.m. She was not seen at the bus stop and did not attend classes Tuesday at Bailey Middle School. When she did not return home , Tabitha’s parents contacted the school, discovered that she did not attend, and notified the police department.

Tabitha’s parents report that she has not run away before and know of no reason why she would be inclined to run away.



Tabitha has a birthmark on her stomach, a scar on her finger, and her ears are pierced.



Contact Information

Nashville Metro Police Department 615-862-8600

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children 800-THE-LOST

The Polly Klaas® Foundation 800-587-4357
Additional Information



5/19/2003 Reward for the safe return of Tabitha Tuders was increased to $10,000 dollars. The reward money was given to family by the Carol Sund/Carrington Foundation.The Foundation has put up reward money for many missing children and adults across the US. For more information about the Carol Sund Foundation please visit their website at www.carolesundfoundation.com. Project Safe Child



10/31/2003 The Crystal Fountain Church Youth Ministry has posted an additional $500 to the reward fund for information leading to the safe return of 13-year-old Tabitha Tuders if she is being kept from home involuntarily. The $500 addition brings the total reward for which the police department has official pledge commitments to $16,500. Tabitha Tuders was reported missing on the evening of April 29. She did not attend classes at Bailey Middle School that day. The police investigation into her disappearance continues by both the Youth Services and Intelligence Divisions. The Crystal Fountain Church is located at 1815 Shelby Avenue. The Reverend Dr. Michael Graves is the pastor. Metro Police



7/29/2003 Rewards of up to 6,000.00 have been put aside for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of anyone that is holding her against her will or has committed a crime to the person of Tabitha Tuders. Remember to be eligible for any type of reward in this case there had to be a crime committed against Tabitha Tuders. If you have information on the disappearance of Tabitha Tuders, you are urged to call Nashville Crime Stoppers at 74-CRIME. Crime Stoppers



11/14/2003 The Bailey Middle School Diversity Choir CD tribute to Tabitha Tuders is entitled "COME HOME". Track 1 is the song 'Come Home', sung by the Diversity Choir 2003-04. Track 2 is "The Remix", by Jeremy Johnson, Kenneth Washington, and Vincent Harding. To purchase this $5.00 CD, please call (615) 262-6670, ext. 209. Leave your name, address and telephone number with the amount of cd's you wish to purchase. Printing and distribution will begin within a week. All procedes will go to increase the reward money in the search for Tabitha. Bailey Middle School



9/29/2003 Tennessee Code Section 40-8-101 authorizes the Governor to offer a reward for information leading to the apprehension, arrest and conviction of persons involved in certain criminal activities. BREDESEN ANNOUNCES REWARD FOR INFORMATION ON MISSING TEEN STATE OFFERS $10,000 FOR INFORMATION ABOUT TABITHA TUDERS Tennessee Gov



12/19/2003 Nasa to assist in Tuders Case. Project Safe Child

==============================================

www.tennessean.com/local/...D=42921077

Town recalls encounter with transient girl — was it Tabitha?



By CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF

Staff Writer



LINTON, Ind. — A sticker of a star was pasted at the corner of her eye.



She was young and small. And she told Eli Beck, 18, that she and another girl were living out of a blue car that was in the parking lot of The Park Inn, a motel that Beck's parents own in the small town of Linton. She had run away from the Nashville area, she told him.



At the time, Beck thought nothing of it. His family owns the motel in the heart of this small town of about 5,700, which is about 90 miles southwest of Indianapolis. He works there pulling linens out of rooms.



The few moments he spent with those girls, however, came flashing back Nov. 14 when Beck saw an article in the local newspaper, the Linton Daily Citizen. The article was about Tabitha Tuders, a 13-year-old who vanished nearly seven months ago on the way to the school bus stop in east Nashville.



Immediately he thought the girl in the photo in the newspaper could have been the girl with the star beside her eye. And he had to say something. He told his mother, and she went to the Linton police with the information.



It's the second such report in the area about a girl who looks a lot like Tabitha. The Bailey Middle student has been missing since April 29. Metro police say they don't think the Linton sightings will lead them to Tabitha.



Beck isn't saying it was definitely Tabitha. He's just saying it might have been.



''I reported it because I'd hate to find out some day it was her and that I didn't say anything,'' said Beck, his black hair curling out from underneath a Penn State baseball cap.



• • •



Yesterday, as he does every Saturday at his family's motel, Beck was pulling the used linens out of the guest rooms. He was shown a variety of photographs of Tabitha. He said he can't tell whether she's the same girl who had the sticker beside her eye. The girl he saw possibly looked older than the young-looking pictures of Tabitha.



But still, it could have been her, he said.



''One girl was showing this much of her stomach,'' said Eli yesterday, indicating a broad expanse of midriff with his two hands. They were dressed provocatively, but they were friendly and talkative.



The encounter happened as Eli was making his usual rounds. He knocked on the door to their room.



Are you going to clean this? the girl with the eye sticker asked him.



He said yes and went inside, where the two girls were watching television. One was tall and blondish and said she was 17. The other was shorter and looked younger. They made casual conversation, and the girls were nice, he recalls.



We drive from place to place, the younger girl told him, pointing to the parking lot. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. In the parking lot was an older-model blue car. Possibly a Corsica. He's not sure what kind.



We go all over the place, she said.



''They didn't act scared,'' Beck said. ''Actually, they looked like they were having a great time.''



The younger girl playfully flashed Beck before they left the motel.



The girls had first arrived Halloween night at The Park Inn. Virginia Ridgway, a clerk, refused to rent a room to them. They were too young and neither of them had identification.



Something about it struck Ridgway as odd.



The two girls had light brown hair, and she described both of them as ''good looking,'' ''clean'' and ''well groomed.'' One was tall, possibly 17. The other was younger and smaller, and looked to be about 12 or 13. She recalled that both of them were nice and well-mannered.



A 22-year-old man from Morristown, Tenn., was with the two girls and ended up renting the two rooms for them. All three stayed the night, and then they all stayed together for two extra nights in a single room. They stayed in smoking rooms on the second floor of the two-story motel. There are small, dorm-style refrigerators in each room, and the smell of stale smoke hangs in the air.



The Tennessean, which learned the man's name, is not releasing his identity because he has not been named as a suspect by any official agency. However, the newspaper attempted to contact him through relatives.



One of them told the newspaper he would not talk to reporters but said that ''if the police contacted me, I would be obligated to talk to them.'' He told the newspaper that reporters were ''on the wrong track'' but that he knew ''where people were.'' He would not elaborate.



Linton police tracked the 22-year-old from the inn to his grandfather's house in Worthington, Ind., Lt. Troy Gerrell said. Worthington is about 13 miles northeast of Linton.



The grandfather told detectives that the young man had been at his house with a girl. After being shown photos, he said the girl did not look like Tabitha Tuders.



It is unclear whether the girl in Worthington was one of the girls who had been with the man in Linton.



Police in Linton forwarded their findings to the Metro Police Department, which has not asked for any further assistance from the Linton department, Gerrell said.



• • •



On Friday, while sitting behind the counter of The Park Inn, which bills itself as ''Linton's Finest Motel,'' Ridgway viewed several pictures of Tabitha.



''I don't think it was her,'' Ridgway said. ''It just doesn't look like her to me.''



But the resemblance was uncanny enough to Beck to prompt him to contact police. The photo accompanied a Daily Citizen story about a truck driver who, on Nov. 5, reported seeing a girl several times in the area close to the motel, around some railroad tracks and at a nearby Wal-Mart.



The truck driver thought he recognized her as the girl he had seen on a missing-person poster. The girl he saw appeared to him to be in trouble.



He reported the sighting to the St. Louis-based Shawn Hornbeck Foundation, which relayed the information to a Tuders family spokesman. The information was turned over to Metro police and then to the Linton authorities. The truck driver said the girl he saw looked ''anxious and afraid,'' Linton Police Chief Keith McDonald told the Daily Citizen. McDonald also told the paper that the truck driver reported that the girl he saw was ''accompanied by other individuals.''



But the Tabitha sightings in Linton may be no different than the hundreds of other tips Metro police have pursued since her disappearance, said Capt. Karl Roller, who heads the department's Youth Services Division. Police are doing everything they can to follow up, but the information has yet to generate the kind of excitement that a handful of other tips have, he said.



''It's just like hundreds of others,'' Roller said. ''We hope it leads somewhere; we're following up. The (Linton) chief of police has been outstanding in following up on these leads, and we're still working on it.''

==============================================

tennessean.com/local/arch...D=43220715

Holiday at home hard to bear for Tabitha’s family



By CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF

Staff Writer



Debra Tuders can’t bear to be at home this Thanksgiving.



She said the pain of not having her daughter, Tabitha, nicknamed " Boo, " for Thanksgiving dinner is just too much. Tabitha has been missing, without a trace, since April 29.



So the family left yesterday for Miami to spend the holiday with Debra Tuders’ brother. A team of volunteers is staying behind in Nashville and will be in communication with police, in case the 13-year-old girl is found. " This is the first holiday that has come up since she’s been gone, " Debra Tuders said. " I told Bo (her husband) I just wanted to go away for the weekend because I don’t think I can handle it. "



Bo Tuders last saw Tabitha about 7 a.m. April 29, as he left for work. She was supposed to catch the school bus for Bailey Middle School. That afternoon her parents discovered that she never boarded the bus.



This will be the first time the couple has left Tennessee for a holiday since the disappearance. " I know we’re going to have to deal with it through Christmas, because I’m going to be here, " Debra Tuders said. " I just want to go away for a few days. " The Tuders have left the state twice since Tabitha disappeared. In May, they went to New York for an appearance on the television show America’s Most Wanted to talk about their missing daughter. They also traveled in August to Northport, Ala., to visit with a mother whose 11-year-old daughter also disappeared as she was walking to her school bus stop.

==============================================

www.newschannel5.com/cont...s/3196.asp

Family Keeps Hope That Tabitha Is Still Alive

Posted: 12/23/2003 5:20:00 PM

Updated: 12/24/2003 11:20:19 AM



Despite bad news from a nationally known psychic, relatives of a missing 13-year-old girl from Nashville aren't giving up.



Tabitha Tuders parents said they're still holding out hope their daughter will be found alive.



The Tuders said their grandchildren are the only thing that keeps them going.



Tabitha disappeared in April somewhere between her house in east Nashville and her school bus stop.



A psychic on the Montel Williams show spent about 15 minutes with the Tuders before telling them their daughter is dead.



“Once she told us she was deceased, it hurt…Until (the police) bring me her body and tell me she's gone, I'm going to believe she's still out there somewhere,” said Debra Tuders, Tabitha’s mother.



The Tuders said they turned the psychic's information over to Metro detectives.



The Tuders said other psychics have given them hope Tabitha is still alive, maybe in Louisiana, Mississippi or Texas, so they’re not giving up on their daughter.



They urged anyone with information in the case to call police.

==============================================

www.wkrn.com/Global/story...v=1ugFJpde

Tabitha's family holds out hope for Christmas miracle



The holiday season has been tormenting for the family of Tabitha Tuders. The East Nashville girl has been missing since April. Now her family is holding out hope they will receive the best Christmas gift ever - that she will be found.



Beautifully decorated and adorned with just the right ornaments, the Tuders family Christmas tree is almost perfect. Except this year, 13-year-old Tabitha isn't here to help in the holiday tradition.



Tabitha's father Bo Tuders said, "Me and Tabitha we usually put it up. I actually didn't want to put one up, 'cause she wasn't here, but then we had to put it up because of the grandkids and stuff."



Ceramic angels hang from the limbs. They were the decorations that Tabitha loved most.



"She just liked them - I guess because they're pretty and stuff, and because they're angels, she really liked them," said Bo.



At the top of the tree, the family has placed missing posters as a reminder this Christmas will be unlike any that the Tuders have ever had before.



Bo said, "It's actually hard to describe - it's heartbreaking. We don't know if she's going to be here for Christmas, but we're still prepared either way. We still got gifts for her that we're going to stick up under the tree and stuff."



Metro Police tell News 2 their search for Tabitha is neverending.



Metro Police Det. Faye Okert said, "Something happened that morning. What it is we don't know, but we're developing people of interest, and we're interviewing, and we're actively searching for her."



One frustrating aspect of this investigation for detectives is they still run into people who think Tabitha's come home already or that she's been found. But they say people need to remember that she is still missing and she needs to come home. A $21,000 reward is being offered for information that can help find Tabitha. If you have any information, you're asked to call Metro Police at 862-8600.

==============================================

www.tennessean.com/local/...D=45639700



Saturday, 01/17/04

Top cop says Tabitha top case, doesn't believe teen ran away



By IAN DEMSKY

Staff Writer





The search for missing east Nashville teen Tabitha Tuders is the Metro Police Department's No. 1 case, Police Chief Ronal Serpas said yesterday afternoon.



Also, for the first time since the 13-year-old disappeared April 29, Serpas publicly said the department does not consider her to be a runaway.



''I've been here for a week,'' he said. ''And in my mind she's not a runaway.''



Tabitha's father mouthed a silent ''Thank you'' when he heard those words spoken by the chief.



''She's not a runaway and everyone should know that,'' Bo Tuders said.



From the day Tabitha disappeared to the day Serpas took over the department, Acting Chief Deborah Faulkner never met with the Tuders couple, family spokesman Johnny White said. Yesterday was Faulkner's last day on the force.



Faulkner had been criticized for her handling of the case, including the department's initial stance that the girl who sometimes slept at the foot of her parents' bed might have left on her own. From the beginning, the Tuders family was vehement that Tabitha did not run away.



Faulkner talked to Bo Tuders twice on the phone and once drove by the house, where the Team Tabitha headquarters is based, waving but not stopping, White said.



Faulkner, who has resigned and taken her pension, could not be reached for comment last night.



Serpas met about 4 p.m. at the Criminal Justice Center with Bo and Debra Tuders ''to get brought up to speed, to put a family with a face and a mother and father with a child.''



The chief said he had been briefed about the case by detectives E.J. Bernard and Faye Okert, who also were present at the meeting.



''Effort is the wrong word'' for actions being taken by the two detectives, whose primary duty is the Tuders case, Serpas said. ''It's dedication.''



Okert said tips from the public have dropped off to a trickle but that she and Bernard were still following up on leads and rechecking facts.



''We welcomed him here,'' Bo Tuders said after speaking with Serpas. ''We want him to find our baby.''



Debra Tuders said she did not have any criticisms about the way the department has handled the case.



Serpas said keeping the case before the public was one of his primary strategies in the new year.



''The public should never forget any little piece of information, no matter how insignificant, may be important,'' he said. ''Give us the benefit of that information. We're not going to stop.''






(IMG:http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-4/154448/yellowvwDen.gif)




Monday, 02/16/04

Middle Tennessee News & Information



Tabitha's family marks birthday with party, cake



By MARGO RIVERS

Staff Writer



Tabitha Tuders usually celebrated her birthday with a party either at Hendersonville Skating Rink in Hendersonville or at her Lillian Street home in east Nashville.



The tradition hasn't changed since her disappearance last April. Family and friends celebrated her 14th birthday yesterday with a party at her home, with grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and a white and pink cake adorned with three pink roses.



''We're having one just like she's here 'cause as far as I'm concerned, she's just missing. She's not gone yet,'' said Irvin ''Bo'' Tuders, Tabitha's father. ''We're fixing to cut the cake. She's somewhere; we just don't know where she's at.''



They also planted a flowering cherry tree in the front yard of Bailey Middle School, Tabitha's school. The tree's flowers are purple, Tabitha's favorite color.



Tabitha disappeared about 7 a.m. April 30 as she headed to her school bus stop. Her parents reported her missing shortly after 6 p.m. that day after learning she didn't get on the bus or attend classes. There have been reportings of possible sightings in places as far away as Indiana.



''It's been the same ol' stuff being reported,'' Irvin Tuders said. ''But she's not where she's supposed to be, and that's with her family.''



At Bailey, several family members and friends helped plant the tree, each dropping a shovel full of dirt onto the tiny mound. Shivering in the brisk cold air, people held balloons with pictures of Tabitha and personal notes as they softly sang Happy Birthday.



They released balloons and stood quietly as they floated into the gray skies. Tabitha's brother, Kevin Tuders, cried. Family and friends comforted him.



''It's hard and heartbreaking,'' he said. ''I can't describe it.''



Family members asked Bailey Middle Principal Ruth Murray about planting a tree last week as a reminder to her classmates, Murray said.



''It's important that children remember their friends,'' Murray said. ''This is a huge concern for the community because most of our students walk. We have eight buses, and that's all. Many of them drop their little brothers and sisters off at the (Cora Howe) elementary school'' located across the street from Bailey Middle School.




www.wkrn.com/Global/story...v=1ugFKyVM

New leads in Tabitha Tuders case
There's been a flurry of activity in the Tabitha Tuders case. Johnny White of the search group "Team Tabitha" tells News 2 that there are new leads in the case, renewing hope they'll find the missing 14-year-old.



Recently a young girl came forward, claiming she was a friend of Tabitha's. White says he's not sure if she can help, but says it's this kind of information police and the family need.



Tabitha Tuders disappeared on April 29, 2003 on her way to school in East Nashville. If you have any information, contact Metro Police at 862-7417.



Middle Tennessee briefs: Scholarship to honor missing Tuders teen





In honor of missing east Nashville teenager Tabitha Tuders' love of reading, a scholarship is being established to the Vanderbilt Kennedy School of Reading clinic.



The clinic provides tutoring for students who have trouble reading.



A kickoff event will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow at P.F. Chang's Bistro, 2525 West End Ave.



Reservations can be made by calling the restaurant at 329-8901.



Contributions to the scholarship can be sent to: Vanderbilt University, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Development Office, 2525 West End Ave., Suite 450, Nashville, Tenn., 37203.


www.teamamberalert.net/ne...e&sid=1027

Team Amber News: 'Race for Tabitha' aids missing kids' families

The first ''Race for Tabitha'' at Highland Rim Speedway in Robertson County will raise money to benefit an organization that helps the families of missing children. The event is set for Saturday.



The event is named for missing east Nashville teen Tabitha Tuders, who disappeared on her way to the bus stop April 29, 2003.



Members of the Tuders family are big fans of the racetrack. This season, Tabitha's picture will be featured on four cars, up from two last year, including the car driven by her brother, Kevin, organizers said.



The raceway is in Ridgetop, Tenn., 20 minutes north of downtown off Interstate 65.



The grandstands will open at 3 p.m., and the first race is at 6 p.m.



Adult admission is $10; seniors, $8; kids 6-12, $3.

www.newschannel5.com/cont...s/4793.asp



Race Honors Tabitha Tuders

Posted: 4/24/2004 10:09:26 PM

Updated: 4/24/2004 10:09:26 PM

By: Joe Fryer



Next Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of Tabitha Tuders' disappearance.





Tuders was 13 years old when she disappeared last April. She was last seen walking to her school bus stop in East Nashville.



In the past year, investigators and searchers have not turned up any good leads. But the family continues to search.



Tuders was honored at Highland Rim Speedway in Ridgetop Saturday night. The track held the first-annual "Race For Tabitha."



Tabitha and her family spent many Saturday nights at the race track. After she disappeared, friends and relatives formed a race team called Team Tabitha. The team includes four cars with Tuders' picture on them.



"We started a race team to have fun and keep her picture out in the public," said Tim Crauge, a family friend and Team Tabitha driver.



Two of those cars raced Saturday night.



Money raised during the race will benefit the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation. Shawn Hornbeck is a boy from Saint Louis, Mo., who disappeared seven months before Tuders. His family started a foundation to help search for missing children, including Tuders.



On Thursday the Tuders family will walk from their home to Tabitha's bus stop, to commemorate the anniversary.



"Starting another year without your daughter, sometimes it's hard to say how you feel," said Bo Tuders, Tabitha's father. "You feel numb all over."



"It's hard to believe it's a year, but it still hurts because we want to find our daughter and bring her back home," said Debra Tuders, Tabitha's mother.




(IMG:http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-4/154448/yellowvwDen.gif)


http://www.newschannel5.com/content/news/18894.asp

Family Keeps Memory Of Missing Daughter Alive
Posted: 4/28/2006 8:16:40 AM

Saturday will be the three year anniversary of the mysterious disappearance of Tabitha Tuders, and her family is keeping her memory alive.

The East Nashville girl vanished on the way to her bus stop before school, three years ago, and she has never been found.

Friday night, there will be a candle light vigil for Tabitha at Bailey middle school beginning at 7:30. Then, Saturday, there will be a prayer walk at 8:00 in the morning.

Friends and family members will walk the route from the Tuders home to Tabitha's bus stop.


http://www.gallatinnewsexaminer.com/apps/p...EWS01/604300375

Sunday, 04/30/06

Tuders still missing after three years

By CLAY CAREY
Staff Writer

Saturday marked the three-year anniversary of the disappearance of another Middle Tennessee child, then 13-year-old Tabitha Tuders.

She was last seen on her way to a bus stop in east Nashville on the morning of April 29, 2003, just a block from her Lillian Street home.

But authorities say she never got on the bus or made it to Bailey Middle School on that day. Her parents reported her missing that evening.

Since then, police have had little luck establishing solid leads.

Her case attracted national attention, resulting in a host of reported sightings across the country and widespread speculation about her disappearance. America's Most Wanted aired a segment on the case, and authorities used sophisticated NASA video technology to analyze surveillance footage thought to show the teen.

Authorities still do not know what happened to her.




ttp://www.gallatinnewsexaminer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060507/COUNTY07/605070367

Sunday, 05/07/06

Fates of some missing kids remain elusive

By KATE HOWARD
Staff Writer

Analyce Guerra is among at least a few Midstate children whose paths and ultimate fates remain a mystery.

Ten years ago, the mother of 3-year-old Lucy Meadows told police her daughter was snatched from the parking lot of RiverGate Mall in Goodlettsville. An unnamed witness told police he saw Lucy on the floor of her parents' Clarksville home the night before she was reported missing, and she looked as if she might have been dead, Goodlettsville police said last week. The witness passed a polygraph test, and Lucy's mother, Yong Meadows, has failed two polygraph tests, police have said.

Tabitha Tuders was 13 when she disappeared on April 29, 2003. She was last seen on her way to an east Nashville bus stop a block from her Lillian Street home. Police have found few leads since. Some critics of the Metro Police Department faulted investigators for treating Tabitha more like a runaway than a victim in the initial search.

Although there's no question what happened to 9-year-old Marcia Trimble more than 30 years ago, police still haven't found the who or why to explain her highly publicized death in Green Hills. She was raped and choked to death while selling Girl Scout cookies in 1975, and her body was discovered a month later in a garage 150 yards from her home.

Over the years, her mother, Virginia, has offered support to the Tuders family and spoken publicly about her loss.

At a ceremony intended for crime victims in 2004, Trimble declared herself no longer a victim but a survivor of the tragedy.

"I'm on the other side of hard pain," she told the crowd. "But I remember and think every day."



http://www.newschannel5.com/content/news/19595.asp

Families of Missing Find Each Other

Posted: 5/25/2006 10:17:00 PM
Updated: 5/25/2006 10:28:15 PM

Thursday’s “Without a Trace” featured a familiar face on your television screen. The show displayed a photo of 2-year-old Analyce Guerra, a Smyrna toddler who disappeared without a trace last month. Coincidentally, Thursday was National Missing Children's Day. On this day, families of the missing found ways to support each other through a new organization.

Thursday, Analyce's case received national attention, and the families of other missing children received some local help.

Family members of the missing met at the Metro Police precinct. They've formed an alliance to offer support to families and help find children, including Analyce.

Little Analyce Guerra disappeared more than a month ago. The hasrsh reality of the situation has just started to hit the family. Her 4-year-old sister has started waking up crying.

“She'll grab my cell phone and say: ‘Hi, Ana. What are you doing? When are you coming home?’” mother of missing toddler Eva Guerra said.

Their mother Eva has printed new missing signs.

“You can see her birthmark on this one,” Guerra said.

She has even posted a handwritten letter to whomever has her little girl.

“I pray the Lord touches your heart, and you bring her back home,” Guerra said.

That same prayer has echoed for years by families in middle Tennessee. They're from different cities but share similar stories of loved ones gone missing.

Tabitha Tuders disappeared on her way to a bus stop three years ago.

“They're going through the same stuff we're going through. They’re like us,” father of missing teen Bo Tuders said.

Jennifer and Adrianna Wix, mother and daughter, vanished in 2004.

“We would never have met, and now we're friends. We belong to a club nobody wants to belong to,” daughter and granddaughter of the missing women Kathy Holloway said.

“I remember being in Wal-Marts and other stores and seeing those photos of missing teenagers and think: ‘I can't imagine what those families are going through.’ Now I know,” Guerra said.

Eva Guerra plans to be part of the Tennessee Alliance for the Families of the Missing.

The group is new to Tennessee but pledges to do whatever it takes to offer support to families and aid in the searches.

For more information on the Tennessee Alliance for the Families of the Missing, click here.

Also, tune into the “CBS Early Show” Friday morning. The show will feature a special segment on Analyce's disappearance.


http://wkrn.com/nashville/news/local-famil...ghter/71317.htm

[January 13, 2007, 11:01 pm]

"Local Family Has Hope For Their Missing Daughter"

It's a story of the two families---one whose prayers have been answered, one who has renewed hope.
Outside an east nashville home, a poster reminds the world of 13-year-old tabitha tuders who disappeared in april 2003.

One of the parents of the missing boys said he wanted Saturday's extraordinary news conference to give hope to families of other missing children.

That hit him home with tears of joy for the Nashville family of Tabitha Tuders.

The missing girls parents know the father of one of the Missouri boys very well.

For much of the weekend, Debra Tuder watched Craig Akers talk about his just found son Shawn Hornback.
Its like a light in the night for she and her husband Bo.

"We still grateful that they took time out from the situation they was in to try and look for Tabitha and stuff."

Craig Akers came to Nashville in 2003 just months after his son Shawn Hornbeck went missing---to comfort the Tuders and search for their missing daughter, just like he was searching for his missing son.

Craig Akers came with hope just days after Tabitha vanished on her way to an east Nashville school.

Now Aker's child is safe and the Tuders share the joy.

"I cried when I heard the news, but it was a joyful cry that he had made it homesafe..after all those years."

The bonds between the Akers and the Tuders run so deep that shawn Hornbeck's picture was put on the family's race car--the same race car that's carried Tabitha's picture around Highland Rim racetrack north of Nashville for several years now.

Through much of the Tuders' ordeal, Tabitha's grandmother fortifies her daughter with hope, much like what Craig akers did this weekend for other families with missing children.

" I have always believed that she is out there somewhere alive and this just gives us more encouragement to believe she is out there somewhere."

When asked if there was somethingelse they would like to add about the miracle reunion in Missouri and their missing daughter, the Tuders said simply, "Maybe we're next."

The Tuders hope to meet Shawn Hornbeck one day. They plan to personally congratulate his parents, once the worldwide attention dies down a little.


Copyright 2007 by WKRN Nashville Tennessee. All Rights Reserved.


http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=5934080

Missing Child's Family Has Hope

Jan 12, 2007 10:23 PM CST

The case of a child found in Missouri that had been missing for years, brought new hope Friday to a Nashville family who has been searching for almost four years for their daughter.

Tabitha Tuders disappeared in April of 2003 from her neighborhood in East Nashville.

The Hornbeck Foundation assisted in the search for Tabitha. They came to Nashville twice to offer assistance and cadaver dogs. The search came up empty, but the Tuders family said the story out of Missouri showed there was was hope.

"We're always gonna have a little big of hope," Tabitha's mother Debra Tuders said.

Last year, Tabitha Tuders and Sean Hornbecks' pictures were featured on two race cars at the Highland Rim Speedway in Ridgetop.



http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=5941326

Local Family Still Searching For Missing Daughter

Jan 15, 2007 05:14 PM CST

The case of boys discovered in Missouri after being abducted ended the way that all families of missing children hope it would end for them.

The family of Tabitha Tuders is one of those families.

The Tuders family is very happy for those families and glad the boys came home safely. It also gives them hope that one day Tabitha will come home as well.

"I love her to death. I talk about her everyday. There's not a day goes by that we don't talk about her," Tabitha's mother Debra Tuders said. "When I lost her a part of me went with her."

Tabitha was 13 when she disappeared nearly four years ago. She has walked only a few blocks from her east Nashville home to the bus stop, but she never made it to school that day and hasn't been seen since.

"Until she's found we're going to keep it up there," Tudors said. "I love her and I always will and I won't never give up on her and I hope that she knows I won't ever give up on her cause I'm not."

For years her family has continued the fight to find her, even keeping a banner outside of their home with her information.

"We got to keep the faith and we're going to find her. That will be the happiest day of my life," Tuders said.

Their faith renewed this week after learning two young Missouri boys abducted by a predator were found. One of the young men had been missing for four years.

"It gave us a lot of hope that we could find her. It up lifted our spirits just way, way up there," Tabitha's parents Beaw and Brenda Tuders said.

Debra still keeps Tabitha's room just as it was the day she left for school, hopeful that one day her daughter will be back again.

"We're not giving up hope we're going to hope and pray every day that we get her back," Tuders said.

Tabitha's case is a prime example of why parents need to be on the look out.

To help kids stay safe, parents should tell their kids to try to not walk to the bus stop alone, and to never get into a car with a stranger.

The Tuders said they plan to continue their volunteer work to help other families search for their missing loved ones. They said helping others helps in their healing process.


4 Years Since East Nashville Teen Disappeared, No Answers | WKRN.COM

"4 Years Since East Nashville Teen Disappeared, No Answers"

Sunday marks the 4 year anniversary since an east Nashville girl disappeared.

Sunday night family members and friends remembered Tabitha Tuders at a candlelight vigil.

Tuders went missing from her bus stop in east Nashville on her way to school in 2003. Four years later, the family still doesn't have any answers.

Missing children's organizations from all over the United States came to Nashville to help search for Tabitha.

One of the volunteers who came, from out of state was the father of Shawn Hornbeck. Hornbeck was found in Missouri earlier this year nearly four years after his disappearance.



http://www.ashlandcitytimes.com/apps/pbcs....433/1291/MTCN01

Habitual offender gets out of prison, assures neighbors
'They got no more worries,' he pledges

By CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF
Staff Writer


An east Nashville man with a long history of arrests says his neighbors have nothing to worry about after his release from prison, where he served about 3½ years of a 15-year sentence.

Earnest "Fast" Fred Brown, 25, said he was released last week though prison officials say his parole began in February.

Known as "Fast Fred" among his east Nashville neighbors, Brown has been arrested 14 times since 1999 on charges including theft, driving without a license, illegal weapons possession, aggravated burglary, aggravated assault and probation violation.

His arrest history before that is confidential because he was a juvenile.

At his 2004 sentencing on charges of theft, burglary and assault, neighbors testified that Brown smoked crack out in the open, smashed beer bottles along the streets, stole from them and created havoc in the neighborhood.

Neighbors looking out

In a telephone interview Tuesday from his mother's Boscobel Street home, Brown insisted that he is a changed man.

"I'm not messing with nobody or none of that," Brown said. "I don't want to go back to jail. Not only that, I was in the wrong at the time. I done a lot of wrong at the time. The neighbors do not have to worry about me no more."

Some of his neighbors were just learning of his release.

"It seemed like a short 3½ years," said Bob Acuff, who runs an east Nashville crime watch group. He connects with neighbors about crime issues through an east Nashville-centric listserv and has been coordinating with other residents to keep an eye on Brown.

"If he's not breaking any laws, that's fine," Acuff said. "But we're not really optimistic he'll get the message."

His treatment continues

Brown was deemed a person of interest in the April 2003 disappearance of Tabitha Tuders, 13, whose family lives near Brown's. Tuders is still missing. Brown, however, was never formally identified as a suspect in the case.

He is being treated for a bi-polar disorder and receives a monthly disability check. His parole includes a requirement that he continue to undergo substance abuse treatment, a factor, Brown said, that will be key to keeping him from getting into trouble again.

"I can't do it," he said. "I've done lived that life, it's over with. I gotta live a new life and start from scratch."

And as for his neighbors:

"They got no more worries from me," Brown said. "I give my word on that. They got no more worries on me."

http://z13.invisionfree.com/PorchlightUSA/...?showtopic=2251

Tabitha Tuders
Five years ago, 13-year-old Tabitha Tuders walked to the bus stop. Her family hasn’t heard from her since.

by Sarah Kelley



The tiny clapboard house on Lillian Street is bustling with visitors on a balmy winter afternoon.

Nearly a dozen rowdy children are playing tag in the backyard, their carefree laughter in stark contrast to the forlorn faces of older guests quietly conversing on the porch. Ominous clouds loom in a dark gray sky, creating a bleak backdrop for the occasion.

Bo Tuders sips coffee from a plastic travel mug as he tends to hamburgers and bratwursts sizzling on the grill. In a daze, he watches the giggling children duck behind several rickety vehicles parked in the grass. A cherry-red Bonneville convertible in need of attention, a rusty Ford pickup truck and an old pontoon boat line the perimeter of the property, along with a brown conversion van with a sticker spanning the top of the windshield that reads “Team Tabitha.” The latter is a reminder that today is not a celebration, a point reiterated by the buttons some of the guests are wearing. The laminated circular pins show a smiling young girl with freckles, deep-blue eyes and sandy-blond hair. Below the photograph is a plea: “Help Find Tabitha Tuders.”Pulling a pack of Winstons from the front pocket of his denim shirt, Bo explains that if his daughter were here, family and friends would be celebrating her 18th birthday with a backyard barbecue just as they are doing today. But even in her absence, they are compelled to observe this milestone. “We get a little relief out of it,” he says, releasing a steady stream of smoke as he speaks.Trying to forget that she’s gone is not an option.

Tabitha was 13 years old when she vanished on her way to catch the school bus just three blocks from her East Nashville home on April 29, 2003. Since then, five years of birthdays, Christmases, school dances and summer vacations have come and gone without any answers, and to this day Tabitha’s fate remains a mystery.

“It’s certainly one of those cases that haunts the community and haunts this police department,” says East Precinct Commander Robert Nash, one of a handful of Metro officers at Tabitha’s birthday gathering. Sounding genuinely troubled, Nash adds, “I think we all very much would like to see this case solved and see Tabitha come home.”

But as more time elapses without an arrest, the chances of cracking the case diminishes. Even so, Nash is quick to say that sometimes all it takes is one break—like a single phone call—to solve a cold case such as this.

The police presence on this emotional day represents the department’s ongoing commitment to the investigation, but it doesn’t erase critical missteps in the beginning. By failing to issue an Amber Alert, and inexplicably clinging to the notion that Tabitha might have run away, the department lost precious time in the early stages of the case. Investigators have since tried to play catch up.

Meanwhile, Tabitha’s loved ones have continued their own desperate search for answers. In the wake of her disappearance, a circuit of volunteers dubbed “Team Tabitha” combed the alleyways, abandoned homes and parks of East Nashville looking for any sign of the missing girl. They knocked on door after door asking if anyone had seen her, praying the next neighbor might hold the type of incidental clue that could unlock the mystery. They hung posters with Tabitha’s picture in corner groceries, at gas stations and on telephone poles, covering a few miles in each direction. But the dozens of volunteers eventually dwindled to just a handful of relatives and close friends who refuse to abandon hope.

“It’s hard not to think about,” family friend Johnny White says at the event honoring Tabitha’s Feb. 15 birthday. “You just think about it all the time.” Just an hour earlier, White drove the route Tabitha is believed to have walked the day she disappeared on her way to Bailey Middle School. It’s a path he’s traveled countless times hoping to gain clues in his role as the unofficial leader of the civilian search effort. Standing outside the Tuders’ home, White points up the hill toward nearby 14th Street, explaining, “That’s the direction the dogs followed.”

Without chiming in, the burly but mild-mannered Bo Tuders simply nods in agreement, pulling another cigarette from his pack.

As the afternoon progresses, the gray sky surrenders to a light mist, just in time for the nearly 40 guests to cram inside the living room for a brief prayer service before it’s time to eat. The mood of the day straddles the line between a special occasion and a somber memorial, and talk of Tabitha alternates between past and present tense.

Among the many family photographs lining a large built-in bookshelf are pictures of Tabitha, including a striking close-up in which straight blond hair frames her tan face, and a wide smile reveals her slightly crooked front teeth. But mixed in with playful photos of the lighthearted child is yet another reminder of the family’s ongoing nightmare. Displayed in a brass frame fit for a graduation photo is an 8-by-10 age-enhanced picture of Tabitha, created by experts at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. With a thinner face, and shorter hair, the likeness is a stretch, but it’s the closest thing the Tuders have to knowing how their youngest child might look as a young woman.

The Rev. Sam Jones, a family acquaintance and minister, steps into the center of the room overflowing with relatives, friends, neighbors and police officers. He begins by explaining that Tabitha means “gazelle,” an appropriate name given her limitless energy. After reading a few verses from the Bible, the white-haired minister ends with the statement: “If she’s not alive on Earth, she’s alive in the arms of the Lord.”

Nothing was out of the ordinary at 1312 Lillian St. on the morning of April 29, 2003.

Debra Tuders awoke at 6 a.m. to find Tabitha sleeping soundly at the foot of their bed, as she often did. Although Tabitha had her own bedroom, she sometimes crept into her parents’ room in the middle of the night, curling up on a pallet of pillows and blankets on the floor. Unable to explain exactly why she came into their room at night, the couple simply say it made their little girl feel secure, and that’s all that mattered.

As her husband still lay sleeping, Debra got dressed and ready for her job as a cafeteria cook at nearby Tom Joy Elementary. “I stepped over Tabitha, I got ready for work and I left,” Debra explains during a recent interview. “I didn’t know that was going to be my last time looking at her.”

A short time later, Bo awoke and embarked on a similarly unremarkable morning ritual before heading to his job as a short-haul truck driver. Just before he was about to leave at 7 a.m., Bo gently shook Tabitha, who lay in her nightgown on the floor. In detail, he recounts their last, brief conversation, during which he told his groggy daughter to get up and get ready for school, that he loved her, and that he would see her later that evening. “She just said, ‘Alright daddy, I’m getting up. I love you, too.’ And that was it.”

Once Bo departed, Tabitha was left to get ready for school as usual, but she wasn’t home alone. Also at the house that morning was Tabitha’s older sister, Jamie, and her two young children, who at the time were temporarily residing in the small two-bedroom house. Still asleep with her kids when Tabitha left for school, Jamie said she never spoke to her sister that morning.

At or about 7:50 a.m., the young teen walked out the front door of her weathered white house wearing Mudd jeans, a light-blue shirt and Reebok sneakers, and set out on her quick journey to the bus stop. Despite the short distance, Tabitha’s path passed through a poor swath of East Nashville filled with sex offenders, ex-cons and odd, troubled souls, whose names would later end up in a police file downtown.

One man told detectives he saw Tabitha turning the corner from Lillian onto 14th Street, still within sight of her home. Other witnesses spotted her walking uphill along 14th toward Boscobel Street, where she caught the bus each morning at the foot of a steep slope.

A television repairman living near the top of Boscobel glanced out the open front door of his dark wood-sided house and noticed Tabitha casually strolling down the hill while reading a half-sheet of paper, which some think was the glowing, straight-A report card she received the day before. “She was walking real slow, reading some papers. It didn’t look like she was in a hurry,” says the neighbor, adding that it didn’t appear she was looking for anyone either. “Then I just closed the door, and that’s it.”

Possibly the last person to see Tabitha on her normal route was a young boy waiting for the school bus at the bottom of the hill at Boscobel and 15th Street. And although his account seemed to reveal the most specific and potentially crucial detail about her disappearance, police have questioned his credibility from the beginning.

The boy claimed Tabitha was walking down the hill as a red car pulled up beside her about halfway down the hill. The young witness said Tabitha got into the car, at which point the driver—a black male wearing a ball cap—turned around and headed back up the hill.

It’s been five years since their little girl vanished without a trace, and Bo and Debra Tuders still talk about her every day. The sadness is constant, but talking about Tabitha eases the pain.

“Out of the whole five years that kid has been gone not a day has gone by that her name is not mentioned,” Debra says, sitting on a blue overstuffed couch in her dimly lit living room on a rainy April afternoon. Picking up a small, framed photo of a young, laughing Tabitha, Debra says, “I have her picture sitting here on this table, right next to where I sit, and I talk to that picture.”

Dressed comfortably in a dark-blue sweatsuit, Debra sits on the edge of the couch, admiring the slightly blurry snapshot in a black plastic frame. And for a moment, her downcast demeanor shifts to a slight smile, and then to a laugh. But the smile fades in an instant, and she sits the photograph back in its usual spot on the table draped with a white table cloth and cluttered with knickknacks.

Then Debra’s cell phone rings, and she steps out of the room to take the call.

Seated on a matching blue couch across the room, Bo stubs out a cigarette in a plastic pink ashtray and explains, “We used to have a house phone, but we had it took out because people would play prank calls on us. They’d call and say things like, ‘This is Tabitha, daddy, can you come get me?’ ”


Bo and Debra Tuders These days the house is mostly quiet. Too quiet. And just when the silence becomes unbearable, the couple find themselves talking about Tabitha, whom they lovingly refer to by the nickname “Boo.” But for Tabitha’s siblings—Jamie, who is eight years older, and Kevin who is 12 years older—it was a while before they’d reminisce about their sister. “Each one of us deals with the situation different. They are more open with it than they were at first,” Debra says. “We talk about her a lot, though. We’ve got each other.”

Sometimes Bo and Debra visit the garden planted for their daughter outside Bailey Middle School, often speaking to Tabitha as though she were right beside them. On the lush green lawn of the school, a simple wooden bench overlooks a cherry tree, now in full bloom with light pink flowers, and a concrete angel sits in a small patch of garden. An engraved brass plaque on the bench reads, “Dedicated to the Memory of Tabitha Tuders.”

As a seventh-grader, Tabitha was just beginning to excel at school, and she was incredibly proud of her soaring grades. Tabitha’s homeroom teacher remembers her as a friendly and studious girl who performed especially well in language arts class.

In great detail, Diane Jarrell recalls exactly where Tabitha sat in her homeroom—first row of desks, third seat from the back—and that her straight hair was constantly falling in front of her face. She fondly remembers Tabitha and her best friend frequently volunteering to help in the library. “They would argue over who got to use the electric stapler. Tabitha won every time,” says Jarrell, who switched positions to school librarian midway through that year. “I don’t believe a day went by without seeing the duo in the library, and I would have to repeatedly remind them to quit giggling so loudly.”

To this day Jarrell keeps a small white “missing” postcard above her desk at home with Tabitha’s picture on it. “It’s hard to believe it’s been five years since that day.” As for whether Tabitha might have left home on her own, she rejects that as even a remote possibility, saying she saw no signs of a troubled home life: “I never believed she ran away.”

On most afternoons, Tabitha came bounding through the front door at 4 p.m., eager to tell her mother about her day. But on this Tuesday in the spring of 2003, the minutes ticked by without her arrival. Assuming the bus was late, or that perhaps Tabitha was dawdling on her way home, Debra walked the three blocks to the bus stop, which she found deserted.

Believing her daughter might have missed the bus, Debra then drove two miles to Bailey Middle School, only to find the building locked. Unable to find anyone to ask about Tabitha’s whereabouts, she went home and anxiously waited for her daughter to come barreling into the house with an explanation.

But by 5 p.m., Bo had returned from work and still there was no sign of Tabitha. The couple returned to the massive red brick school and banged on the metal doors until finally a janitor answered and let them inside.

Frantically roaming the cavernous halls, the Tuders tracked down a teacher. When they asked if she had seen Tabitha after school, the teacher told them that their daughter never made it to school that day. Their hearts sank, panic set in and they raced home to call 911. “Right away we thought somebody snatched her up,” Debra says, adding that she knew her daughter would never cut school, and certainly would never run away.

Because school officials did not call to inform them of Tabitha’s absence, more than 10 hours had elapsed since they last saw her.

Almost 45 minutes after receiving the call, an officer responded to interview the Tuders and fill out a missing person report, and from the very beginning, the couple insisted their daughter was not a runaway.

Within two hours, officers were canvassing the neighborhood, fanning out as far as Shelby Park and LP Field nearly two miles away, searching local markets and empty buildings. More than 15 officers continued looking for Tabitha overnight, but because of inclement weather police were unable to use a helicopter in the search.

The department informed the media in time for the 10 p.m. news that Tabitha was missing, but police did not issue an Amber Alert, a broadcast system used to notify the public and other law enforcement agencies about missing children.

Police were harshly criticized for refusing to do so, but they still defend the decision, saying Tabitha’s disappearance did not meet the necessary criteria. “The police department was unable to determine that an abduction had occurred,” says Metro Police spokesman Don Aaron. “There was no physical evidence of that."


The same mantra that no scenario can be ruled out has been repeated again and again, starting on the day Tabitha disappeared. And while police came out in full force to search during the first 72 hours, some officers made it clear to reporters they believed Tabitha was a troubled teen who left home on her own accord. As the investigation dragged on for weeks and then months with no word from the missing girl, it became increasingly apparent that someone kidnapped her.

In mid-July, more than two long months after she disappeared, police embarked on their largest and most systematic hunt for Tabitha, setting up a command center at LP Field. With the help of search dogs, officers carefully looked up and down residential streets one by one. They conducted a subsequent and equally thorough search of Shelby Bottoms Greenway on July 29, but no new evidence was discovered.

Rather than acknowledge any missteps in the investigation, then-Metro Police Chief Deborah Faulkner instead shirked responsibility, going so far as to blame the Tuders for a lack of progress. Shortly after the focus of the investigation changed to one of potential foul play, Faulkner told the Associated Press that it took the family three days to nail down what Tabitha was wearing, further chastising them for supplying police with outdated photos.

Needless to say, Faulkner’s tenure as interim chief was short-lived, and a new chief was appointed in January 2004.

Within days of taking over the department, Ronal Serpas announced his belief that the teenager was indeed abducted and declared the case a top priority. Some critics question whether Serpas has lived up to the promise, particularly as public interest in the case faded. The chief continues to receive updates on the investigation, according to Aaron, who says the case remains a priority. And while the top cop’s interest in the case seems to have ebbed, it’s clear that a handful of detectives over the years have continued poring over leads, scrutinizing past statements and re-interviewing witnesses in an effort to crack the case. Three years into an investigation that had grown cold, a veteran detective was assigned to investigate Tabitha’s disappearance to see if he could uncover any new clues. For 15 months, the detective worked solely on solving Tabitha’s case, reviewing every shred of information with the assistance of fellow officers, but to no avail.

When asked if the department held on to the possibility that Tabitha was a runaway for too long, Aaron says that even now, detectives can’t rule out any scenarios, given that they don’t know anything about the circumstances of her disappearance. “The police department publicly stated that Tabitha’s parents reported that she had not run away before and knew of no reason why she would be inclined to run away,” he says. “Still, there was no evidence discovered or developed indicating that she had met with foul play.”

The Tuders have always rejected the notion that Tabitha might have run away, saying their daughter had absolutely no reason to leave and nowhere to go. “They all thought she was a runaway. We tried to convince them she wasn’t,” her father says of the police. “What did she have to run away from?” One by one, the Tuders list Tabitha’s attributes and everything that was going well in her young life.


Time Stands Still Tabitha’s room remains unchanged. About six months before she disappeared, Tabitha had started attending church with her best friend’s family, and soon she was singing in the Eastland Baptist Church choir and regularly volunteering at spaghetti dinners.

The Sunday before she vanished, Tabitha won $20 for memorizing her Ten Commandments at church, money that—along with all of her other possessions—was left behind on that last day she departed for school.

“The only time we were apart was at work and school. We were inseparable,” says Debra, who describes Tabitha as innocent for her age, lacking the typical attitude of many teenage girls. “She didn’t act like a normal 13-year-old. She was 13, but sometimes she acted like she was 8. She would just rather be here with us than doing anything else.”

Bo and Debra paint a picture of a much-loved daughter whose idea of mischief was “cutting up and making people laugh.” They recall the time when Tabitha was determined to bake her mother’s homemade biscuits without assistance, and how she spent all afternoon methodically following the recipe, proudly serving them at dinner that night. That same year, when a neighbor’s air conditioner broke in the sweltering summer, it was Tabitha who invited the woman and her dogs over to escape the heat. The young girl also befriended an elderly neighbor whom she affectionately called “grandma,” visiting her and often reading to her a few times a week.

“Tabitha, she had a good heart, a big ol’ heart,” Debra says in a low, sad tone, her husband agreeing from across the room.

As for boys, Tabitha’s parents say that unlike many girls her age, she was not yet interested. “She never had a boyfriend. Boys would call here, and she’d say, ‘Daddy, tell them I’m not here.’ She wasn’t boy crazy,” says Bo, shaking his head with the certainty of a father.

When her closest girlfriends spent the night, they would listen to music, play video games and stay up late talking in Tabitha’s room, which for the most part remains exactly as she left it.

Dozens of plush stuffed animals line a bookshelf, along with trinkets and other keepsakes the family has bought for Tabitha over the past five years. Above a girly white, four-poster bed hangs a poster of Tabitha’s name spelled out in flowers, a gift her parents bought for her when they traveled to New York to share her story on The John Walsh Show. Frilly purple and white curtains match the lavender walls, which were painted Tabitha’s favorite color after she was gone.

Pointing to a weathered picture of a chubby baby, Bo laughs and says, “If you can believe it, that’s Tabitha. That small, petite little thing was almost 10 pounds when she was born.”

Talking about their daughter, the Tuders are laughing and reminiscing one minute, and on the verge of tears the very next. The memories keep them going, while the thought of what might have been is excruciating.

Tabitha would be a senior at Stratford High School this year and on the verge of graduating. Bo and Debra plan to attend the graduation ceremony, during which there will be a moment of silence in Tabitha’s honor. “I know it’s going to be heartbreaking,” her mother says, “but I’m going to attend.”

The first night Tabitha was gone, Bo and Debra Tuders helplessly roamed the dark streets in search of their daughter, joined by officers and droves of community volunteers. When morning came, they continued searching despite their exhaustion. As the days progressed without solace, the Tuders were desperate, waiting for any glimmer of hope.

A steady stream of friends and relatives visited the house, bringing hot meals and a bit of comfort. A group of neighbors devised a plan to provide the family with dinner night after night, a gesture that continued for longer than anyone anticipated. Neighbors created a schedule, and for nearly an entire year, they delivered hot suppers to 1312 Lillian St.

“Thinking back, I wish we could have done more. I wish we could have done something to bring her home, but at least we were able to take care of them a little bit,” says Margaret Hart, a neighbor who helped organize the meals. Although she didn’t even know the Tuders at the time, she has since gotten to know the couple quite well, and feels as though she knows Tabitha, too. Like many residents of this close-knit, working-class neighborhood, Hart is haunted by the disappearance, saying she sometimes finds herself looking for Tabitha’s face in crowds. “It’s just a mystery to me what happened to that child. To think she wasn’t even safe to walk to the bus stop,” she says, pausing and taking a deep breath. “Poor little Tabitha. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Within a week of the disappearance, volunteers with the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation—a Missouri-based missing children organization—arrived in Nashville, bringing with them a team of scent-tracking dogs. The group canvassed the neighborhood, and the search dogs tracked Tabitha’s scent, following her typical route up 14th Street and onto Boscobel. Halfway down the hill, the dogs reversed course and headed back up the hill, corroborating the boy’s story about the red car.

Bo and Debra are inclined to believe the boy’s claim, but they say their daughter never would have willingly gotten into a car with anyone other than a family member, leading them to believe she was grabbed off the street. “I don’t think it was anybody that she knew,” Debra says. “Tabitha wouldn’t even get into the car with my neighbor without asking me first.”

But family friend Johnny White isn’t so sure, suggesting Tabitha might have been coerced into the red vehicle by an acquaintance, someone she trusted and who was capable of manipulating her. “I don’t think there could be a lot of suspects,” says White, adding that the boy said Tabitha got into the car without a struggle.

Detectives will not confirm or deny any theories, including whether they believe the account of Tabitha getting into a red car.

“We’re not saying the boy lied or that it’s a misstatement,” says Sgt. Mike Norton, who has actively investigated the case in recent months alongside lead Detective Tom Rollins. “We’ve just never been able to corroborate his story as fact.”

Making the mysterious disappearance all the more complicated to solve, detectives early on were faced with the near epic task of questioning the many unsavory characters living in Tabitha’s rough corner of the world. There was no shortage of sex offenders and criminals living in this gritty pocket of Nashville, some residing on the same block the Tuders have called home for 20 years.

There was a husband and wife—former residents of Lillian Street—arrested two weeks after Tabitha’s disappearance for allegedly raping a minor. The couple lived just a few houses down from the Tuders. Then there was Millard Earl Smith, a registered sex offender arrested in June 2003 after luring a young boy onto his motorcycle, then driving him to a secluded location and attempting to sexually assault him. The boy—who managed to escape unharmed—attended Bailey Middle School, where Tabitha also went to school. Smith now is serving time for this attempted assault, and for raping a woman he kidnapped from the Greyhound bus station. Police also questioned Leslie Paul Duke, yet another shady neighbor who spent more than a decade in prison for sexually abusing his four daughters. It was one of Duke’s own family members who warned the Tuders that their predatory relative might be involved in Tabitha’s disappearance. According to Tennessee’s sex offender registry, Duke still resides just a mile from the Tuders on Granada Avenue.

Of particular interest to police was a local maintenance worker who claimed to have seen Tabitha on the morning she vanished while he was driving a boy to Stratford High School. But the man’s story didn’t add up, and he was unable to give a legitimate reason for being in the area of Lillian Street that morning. This man drew even more suspicion by disparaging the missing girl on more than one occasion, including during a conversation with Scene reporters in 2003 when he described with his hands how Tabitha was beginning to develop physically. Police declared him an “active person of interest” in the summer of 2003, and aggressively searched his home, using a special chemical called Luminol to detect any blood. But after searching his apartment near Shelby Park, police found no incriminating evidence and interest in him lessened.

“A lot of people had an opportunity to take Tabitha Tuders that morning,” Norton says. “Tabitha was going to get on the school bus like she does every morning. After she left that house we don’t know what happened to her, to be quite frank. We just don’t know.”

As the years have progressed, leads have dwindled, but police still receive occasional tips. In fact, earlier this month detectives were looking into a new one, although if the past is any indication, it will result in another dead end. “There’s something we’re pursuing right now. It’s a new lead, and we take them all very seriously,” says Norton. “This one may not pan out, but we look at all of them.”

As for whether police believe Tabitha was abducted by a stranger, or by someone she knew, Norton says unfortunately he doesn’t have an answer. “What’s so baffling about this case is that a 13-year-old child disappeared with nobody seeing anything that we can absolutely say happened for sure.”

But in a rare departure from the department’s long-standing refusal to rule out any scenarios, Norton says one thing is clear: This girl did not willingly leave home. “Tabitha Tuders is certainly not a runaway, and it’s not like her parents were not keeping up with her.”

In the weeks after Tabitha was reported missing, family members submitted to exhaustive questioning, as well as routine lie detector tests. Investigators would not discuss the results of the tests, but nearly two years after the disappearance, police sources told the Scene there were “unresolved issues” with Tabitha’s older sister.

In March 2005, Jamie Tuders (now Jamie Pulley) told a Scene reporter that she had failed three of four lie detector and stress tests, although she blamed her interrogators for exerting too much pressure, confusing and even threatening her. “The very first detective who ever talked to me told me that they were going to take my kids away if I failed those tests,” Jamie says. “He said that my family and everybody else was going to see me on the news.”

Pressure from police eventually subsided, according to Jamie, who says a high-ranking police official later told her that the results of those three lie-detector tests were in fact inconclusive. “For them to do that to me, it not only hurt me, but it hurt my family seeing them do that to me,” says Jamie, crying for just a moment. “I understand they’re detectives and they have to do their job. They were just fishing for something, I guess.”

Just last year, Jamie wrote on an Internet message board: “All we want is for my sister to come back home.… We miss her and love her very much!! If at all you see this Boo don’t be scared, be strong and know that we are still looking for you. I love you!!”

After scrutinizing every detail of Tabitha’s disappearance, Johnny White will not go so far as to say that he thinks Jamie was involved. But the longtime family friend has spent countless hours investigating the case, and as a result he strongly believes that one of Jamie’s former boyfriends should be at least a person of interest in the case.

But Jamie rejects that opinion, saying, “I never had that feeling.”

On the morning Tabitha vanished, Jamie’s boyfriend had gotten off work stocking shelves at a nearby retail store at 7 a.m., according to White. Having previously lived at the Tuders’ home for several months, the boyfriend—who was driving a red car that day and who matches the description of the driver—also knew when and where Tabitha caught the bus each morning. And in the wake of the disappearance, White says Jamie’s boyfriend did not assist in the search effort.

“He was never helpful, and Jamie protected him from being questioned,” says White. “If he’s not a person of interest, who is?”

Jamie eventually broke up with that boyfriend, and has since married someone else.

When asked whether Jamie’s former boyfriend or anyone close to Tabitha is being considered as a person on interest, Sgt. Norton says he can’t discuss anything that detailed, for fear of jeopardizing the case. “It’s really hard to say we’re looking for this guy or that guy. Technically, nobody has been eliminated,” says Norton, adding that he’s still optimistic, a necessity in his job. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s a 50 percent chance she’s still alive.”

And while the likelihood of finding Tabitha safe diminishes with each passing day, the department will not stop searching.

“In a couple of years, if we haven’t found her, we’ll start from the beginning and go through the case again. You have to keep going through it,” Norton explains, comparing this method of review to reading a book again and again. “You read a book once, then you read it a second time and you pick up on something you didn’t see the first time around.”

Meanwhile, the Tuders are left to wait for their little girl’s return, or at the very least the ability to move on and grieve.

Not long after Tabitha disappeared, the Tuders desperately shared their daughter’s story with a few daytime talk shows, hoping someone might catch the segment and know something. The couple poured their hearts out on The Montel Williams Show, only to be told by a questionable psychic that their little girl was no longer alive and that her remains were in a field (although her psychic powers could not determine where). That same psychic gave the family of Shawn Hornbeck the very same grave news, yet the Missouri boy was found alive in 2007 held captive by a man outside St. Louis more than four years after his disappearance.

“That gives you a lot of hope,” says Debra, who sits quietly for a moment with her husband.Uncertain of their daughter’s fate, hope is all they have, and without answers, they cling to the thought that she’s still alive. If anyone is holding Tabitha against her will, or has any information, her mother pleads with them to come forward: “If she’s still out there, we just want her to come back home.”

http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cove...Tabitha_Tuders/

http://www.amw.com/missing_children/brief.cfm?id=25707

Tabitha Danielle Tuders

The Mystery Of Tabitha Tuders, Missing Five Years
It's been five years since Tabitha Tuders disappeared while walking to a bus stop near her home. She'd be 18 now, and cops are still looking for clues that might give her family some closure.

Tabitha Vanishes

Tabitha Tuders is a shy and unassuming young girl. Even at 13 years old, it was not uncommon for her to sleep at the foot of her parent's bed.

On the morning of April 29, 2003 Tabitha's father found her there, woke her up and sent her off to school. He then left for work.

Just before 8:00, Tabitha began her walk from her home to the bus stop to catch the school bus, which was to arrive just after 8. The bus stop is a few blocks away at the bottom of a long, wide hill. The bus makes two stops on that hill each day, but on this day, Tabitha was at neither of them. She never got on the bus. She never got to school. And no one has seen or heard from her since.

A neighbor saw Tabitha headed to the bus stop, but the bus driver says he didn't see her. Police believe Tabitha may have disappeared in the couple of blocks between her home and the school bus stop.

Tabitha Leaves for School, But Never Arrives
The Search Begins

Cops were stumped until they heard the story of a neighborhood boy. He told them he had seen Tabitha get into a red car 30 to 40 yards from the bus stop. Once Tabitha was inside, the boy said, the car reversed course and headed up the hill. Police aren't sure whether to believe this witness, but they cling to any evidence they can get.

Search dogs were brought in, on loan from various missing children's organizations. They tracked the route that Tabitha took every day to the bus stop. But 30 or so yards from the bus stop, the dogs reversed course and headed up the hill. (This is near the spot where the witness saw Tabitha get into the red car). The dogs tracked Tabitha's scent to a nearby alley, a place her friends say she never went on her own. Again, police do not know whether to believe that Tabitha took this route that day, but again, they are investigating every possibility.

The police have now focused their search around a five-mile radius that touches near two local landmarks - the Coliseum and Shelby Park.

As for suspects, police have questioned Tabitha's parents Bo and Debra. They even polygraphed them two weeks later. Tabitha's brother Kevin Lee Tuders, 24, was also interviewed. Kevin has a checkered past - he has pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution and money laundering. But Kevin does not reside in Nashville, so there is little reason for cops to suspect him. Kevin has not been given a polygraph test.

Police do not believe this is a runaway case - All of Tabitha's possessions are accounted for including her makeup, clothes and a $20 bill she had been given the previous Sunday at church. Tabitha's room did provide one clue - Police discovered a note in her handwriting "T.D.T. -- N- M.T.L." Tabitha's full name is Tabitha Danielle Tuders. Police are looking for "M.T.L."

Have Police Found Their Man?

Then police uncovered another possible suspect. A jailhouse snitch tried to accuse a cell-mate of having confessed to abducting and killing Tabitha. The snitch claimed that his cellmate had scratched his initials and words incriminating himself into a cell window. Cops took it very seriously, removing the window and sending it to forensic specialists. Unfortunately, it turns out that the words and the initials were written in two different handwritings. The whole thing, they now believe, was a hoax.

Various other suspects, local sex offenders and criminals have been interviewed and examined, but none have been positively linked to Tabitha's disappearance. Police are still searching for that one lead that will break this case wide open. Until then, the family must only wait and pray.