Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore - Relisha Rudd: The Girl Who Disappeared for 18 Days Before Anyone Called Police

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

An eight-year-old girl stops going to school. No one reports her missing for nearly three weeks. Not the shelter.Not the school.Not even her own family. In 2014, Relisha Rudd vanished from a Washington, D.C. family shelter. The only adult who claimed to know where she was turned out not to be a doctor, but a shelter janitor. Days later, his wife was found murdered. Weeks later, he was found dead in a park. Relisha has never been found. In this episode of Clues, we examine the surveillance footage, the hotel sightings, the trash bag purchase, and the systemic failures that may have cost a little girl her life. Listener discretion advised. This episode discusses child abuse, child sexual exploitation, domestic violence, and suicide. Head over to our Clues YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@CluesPod If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Clues to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Clues is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.  🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals including Crime House 24/7, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow us on Social YouTube: @CluesPod | @crimehousestudios Instagram: @cluespodcast | @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia Clues is hosted by Morgan Absher & Kaelyn Moore  Instagram: @morgsyabsher | @itskaelynmoore TikTok: @twohottakes | @heartstartspounding Episode Sponsors: A year from today isn’t that far away. Get started now at https://www.HelloAlma.com/clues Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at https://www.Shopify.com/clues Named #1 by Wirecutter, you can save on the gifts moms love by visiting https://www.AuraFrames.com. For a limited time, listeners can get $25 off their best-selling Carver Mat frame with code CLUES. Go to https://HelloFresh.com/clues10fm now to get 10 Free Meals + a Free breakfast for Life! One per box with active subscription. Free meals applied as discount on first box, new subscribers only, varies by plan. Go to https://www.SolaceHealth.com to see if you qualify. It takes about two minutes, and it’s covered by insurance. Must be 18 or older. Advocates do not provide medical or legal advice. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, listeners, it's Carter Roy, host of murder true crime stories. I want to let you know that Crime House Plus and Murder True Crime Stories are celebrating America's 250th by dropping a four-part limited series on the crimes that built America. These are the crimes and cases that gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and a murder that built America's missing children movement. Follow murder, true crime stories for a new episode every Monday leading up to July 4th, or you can binge all of them right now, add free with Crimehouse Plus. To join, go to CrimehousePlus.com, or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of this show's page. This is Crime House.

An eight-year-old girl goes missing from a shelter in Washington, D.C. Nobody reports it for weeks, not even her own family. By the time police realized Relisha Rudd has gone missing, her case is shrouded in lies. From a mysterious doctor to a bizarre hotel sighting, investigators don't know who they can trust. Who took Relisha Rudd and can they finally bring her home? Hi, welcome to clues where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases. I'm Kayla Moore and I'm going to be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories, and the court files released on these cases. And I'm your internet detective, Morgan Absher.

I'm the one who's diving into anything I can find online to talk about those lesser known details and pull up the threads that just aren't adding up. Don't forget to share your thoughts on social. Want ad-free listening and early access? Subscribe to Crimehouse Plus on Apple Podcasts. And make sure to go back and listen to our previous episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Now let's get into Relisha Rudd's case and the clues that defined it. All right.

We have a big case today, which I feel like we say about every. every single one. But one thing that's been interesting as we've, you know, covered more cases on this show is hearing from you guys and the personal connections you've had to a lot of these cases. Mind-blowing for me. Like the last episode I looked at, the Ben Renick episode, so many people had, like, seen him at snake conventions or knew him because they're also in the snake reptile world. So I really appreciate when you guys comment and share your personal connections to the case and sharing your story or any bits of information you guys have. It's a reminder that everyone we're talking about is a real person.

Absolutely. And throughout the headlines, the research we do, all the stuff we read about them, like at the center, these are real people. People, people that you guys out there listening knew or could have known or was your dentist or was your doctor. It's all of these cases deeply impact people and the communities around them. And every week when we do our missing person spotlight at the end of the episodes, That's all coming from you guys.

Like we are always pulling those from the audience. So keep them coming. Let us know if there's other ones that you want us to highlight. And with that, let's get into this one. This one is a big one. I think a lot of people are going to hear Relisha's case and just be baffled, be confused, be angry. Be angry for sure. There's a lot to be angry about in this case.

A young girl who was wronged by a lot of people. And if you're watching on YouTube, just a reminder, or you're going to see some images, some videos, maybe some maps that will help you visualize the case. And if not, you can find all those same things on our Instagram. That's at Clues podcast on Instagram. You should follow us there anyways. We cover a lot more about the cases there. We get into some stuff behind the scenes and some things that we left out of the episodes.

It's just good to follow us on Instagram. And a warning before we begin. This episode does contain discussions of murder, child abduction, child abuse, sexual violence against minors, sex trafficking, domestic violence, suicide, and other potentially distressing topics. So please listen with care. So this case starts on Friday, February 28th of 2014. That day, eight-year-old Relisha Redd was absent from school. There was no excuse that was given, but this wasn't necessarily abnormal for Relisha

because she had been missing a lot of school lately. The next day, though, March 1st, her aunt Ashley reported that she spent a lot of time with Relisha at her own apartment. So even though she was missing school, she was still seeing family. Relisha and her brothers would spend a lot of weekends over at their Aunt Ashley's because they wanted to get out of the shelter that they were living in. That morning, Ashley did Relisha's hair. She added pink and white bows to the top of her braids. Relisha was all smiles when her family got their phone out to record a quick video for her mother, Shamika.

In that footage, Relisha grins at herself in front of the camera and repeats after her aunt, we chill in at Aunt Ashley's house, hi Instagram. Shortly after that video was taken, Relisha put on her winter coat and pink snow boots and she said goodbye to her aunt Ashley and then she left. And Ashley had no idea that she would never see Relisha again. But before we get into how the second grader disappeared, we need to start at the beginning. So in 2014, Relisha Redd was eight years old. She was the eldest of four siblings raised by her 28-year-old mother, Shamika Young, and Shamika's then-fiancee, 28-year-old Antonio Wheeler. Rilisha and her oldest brother were full siblings, sharing a mostly absent father at the time named Irving Rudd.

The younger two boys were Rolisha's half-brothers, Antonio's biological children, though he played the role of dad in the lives of all four children. But things were incredibly tough for this family. At the time of Rilisha's disappearance, they were all sharing a room in a crowded shelter for the unhoused in Washington, D.C., but their problems, or rather Sharmika's problems, started long before Relishia's disappearance. was born. Shemika's family on all sides carried, I mean, from the research we've done, it seemed to be like a massive amount of generational trauma. Her mother, Melissa Young, basically raised herself coming of age on the streets of Washington, D.C. in the early 1980s. This was right in the middle of the era that's now known as the crack epidemic. Shemika's mother, Melissa, gave birth to her when she was just 17 years old, and at the time she was addicted to cocaine and alcohol.

Now, Shamika, Rilisha's mother, went on to be the eldest of five, but was very close with her sister Ashley. For a part of their childhood, they lived with Melissa in a shelter for homeless people. But as Shamika got older, things only got harder. She was diagnosed with a mild intellectual disability, along with emotional and behavioral issues. And eventually, in 1999, 13-year-old Shemika was involuntarily committed to a pediatric mental health facility. after that she went to a group home in Virginia and Shamika eventually aged out of the system as a lot of kids do and she turned 18 in 2004. In her first few months as an adult, she started dating Irving Rudd, who at the time was 34 years old. And just a warning, I mean this episode's going to get darker as we go, but the next part of the story does cover disturbing acts of child abuse.

So skip ahead for about a minute if you need to. So Irving had been released from prison two years earlier in 2002 after, and this hurts me so, so, so deeply to say, but he killed his 17-month-old daughter, one of a set of twins. The story is heartbreaking behind this. So Irving was 22 at the time. He claimed that this was accidental. He said that he was trying to reprimand her for crying, which at 17 months old, you can't really reprimand a child for crying. They don't have the cognitive abilities to be disciplined. He also confessed, though, that he spanked the surviving twins so hard once that it did break her leg.

So Irving was charged with first-degree murder. However, a jury ultimately convicted him of involuntary manslaughter. He went to prison for a little bit of time. And after he served his time, he reportedly got a job as a custodian at a place called Catholic Charities. It's a place that provides food, shelter, and mental health support. to people in need. While he was there, he met 18-year-old Shamaika. And within a few months, Shamika was pregnant, and Irving was having more children. It's so devastating because you look at how vulnerable of a position Shemika was in. Yes. It's unclear if she knew exactly what he had done

in his past, though, at this time. Just to be an 18-year-old and you have this 34-year-old person who's working at the place you're living. Yeah. It's horrible. On October. Over 29, 2005, Relisha Rudd was born, and she looked exactly like her 19-year-old mom. They had the same light brown skin tone, the same naturally arched eyebrows, the same high cheekbones, and the same big eyes with very thick eyelashes. Shamika's mom, Melissa, was actually at the hospital for the delivery. She cut the umbilical cord, and she gave Shamika some parenting advice after Relisha was born. She said, quote, be the best mom you can be, because it's easy for your job.

children to go into foster care, but it's hard to get your children back home with you where they belong. It was a lesson that Melissa unfortunately learned the hard way, but she hoped that she could spare her daughter from the same suffering, like maybe stop that cycle in its tracks, and maybe her daughter would have a better life than she had. And luckily, Shamika had a few people in her life that she could lean on to help her and make sure that that didn't happen. One of the people Shamika and Relisha was closest to was her aunt Ashley. Shamika was embarrassed about becoming a teen mom. She felt like she was setting a bad example for her little sister, who was 17 at the time

and was still in foster care. But Ashley and Relisha bonded instantly. Ashley referred to herself as Relisha's rescue auntie because Relisha would always come crawling to her if she needed help with something. Shamika was glad that her sister liked to babysit though because by the time Ashley turned 18, Shamika was pregnant with her second child. with the now 35-year-old Irving Rudd. And that's when Relish's brother was born in 2007.

But Shamika and Irving broke up soon after the birth. Then, shortly after that, someone else came into their lives, and that was 21-year-old Antonio Wheeler. Now, like Shamika, Antonio had struggled with behavioral issues as a kid, and he ended up in a group home, and he thought that he might never find someone who could relate to that experience. But that is until that day in 2008, when he got on a city bus and he saw Shamika sitting with two-year-old Relisha.

When their stop arrived, Relisha ordered Antonio to get off the bus and come home with her and Shemika. And her little matchmaking attempt worked. Five months later, Shamika and Antonio moved in together. And around 2009, the two of them had a baby boy. Their second son after that came along the following year. Relisha was now the eldest of four and she was nicknamed Lil Mama because she acted more like a second mom. than a big sister. It was Relisha who told her brothers when they were eating too much candy.

She was the one who got their baths ready at night. But despite her best efforts, Relisha couldn't protect her siblings from the grown-up problems of her family. In 2012, when Relisha was six or seven years old, the family was evicted from their apartment after falling four months behind on their rent. And after that, Relisha, her mother, Shamika, and at least one of her brothers lived in a car for a little while. Relisha's cheerleading coach, Shannon Smith, could tell that something wasn't right at home. She noticed that Relisha hadn't been bathing and she seemed starved for affection. So Coach Smith did her best to help. Every morning before cheerleading practice, she would take Relisha to the school nurse's office to wash her up and change her

clothes. And sometimes she would bring Relisha to the nurse's office for baths, basically. And Coach Smith could fix her hair and apply lotion. She even babysat Relisha once in a while. And Relisha loved Coach Smith, just as much as she loved cheerleading, being girly and dressing up as a princess on Halloween. Art and drawing also, you know, became a big part of her life. All of this served as a temporary escape, a way for her to forget at least for a little while that she didn't have a bedroom to go home to. And eventually, Relicious Aunt Ashley stepped in to help them out too. Ashley had just gotten an apartment in Southeastern D.C. It was a one bedroom, but Ashley was willing to squeeze seven people in there if she had to.

So Relish's whole family moved in. But the landlord was not thrilled to have six new tenants who weren't on the lease. And since Ashley was on a government housing subsidy, she couldn't take a chance at keeping the entire family there. So she told Shamika, Antonio, and the four kids that they did have to find somewhere else to go. At least, that is Ashley's side of the story. That's what she says happened. In an interview with WAMU, Washington, D.C.'s National Public Radio affiliate, Antonio

claimed that Ashley kicked his family out of her apartment because she didn't like his relaxed parenting style. Either way, Shamika and Antonio were back on the street literally. And this time they contacted the local family resource center about going to a shelter. But there weren't any that could take in a family of six right away. That was a lot of people. And after a year of staying at a days in motel provided by the resource center, the family got word in 2013 that there was a spot ready for them. Unfortunately, it was at the DC General family shelter. It was a spot that was notorious for being unsanitary. It was bug infested.

And above all, it was unsafe. You know, despite that, it was a place where parents and kids could stay together, unlike other shelters, which typically would split men and women up. Plus, this was really the only option that the family had. By late February 2014, 8-year-old Relicious family had been living at D.C. general for seven months. Relisha was a second grader at Payne Elementary School in the city's Hill East neighborhood. Hill East did have a persistently high crime rate, but Payne was the closest elementary school to D.C. General. One in five students enrolled at Payne for the 2013-2014 school year was classified as unhoused.

But Relisha seemed like she was handling the situation as well as she could, at least. Her brothers would sometimes get in trouble with their teachers, but Relisha never did. She paid attention in class. She always remembered her manners. She was popular with her classmates. She made some close friends at school. She also would get up early every morning and help her three little brothers get ready for the day. In the evening, she wouldn't go to bed until they were all done with their homework.

And everyone who knew Relisha could see how important, even at such a young age, education was to her. She would get up early in the morning just to pick out her outfits for school before everyone woke up. And that is why it was so strange when one day. She just stopped going to school. Hi, listeners, it's Carter Roy, host of murder, true crime stories. I want to let you know that Crime House Plus and murder true crime stories are celebrating America's 250th by dropping a four-part limited series on the crimes that built America. These are the crimes and cases that gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling,

and a murder that built America's missing children movement. Follow murder, true crime stories for a new episode every Monday leading up to July 4th, or you can binge all of them right now, add free with Crimehouse Plus. To join, go to CrimehousePlus.com, or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of this show's page. That takes us back to Monday, March 3rd. On that day, Relisha missed school again. She had been out for that entire week.

There was a social worker at Payne Elementary School. Her name was Labona Workman, and she started getting worried that she was missing so much school. By March 13th, Relisha had racked up 10 unexcused absences, and that within this school system triggered a mandatory reporting requirement. At that point, Labonae was legally required to open a case with the DC Child and Family Services Agency. At first, he wanted to give Relisha's family a chance to prove that her absences should be excused. This was a case. This was a case. A lot of the wasn't necessarily the first time that Relisha had missed school. She had been absent now a total of 30 times that school year. But this time was different because typically her family would send in notes in the past that excused most of those absences, typically that was due to illness. But eventually the school wanted to see more than a note from home to keep excusing Relisha. They wanted an actual doctor's note. So once Relisha reached five unexcused absences in a row, Labona called Shamika. And Shamika said Relisha was seeing someone named Dr. Tatum,

and that was for migraine headaches. Labona explained that the school was going to need to see a letter from this doctor, if that was the case. So then later that week, Labonay said Relisha's grandmother, Melissa, brought in a note with a phone number for Dr. Tatum. Melissa denies that she ever delivered this message, but Labonet maintained that that is where he got it. And he called that number right away, just to see what was going on, just to see if this

absence could be excused. And after a little bit of phone tag, he speaks with Dr. Tatum, who confirms over the phone that he was treating Relisha for, quote, neurological issues, and that she would be discharged probably by the end of the week, meaning March 14th. Labona then told the doctor that he would need proof of Relisha's illness sooner rather than later. And Dr. Tatum promised that he was going to send over the proper documentation so her absences could be excused, but that paperwork still hadn't arrived by the time Relisha reached that crucial 10 absence mark on March 13th. The doctor said he was having trouble with his fax

machine, so Labona still gave him the benefit of the doubt. But by the following Wednesday, March 19th, Labonet's patients had worn completely out. So he made one last-ditch effort to get that medical documentation. That day, Labonay went to the shelter to see if anyone there knew where Dr. Tatum's office was. But Labonay got nothing back except blank, confused stairs. There's no Dr. Tatum here. Finally, he was able to find a case manager who said they didn't know of a doctor by that name, but there was a shelter employee named Tatum, which brings us to our very first clue, Dr. Tatum's true identity. It turns out his real name was Khalil Tatum. And he was actually an employee at the shelter. He worked there as a custodial worker. He held other positions there too. Sometimes he worked in

the cafeteria or the kitchen. But he definitely was not a doctor. As soon as Labonay found out that there was no doctor Tatum, he had a sinking feeling that something was really wrong here. So before he even left the shelter that day, Labonay called the Child and Family Services Agency hotline. He wanted to report a case of suspected child abuse. So when CFSA got this call, they took it very seriously. Officers from D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department arrived at D.C. General within minutes. Obviously, the first person that they wanted to talk to was Khalil Tatum. But he was nowhere to be found. He wasn't at work that day. Every time they called his cell phone, he never picked up.

So MPD officers began the search for him. In the meantime, a few detectives stayed around the shelter to learn more about Relisha and to just try to get a clear idea of what Relisha's life was like before her disappearance, which takes us to our second clue, Relish's experience and the conditions at D.C. General. Now, as we mentioned, the conditions at this shelter were not great. This was an old hospital that had been retrofitted to now become a family, shelter, but it was supposed to be temporary, so none of the modifications they made were great. At the time, Rilisha disappeared March 2014. There were nearly 600 kids living at D.C. General with up to

270 families crammed onto just four floors. Every family shared a single room, and those were small, unrenovated former hospital rooms. I saw in one source that sometimes multiple families shared just one hospital room. Yeah, that makes sense. And if you've ever been to hospital or visited someone in them, the rooms aren't massive. No. It's like dorming. Yeah. And Relicious family is a family of six. I mean, this is a big family. So the conditions were pretty terrible to say the least. But this next part, you guys like, you're literally going to start to feel itchy. There were bedbugs, roaches, mice. Sometimes there were even raccoons rolling around. Some parents would take turns staying awake at night to brush the bugs off of their sleeping children's

faces. The hot water would go out, often for weeks out of time. The elevators regularly got stuck with people inside. Children passed around ringworm and scabies. I mean, this was horrible, horrible living conditions. It's also, I mean, illegal. You can't, at least in LA, you can't not have hot water. Not for weeks. Violates tenants' rights. Exactly. And residents even reported seeing others with guns, knives. I mean, there were rumors. of drug trafficking and sex work within this shelter. Despite their strict policy that workers weren't supposed to fraternize with residents, a lot of residents did see staffers pursuing sexual relationships with people living at the shelter.

There were also a lot of complaints from former residents about shelter employees, claims of SA, voyeurism, staff offering residents money for sex. And there was even reports of one staff member who supposedly parented a child with a resident. And given all this information, it's not surprising that Relisha hated living at D.C. General. Whenever she left, she begged not to go back. She asked if she could just stay at school overnight. She would ask teachers to stay with her after school and hang out, even if there was nothing to work on. She just loved being at school and away from this environment.

And when she visited family, she didn't want to go either. There's one account we have that she faked an asthma attack. hoping that they would let her stay there to recover. Once investigators discovered how miserable Relisha was at the shelter, they kind of realized something. Relisha may have walked out of there with anyone if they were promising her a better life. Knowing that, it became even more important to find out

exactly how long Relisha had been missing and how far she might have traveled. So investigators pulled 28-year-old Shamika and her fiance, 28-year-old Antonio Wheeler, into a conference room at the shelter for questioning. Detactives immediately

ran into a huge problem. They were finding that the people who should have been the most motivated to find Relisha were not being helpful at all. Which brings us to our third clue, the misleading information from Relisha's family.

When police first questioned Shemika that day, she was seemingly angry about it. She kept insisting. that Relisha was perfectly safe and the police were just wasting their time. And she even told them a completely different story than she had told Labonae Workman, that social worker from the school. Remember, she had mentioned Relisha was being treated at the hospital out of state, migraines. Now she was telling police that Relisha was with Dr. Tatum at a medical conference in Atlanta.

In fact, Shemika said that she had spoken to Relisha on the phone just two days earlier on March 17. And she'd last seen her in person before Relisha and Dr. Tatum left town on March 8th. Now, it's unclear if police still hadn't told Shamika that they knew the truth about Khalil Tatum. Like, ma'am, he's not a doctor. We know he works as a janitor at the shelter. But regardless, like, she is still doubling down on her claims that he really was a doctor. None of it is adding up. So investigators end up getting in touch.

with Relisha's grandmother, Melissa, she told them that she thought Relisha was with Dr. Tatum too. She claimed that she had spoken to Relisha on the phone earlier that very same day and she was going to pick up Relisha from Tatum's apartment that evening,

but had gotten delayed. Detectives didn't know at this point if Melissa was also lying or if she really did think Relisha was at Tatum's apartment. But detectives couldn't confirm Shemika or Melissa's claims that they had spoken to Relisha on the phone recently.

Nobody else at the shelter had seen Relisha since the beginning of March. And while the shelter was supposed to do nightly bed checks, where they went in and confirmed who was in each family's room, shelter staff did admit that they basically just knocked on the doors and asked how many kids were inside. It wasn't as thorough as it was intended to be. And so by this point, they don't have any idea when Relisha was last there, and investigators are pretty sure that Rolish's mom and grandma are hiding something

big? The question is why? So at this point, detectives are like, we need to figure out who Kaleel Tatum is. We need to know more about this guy. So they start digging and find out that Kaleel Tatum is a 51-year-old, and he's been a part of Ruralish's life for the past few months. Like all shelter employees, Tatum had signed a D.C. General's non-fraternization policy when he was hired. Again, prohibiting personal relationships with shelter residents. But some of those residents said Tatum was still known to give gifts and pay special attention to his favorite residents, especially young girls. And 8-year-old Relisha was very clearly one of his favorites, which is our fourth clue,

Tatum's connection to Relisha. Ashley and Melissa had very similar things to say about Tatum. They both said Shamika had begun referring to Tatum as Relisha's godfather shortly after they moved to the shelter. Ashley and Melissa, again, aunt and grandma, also noted that Shamika allowed Tatum to take Relisha off shelter grounds alone. And this was actually like a pretty common occurrence. It first started with daytime activities like trips to national monuments, but then it grew into longer trips away. Ashley said that she first met Tatum when he came by himself to pick Relisha up from her apartment. She basically describes him showing up and being like, how did you even get my address?

Who are you? Why are you here to take care of my niece? She's confused. Doesn't want to let Relisha go with him. She's like, this is weird. And so she ends up calling Shamika who just insisted that this was okay. And that's kind of when Shemika was like, no, no, this is Relish's godfather. Yeah, okay. And Ashley's like, this is news to me.

But at this point, Ashley was also afraid that if she made it a big deal and was like, no, I'm not letting her go with this Mr. Tatum guy. Shamika would keep her from seeing Relisha again in the future, especially because the two of them weren't really in a good place. And there are a lot of sources that say, like, Relisha did really like Tatum. Relisha would beg her Aunt Ashley to call Khalil Tatum from her apartment. And if you picked up the phone, she would beg him to come get her. and take her somewhere. Ashley said Shamika didn't tell her that Relisha's new godfather was a custodian at the shelter. She actually found that out through police when Relisha went missing. Melissa, Grandma, also said that Shamika allowed Tatum to babysit frequently. Sometimes that included

Relisha staying overnight at his place with him and his wife, Andrea. And Melissa admitted that she was uncomfortable with this at first too. But after spending some time, with Tatum. She did begin to trust him. I mean, he was a step-grandfather and said his grandkids like to play with Relisha. Unlike Ashley, though, Melissa did know that Tatum was a shelter employee. She often picked the kids up from school and dropped them off at DC General, so she ran into Tatum there. But one thing she did notice about Tatum, he never offered to take the boys anywhere. Remember? Relisha's three siblings? Yeah, her brothers. Her brothers. Her two. He only took Relisha.

And he was only playing favorites with the young girls at the shelter. However, Chameka's story was completely different from Ashley and Melissa's. She said she never let Tatum watch Relisha unsupervised. When pushed, she blamed Melissa for actually sending Relisha to Tatum's apartment overnight. But Chameca's fiancé Antonio did back up Melissa and Ashley's claims. He pointed the finger at Shamika for allowing Tatum to babysit. Antonio didn't even realize at first that Relisha was actually spending nights and weekends at Tatum's apartment. You see, Antonio had a job in Pennsylvania at the time, so he was gone a lot.

He was traveling and staying at other locations for work. So he wasn't always at the shelter to see where the kids were going and who they were with. And when he found it out, Antonio said he confronted Tatum directly. He told him to stay away from Shamika and Relisha. Let's rewind just a little bit because I want to talk about who Tatum was outside of Relisha because his history ends up being pretty important to this case. He was born Carl Lee Tatum and grew up in the D.C. area. By his late teens in the early 1980s, he had already racked up a criminal record for breaking and entering burglary and larceny. He was incarcerated for two long stretches. The first one was 1993 to 2003 and then again from 2004 to 2011. That was three years before Relisha went missing. And during his time in prison, he changed his first name to Khalil.

When he got out, he applied to work for the nonprofit that managed the D.C. general shelter. And despite his history, despite too long stretches in jail, he did get the job working with incredibly vulnerable people at the shelter. Yeah, I'm giving it a botched board. I know we typically reserve this for the investigation, but there's so many checks and balances and systems in place to make sure vulnerable people do not have. this happen to them and like this is one of those where he shouldn't have been hired. I almost feel like there's not really that many checks and balances. You read about this all the time in L.A. shelters that the people working there are often the problem. And it's not supposed to work like that. Like there are supposed to be these systems in place that protect such

vulnerable populations. I did get a background check to work at a McDonald's. Like and that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's frustrating to read about. Why are we having someone who is going in and working with vulnerable mothers and children at a shelter. And this person has been in jail for years and years. And there's no mention of reform. Like, it's just botched. It's getting a mark. I mean, it does seem, at least at first, from what we read about, that he made a mostly

positive impression. And this is according to some other residents that were at D.C. general. They described him as being well-dressed and well-spoken. and he also, you know, did appear to be very in love with his 51-year-old wife of 23 years. Andrea Tatum did enjoy spoiling her with gifts and with jewelry. He also bought her a new car in February of 2014. And he, you know, was said to be a doting stepfather to Andrea's adult children and their children. The couple told their friends that they did hope to retire in about 10 years and devote themselves to public service after that.

Andrea often volunteered with D.C.'s unhoused population, usually through the church that she was a part of, and she felt really, really passionate about giving back after, you know, she recovered from her own drug addiction. Meanwhile, Tatum wanted to focus on mentoring young men, teaching them things that he wished that he learned at an earlier age. From the outside, it seemed like they had a solid marriage. Many of their friends looked up to them for overcoming addiction, incarceration, and poverty. you know, despite all of that, they stayed together. They had jobs. They were working for their community. Like on paper, it looked amazing. It was like one of those, not Cinderella stories, but it's like one of those stories that you want to like preach from the rooftops to be like, look what you can overcome. I mean, it does. I mean, on paper, it would look like there was a big

lifestyle change, a lot of reform there. Yeah. Well, what their friends didn't know was that Khalil had quietly filed for divorce in February of 2014. That was just weeks before relations. went missing. So at this point, detectives with Washington's D.C. Metro Police Department were pretty certain that Tatum was the key to finding Relicia, which is why they knew that they needed to track him down fast. They called in as much backup as they could, including the FBI, who joined the investigation the very next day on March 20th, and pretty quickly the FBI uncovered a key piece of evidence, which is our fifth clue, a surveillance video. The footage came from a holiday. Inn Express about two and a half miles from the DC General Shelter. It was time stamped February 26th,

three days before Relisha was last seen by her Aunt Ashley. In the 52-second clip, Tatum walks down the Holiday Inn hallway next to Relisha. She's wearing her winter jacket and pink winter boots and carrying something in a white plastic bag. Tatum has a small blue shopping bag too. They apparently go the wrong way at first because Tatum touches Reliq. Alicia's shoulders to turn her around. Eventually, they find the door that they're looking for. Tatum pulls out a room key and opens it while Relisha watches, then they enter the room together. If there's video of Relisha leaving that room, neither the police nor the FBI released it

or have even talked about it. But we know that Relisha made it to Ashley's apartment safely three days later on March 1st. Police seemingly checked that holiday in express. It was a dead end. Neither Tatum nor Relisha was there. Police didn't even know if they were even in the D.C. area at this point. But the video at least gave them a starting point. If Tatum had stayed at one local hotel, maybe he stayed at others.

So investigators started searching all the other hotels they could in the area. Meanwhile, the team back at D.C. General was still kind of struggling to rein in Shamika. And I really can't wrap my head around this, but Shamika was reframed my head around this. but Shamika was refusing to file a missing person's report for her eight-year-old daughter that had not been seen in weeks. She kept insisting that Relisha was safe and not missing, but she could not, or she wouldn't, we're unsure, tell police where Relisha was. Ultimately, a report got filed anyway with or without Shamika's help. Investigators decided, though, that they weren't going to make any public announcements about the case that very first night. They wondered if they had already, you know, maybe spooked Tatum by showing up at the shelter.

Maybe it got back to him that they were there. And, you know, if he's already on the run, it could completely spook him. Yeah. He could be gone forever. I will just say, like, I'm shocked by the fact that she didn't want to file a report. I get, like, not wanting to involve authorities. Like, your little girl is missing. And I get there's been, you know, some involvement with CPS and her and her kids.

So I get not wanting to involve authorities, but at the same time, you have police involved, you have the FBI involved. It's time. So I'm putting a botched mark here for not wanting to report your eight-year-old missing. But I do feel like the investigators in this, the police are doing so much to get the word out and try to find out where Relisha is that I almost want to give them a Sherlock moment for this for just kind of. bulldozing forward and still getting this missing person report filed. Yeah, you know, I am taken back to what Melissa told Shamika, which was like, no matter what you do, make sure your babies don't get taken from you. And so I could see that in Shamika's head when she's considering, like, do I file this police report? Because this is probably the end of the line for me and my children. Like they're going to get taken from me after this.

Well, in her head, Relisha has gone with Tatum time and time before. Yeah. She comes back. She really does trust Tatum. And so, yeah. So maybe she's thinking that she can handle it behind the scenes. You know, there's a lot about Shamika that we don't know at this time. Yeah.

And again, there's so much generational trauma and a lens to this that a lot of us cannot relate to. Yeah. So it is hard for us to understand this, but regardless. But I'm glad that that missing person's report got filed because that's incredibly important. But by the following day, March 20th, they knew that they were going to need. need the public's help. They thought maybe if we get word out a little bit more, we will get a tip or something. Maybe someone saw them. Like at least we can head in the right direction rather than trying to keep everything secret and, you know, not really knowing where to go from this point on.

And so they did trigger an Amber alert for Relisha. And they thought that maybe this would get them the tip that they needed to, you know, go in a direction. And they did receive a phone call. But it was not the one that they were anticipating. early in the morning of March 20th, 2014, Khalil Tatum's red SUV was spotted at a red roof in in Prince George's County, Maryland. This was about 12 miles from the D.C. General Shelter. Law enforcement quickly swarmed the hotel, and they were hoping to find Relisha safe inside. But instead, they found our sixth clue.

The body of 51-year-old Andrea Tatum, Kalil Tatum's wife of 23 years. She was lying on the bed face down with one fatal gunshot wound to her head. And Khalil Tatum was nowhere to be seen. Through hotel records and witness interviews, detectives were able to piece together what happened the night before. They found that at some point in the evening of March 19th, Andrea told her adult daughter that she was going to a hotel because the heat at her apartment wasn't working. At 10.04 p.m., both she and Tatum checked into a room at the Red Roof Inn.

three other adults were with them, but no relisha. Those three people left about 90 minutes later, shortly before midnight. When one of them returned the next morning at 5.40 a.m. to give Khalil Tatum a ride, he wouldn't let them into the room. But when the door cracked open, the friend spotted Andrea lying face down on the bed. But apparently, the friend wasn't able to notice that she was dead. That friend then drove Tatum to a metro station, dropped him off at 6 a.m, and hadn't heard from him since. The other people that were there at the Red Roof Inn have never been identified from police. And by now, law enforcement believed Tatum is clearly capable of murder.

This was likely done sometime on March 19th, maybe early morning, March 20th. The Amber Alert officially went out March 20th after he did this. Yeah. Which is even more confusing. But it's clear that now both he and Relisha were missing. So later that very same day, March 20th still, police held a press conference confirming both Andrea's murder and the search for Relisha Redd. Officials announced that Khalil Tatum was the only suspect in Andrea's death and they had an open warrant for his arrest on charges of murder. The FBI and local police offered separate cash rewards for information on both Andrea's murder and Relisha's disappearance, and that totaled $70,000.

They released photos of Tatum and Relisha, including pictures of a tattoo on Tatum's arm of an Egyptian ink symbol. We're going to insert some clips from the news briefings, but these were intense briefings, and they knew from the jump, this is our guy, and we need to find him. A community gathered to pray for the safe return of Relisha Rudd, the missing eight-year-old girl who police fear is in danger. Sources tell News 4, Relisha's mom had allowed Tatum to take Relisha weeks ago, not suspecting he would hurt her. Police throughout the region, and as far as Richmond, are looking for this little girl. After all of these press conferences, all of these news stories go out. The phone lines lit up. And one of those calls leads us to our seventh clue.

The last confirmed sighting of Relisha Rudd. The tipster said that Tatum and Relisha checked in to a day's in on the night of March 1st. This stay at the days in would have been just a few hours after Relisha left her Aunt Ashley's house for that last time. And like three weeks prior. Three weeks prior. The hotel clerk did actually remember checking them in. Someone else saw Relisha walk past the fountain outside the hotel that same evening. Unfortunately, this time there was no surveillance video,

but multiple guests also remembered seeing Tatum wearing a suit and tie, saying that he kind of stood out in a crowd. However, no one reported seeing Relisha leave the days in. There were a couple of possible sightings around that time from people who said they saw Relisha at a nearby shelter, but they were referring to a different smaller shelter than D.C. general, which wouldn't really make sense, given her family was at D.C. General. There was also one of Tatum's neighbors that came forward and told the media that

she actually saw Relisha with Tatum leaving his apartment on the Saturday before the search began. That would have been March 15th, a two full weeks after the days in stay. But upon further investigation, police decided that the days in citing on the native March 1st was the last one that they could officially confirm. However, the next clue changed. things entirely. About two miles from the days in, there's a Home Depot, and police learned that Tatum had done a little shopping on March 2nd. That trip and what he bought is our eighth clue. Tatum purchased a carton of black 42-gallon trash bags. Police said he also bought a shovel and lime, which can accelerate decomposition, but Relisha was not seen with Tatum during the shopping trip.

and by this point, the police knew her family hadn't seen or spoken to her since the day before. When investigators sifted through their other credible tips, they discovered Home Depot wasn't the only place Tatum had visited on March 2nd. He was seen again later that day at the Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. It's basically the 700-acre park just across from the days in along the Anacostia River. According to that, tipster, Tatum spent a significant amount of time at the park that day. So by Thursday, March 27th, that's now eight days into the investigation.

Kennelworth Park and Aquatic Gardens became the primary focus of the search. Investigators mustered all the resources they could, bringing out all of the available officers, the FBI agents, tracking dogs, helicopters, boats, and a team of divers to check every square inch of the park. They also made a tragic announcement to the press. Investigators were now referring to this search as a recovery. mission, meaning they no longer had much hope that Relisha Red would be found alive. They didn't find anything the first few days of this search, though.

And finally, on April 1st, law enforcement decided that they needed more backup. They invited a few nonprofit groups to help, including representatives from the Black and Missing Foundation. They're going to show up a lot in this story. But only about 40 minutes after they entered the park, civilian searchers were told to suspend operations and leave immediately. they had discovered a body, although it wasn't Relicious. On the morning of April 1st, day 6 of this large-scale search for 8-year-old Relisha-red,

police made a shocking announcement. The area they were searching at the Kennelworth Aquatic Gardens was now an active crime scene, which brings us to our ninth and final clue, a body. When investigators opened a shed at the park, they were afraid of finding Relisha's remains. Instead, they found Khalil Tatum's body. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head with the same gun that was used to kill his wife, Andrea. Tatum was very quickly identified by his tattoos. Forensic investigators weren't able to determine what day he died, though.

But they figured that he had been dead for at least 36 hours, possibly even several days. Tatum's bank card was last used six days before the Kennelworth, Park search started on March 21st, the day after Andrea was killed. The problem was, though, they still hadn't found a single piece of evidence connected to Relicia. And now, one of the few people who knew the truth, who knew where she might actually be, is dead. So after finding Tatum's body, the police promised that they were not closing the chapter on Relisha. They've continued to repeat that message over the years saying that they'll never give up until she's found. But family members, advocates, volunteers, searchers, and the media all say that the activity on Relisha's

case calmed down significantly since Tatum's body was discovered. In September 2014, the District of Columbia released a report about how the system may have let Relisha down. It talked about the hiring of a former felon to work at a family shelter. You see it? It's right there, baby. Yeah, box number one. Officials delaying their mandatory reporting obligations. Also, botched. I didn't even give it that one. Okay, we'll put it on there. I know. And shelter staff failing to notice that Relisha had not been there for three weeks. Those checks, those bedroom checks. Despite the fact that her family was still there. The report made several recommendations for policy change in the future, but it concluded that none of the agencies involved should be blamed for Relisha's abduction.

Doesn't mean they can't be on the botched board. Yeah, 100%. Or at four. Yeah. Over the years, advocates have kept the pressure on by, holding vigils for Relisha, organizing volunteer search parties, talking to the press and working with private investigators. There were also Facebook groups and forums dedicated to Relisha's case, plus a call-in radio show with hundreds of listeners called The Finding Relisha Radio Show. But even with all of this attention, no new leads have surfaced since 2014. And there is one person who has been missing from all of these press appearances, and that is Shamika. She hasn't done any interviews since she appeared in one interview, and that was on the Steve Wilco show back in 2017.

There, Shamika spoke in front of a live audience, but she does not come off well in that interview. She refuses to take a polygraph test live on air, and she said she didn't believe that Tatum died by suicide, which was very confusing for the audience when she said that. Then she got into an argument with Steve Wilco's that. led to her being called a bad mom and then she gets kicked off the stage. After that, Shamika stayed away from the press. And according to her mother, Melissa, she instead focused on getting her high school diploma through an adult education program. Melissa has her own regrets about the case, but she has decided to forgive Shamika,

she says. In the wake of Relisha's disappearance, Shamika and her fiancé Antonio also did split up. Neither one of them got custody of Relisha's brothers. after a long battle, a judge ruled that the boys should stay in foster care. So, you know, the one thing that Melissa did warn Chameka about, unfortunately, did happen to her. Two of them recently gave interviews for the first time with their identities shielded, and they shared how they remembered Relisha as the loving Lil Mama, who always told them to bathe, eat healthy, do their homework, and get good grades,

and how they will never give up on finding their sister. Ashley and Melissa do still hope that Relisha is alive somewhere, and if she is, she would be 21 years old this year. And that kind of brings us to these loose ends and theories. A lot of theories as to what happened, I mean, aside from Khalil Tatum, there's never been any other suspects that have been named publicly in this case. So pretty much everyone agrees that Khalil had something to do with her disappearance. I mean, I don't know how you could say he isn't connected. The video, when you watch the video of him leading her down this hotel hallway, it's insane how casual it looks. And I remember in one of the interviews I saw on the news sources, one of the front desk workers was like, if I would have known she didn't belong there, I would have called.

But it's like you couldn't tell. It's like this looked like it was a dad and its daughter. That's how comfortable they were. And so I'm like, I have no doubt in my mind that he brought her to this hotel again. And it's just beyond baffling. And I know a lot of people in this case also point to the family. And why didn't they report her missing and this and that? And again, I think there's a lot that goes into it.

I watched an interview with Derica Wilson, who is the co-founder and CEO of the Black and Missing Foundation. She just talks about how there is so much trauma and generational trauma. And when you look at what Shamika went through, it's, she wasn't acting normal, but, you know, maybe that trauma is a part of it. And it's really hard. I was really... Well, Derricka also has what she thinks happened. She thinks that Relisha was trafficked. Yeah.

Yeah, she did share that in the interview as well. Yeah. Which, you know, is not what the police believe happened. From what I read, the police, like the biggest theory now is just that Tatum probably killed her and hit her body and they'll never find her. and that's why like everything's cooled down. But there's people like Derricka who really believed that there was some sort of trafficking involved in this. Yeah. She could still be alive somewhere.

I know. She holds out a lot of hope. And I think it's, you know, just a powerful message to get out there about how vulnerable these young kids are, especially young girls in shelter situations and how much more advocacy and work needs to happen to make sure people have safe housing and resources. And it's all just so, so sad. And it also would have been maybe why Andrea was killed in all of this, that she found out what was happening, what Tatum was doing. Or she knew that Tatum killed Relisha and she was going to say something. And so before any of that came out, he killed her and killed himself. Her family has gone on the record and said they believe that she would have tried helping or stopping something bad from happening to Relisha.

Yeah, wow. And in regards to the trafficking, a lot of people, again, kind of turn it back to the family, like who would have trafficked her? Was it Tatum? Was it family? I know her stepdad posted some questionable things on Facebook that a lot of people had issue with money and things like that. Like he was posting images on Instagram of having a lot of money, even though people knew he was living in a shelter, right? A ton of cash, mostly $50 bills, brand new sneakers. And so people were like, where would he have gotten this money from if not for trafficking relisha is like the argument. I guess I've seen. And I will say there was one clip I saw

that really just has stuck with me throughout all my research on this. And an investigator was asking Antonio, like, after he had responded about like all the things in place that had failed relisha, the system, the police, everyone, everyone failed relisha. And the journalist, the interviewer was like, well, what do you say to people who say, look at the family? What about the family? And he's like, what about the family? I'm not her family. Yeah. I have kids with her mom, but I'm not her family.

And so I think when people started seeing that reaction from him, that disconnect of like, no, no, she's not my daughter. I think a lot of people were like, whoa, okay, like, this is not, this isn't good. And then that's also the interview where they ask him what his relationship with Relisha was like. It doesn't give you a parent that is deeply concerned. connected to their child. Yeah. It's an interesting response.

Again, everyone deals with grief and tragedy and trauma so differently. And some of the responses are not what we would expect, but it just felt odd, disconnected from the little girl that deserved so much better and so much more protection. Again, when looking at the family, a lot of people still wonder, what does Shamika actually know? I mean, they point to that appearance she made on the Steve Wilco's show and how it really, you really turned against her. Again, Derricka from the Black and Missing Foundation does come up,

and she says that after looking at Shamika and Antonio's socials, again, the money that was posted and the new shoes and this and that, she did say that it looked like Shamika and Antonio were celebrating a windfall. Those posts are now gone, and it's also possible, based on the evidence that Shamika just didn't know what she was getting into. There's some redditors that point to maybe she did have good intentions and just wanted her daughter to get out of the shelter and get the nice things and get the presence and stuff like that. It did appear that after Relisha went missing, like everything blew up for her. Her family is calling

her out in the news being like, why are you telling so many different stories? Where's Relisha? So even from the jump, her family seemingly split very quickly and was questioning Shameka's intentions. But there are so many other loose ends. I mean, if you go dive down the red it rabbit hole on this one. There's many other theories and things like that. So if you have any that we didn't get to or that you want to highlight, put it in the comments. We read all of those. But otherwise, let's get into some activism. One of the foundations that we talked about a lot in this episode is Black and Missing. And you can actually donate to them if this episode affected you. Like, I know it affected us. You can check them out at black and missing.inc.com. And actually,

they're still accepting tips on Relicious Disappearance. So you can reach them if you know anything at Black and Missingink.com backslash tipline. The FBI is still offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to her return. And you can also reach out to MPD with any tips at 202-727-9099 or text your tip to 5-0-4-11. And actually also before we end the episode, we wanted to take a moment to to remember that there is a second victim in this case. It's Andrea Tatum. Her death isn't a mystery, but it also has not gotten a lot of attention because it's kind of wrapped up in this larger true crime case. She was a mother, she was a grandmother, she was a beloved friend, and she was also a sobriety advocate. She was a frequent volunteer and a devoted member of Narcotics Anonymous.

We'll never exactly know what motivated the murder suicide that took her life, but her loss did leave a giving hole in the community alongside that of Relisha Red. And with that, let's talk about our missing child that we want to spotlight this week. The missing person we want to highlight this week is coming from the Black and Missing Foundation. Her name is Jordan Allen. She's been missing since October 28, 2023 from the Washington, D.C. area. She's described as female, black, medium complexion, 5-1, 150 pounds. She has brown eyes and had short hair at the time.

Jordan was last seen in the 1400 block of 3rd Street, Southwest. The circumstances surrounding her disappearance are unknown. Jordan would be age 16 currently. If you have any information, please contact the Metropolitan Police Department at 202-727-9099. Or you can contact the Black and Missing Foundation Incorporated at 877-97-B-A-M-F-I. Or visit www.bamfi.org. And that is all we have for this episode of Clues. Please let us know any theories you have in the comments, what you ended up with on your botched board.

We got up to four. And it does feel like investigators really put out efforts. I know Relisha's case did spark change in how the D.C. area reported on missing children. They actually started reporting on them. Yeah. And so that has led to some change within the D.C. area. but there's a lot of kids out there. I mean, we just shared one for a missing person of the week, also from D.C.

Yeah, yeah. It's really, really heartbreaking. But, yeah, now we turn it over to you guys. Your thoughts, theories, feedback, all that helps make this community so special. At Crime House, we really value your support. So again, share thoughts on socials. Remember to rate review, subscribe. And subscribe.

And follow clues to help others discover our show. Thank you guys. Bye, guys.