True Crime with Kendall Rae - Eight Year Old Vanished? What Happened to Relisha Rudd?

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Relisha Rudd was an 8-year-old girl living with her mother at a homeless shelter, when she disappeared one day. Many theorize that the janitor at the shelter – who had a felony record for burglary, larceny, and breaking and entering, and had been spending a lot of time with Relisha alone – kidnapped her. Black & Missing Foundation: http://www.blackandmissinginc.com/cda...  The Homeless Children’s Playhouse: https://playtimeproject.org/donate/ Donate to NCMEC through my campaign!  https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/kendall-rae/c438796 Shop my charity merch! https://milehighermerch.com/  All profits from this charity merch will be donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: https://www.missingkids.org/  This episode is sponsored by: Earth Breeze Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

Have you noticed that most ice cream is now common smaller cartons? Not blue bell. Blue bell takes pride in providing our customers with full half gallons and full points of our delicious ice cream. We would never want to deny any one of all the rich and creamy goodness found in every carton. Blue bell wouldn't have it any other way. Hey guys and welcome back to my channel. So today we are going to be talking about a case that involves a child and that's always really hard to do. I'm also just really emotionally fragile today to be honest because the boulder shooting just happened

last night when I'm filming this and I live very close to boulder. I've lived in Colorado pretty much my whole life and I am really hard broken right now so I'm just feeling down in general and this case is pretty heavy but I still wanted to get on here and talk about it this week because I was looking forward to covering it this week I think this case is extremely undercovered and there's definitely a possibility that it could be solved. So today we're gonna be talking about Relisha Red. She was born October 29th, 2005 in Washington, DC. R-E-U-R-S-H. She's described as a playful, loving kid with a huge personality. And she was also known for being really smart. And she loved school. All of her teachers said that she was one of their favorite students, that she was always willing to challenge herself. She was also always smiling and was a joy to have in their class.

She was also in Girl Scouts and she was a cheerleader and she did some other after-school programs, pretty much anything she could to fill her time away from her home life. Relisha was known to be a very creative kid. She loved colors, especially pink and purple. And like many little girls, she had dreams of being a model or a singer one day. And I feel like maybe she really could have made it. I mean, she was stunningly beautiful. But like I said, she had a really hard home life.

She was caught in the cycle of abuse, generations of abuse. She had experienced neglect in her family. Her family has also, for generations, been a victim of systematic poverty and it seemed like they were constantly thawing through the cracks, especially relisha. This is her mom, Shemikiaan, and she grew up living in shelters herself and had a very very rough and unstable childhood. She under the foster care system when she was six years old and she stayed in it until she was 18 and had a lot of ups and downs while she was in the system. And then she had relisha about a year later with a man named Irving Rudd. Now not much is known about Irving, but we do know that in 1992 he was convicted of involuntary

manslaughter for the death of his 17-month-old daughter. He was sentenced to only 15 years for that, and then he got out in 2002, and he has not been arrested since, at least that I found. And Rolisha is not their only child, Irving and Shamika also have another son. He is older than Rolisha and in 2012 Irving actually tried to get custody of both of them, but that was denied and he was only given visitation rights. By the time that Rolisha was eight, the main father figure you could say in her life was her stepfather Antonio Wheeler and he actually fathered two of Relish's younger brothers. And Antonio had also experienced unstable housing when he was growing up, and he had remembered his family being evicted.

They were all ending on Brandy Wine Street at the time in South East DC, when they were evicted in 2012. That year, there were over 30,000 filings for evictions in the Congress Heights neighborhood in DC. This was the fifth time that Jamaica had to go to tenant court and the third time that she and her kids were evicted. She just simply did not have the money to pay rent, so their families started staying at motels, but most of the time they had to go to homeless shelters. Whenever they did have some type of permanent residence or somewhere that they were staying, it was normally in a really dangerous area and relisha was scared to go outside. So one thing you guys should know before we go forward is that

the Children and Family Services Agency, NDC, has been involved with their family for quite a while, specifically with relisha. They have had a case going for her and been keeping an eye on her since she was about two years old. And mainly because she had unexplained injuries that a toddler should not have. In fact, the social worker that was on her case at the time specifically noted that she had

great concern for Rolisha, but since there was no proof of any abuse happening, nothing was ever done. And she fell through the cracks once again. There are other reports of neglect and abuse that Shemikas kids were experiencing, and the police were called at least twice. So after their last eviction, they stayed with Shamika's sister Ashley for a little while. But she was getting a government housing subsidy, so she couldn't let them stay with her too long, but it was kind of a temporary fix. At this time, Shamika was in her late 20s, and she has four kids, and her sister has no

choice but to have them move out of her house. She can't have them there forever, So they had to move into a homeless shelter and one that was known for being a very sketchy place. Her and the four kids moved into the DC General Family Shelter in the summer of 2013. Now this place was pretty gnarly. It was the largest shelter in the district and it's run out of e-former hospital and it's just not well maintained at all. And there's tons of people staying in it. They house hundreds of families and up to 600 kids at a time.

And obviously it is not an ideal place for any child to grow up. I mean, this place was bad. They had rats, cockroaches, bed bugs, everywhere was infested with lice. Residents have claimed to find raccoons, living in closets, and things like that. The heat constantly goes out because it's an older building, and sometimes it's freezing temperatures. And it's across the street from a morgue and a methadone clinic. So definitely not the best place for Rolisha and her siblings to be.

Now there are all types of allegations of things that have happened at that specific shelter and shelters all over the country, but specifically there are all types of allegations of drug deals and sexual assaults happening at this specific shelter. But I guess there were some good rules put in place. One of them being these nightly room checks that they did. Every night they would go around to all the rooms and check

how many people were in each room and make sure people were where they were supposed to be, et cetera, et cetera. Good policy to have, right? So a delicious family shared a whole room with another family and their kids as well. So it was quite crowded. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we have to have these massive, ugly, wasteful plastic jugs to hold our laundry detergent. No one wants them. They're inconvenient awkward, heavy, and filled with this messy goo. And it's up to 90% water, which is such a scam. I mean, our washing machines already use water, so why should we pay more for it?

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So summer of 2013 they kind of went back and forth between the shelter and Ashley's house because it was pretty rough at the shelter and they hated being there So they tried to spend as much time away as they could and and sometimes Rolisha would just go hang out over at Ashley's house. That fault, Rolisha was a second griter at Faribi Hope Elementary School, and people that worked directly with Rolisha at school knew that there was a lot going on in her home life, because she came to school unwashed, normally hungry, and typically wearing dirty clothes. And she often seemed tired and never wanted to go back to the shelter or even back home.

This quickly became something that her teachers knew about her. And luckily she had good teachers that helped her out. They gave her clothes, food, made sure that she got clean. Her teachers there really loved and cared about her and they were concerned. At this point, Rolisha is just eight years old and she's already experienced so much in her young life. So she was mature for her age, but inside she was still a little girl. She's still stuffed with her little teddy bear name baby every night So one person that really took relisha under her wing at this point was her cheerleading coach

Shannon Smith She often was the one bathing her doing her hair and if relisha ever didn't show up to school Which happened sometimes she would call her mom and make sure that she was okay It was pretty obvious to the teachers that there was a serious lack of care for Rolisha at home by people who were supposed to be taking care of her. One time a teacher came back from some type of event that they had away from the school and it was way past school hours and she found Rolisha and her brother sitting outside the school way after the school had closed. They told her that their mom never had come to pick them up.

So she offered to give them a ride home and they called Shemika for their address and she refused to give it to them and then hung up. And later after this, her mother called the school and clarified to them that if she ever doesn't pick them up, it's fine for them to just walk home. And later that same night, another teacher claimed to see both of the kids outside of a laundry mat really late. And she called the police and the police had to come pick them up. But there is no proof that this happened and the family denies that this actually happened. But there are a few

reports of neglect on Shemika by the school. One social worker noted that there was a lack of supervision going on and abuse. And this was mainly due to an injury that her brother came to school with where he, according to him, said he was thrown down and beaten and they made his lip bleed and he came to school a total mess. And the police investigated but no charges were ever filed. And the family denies all of this even happened. Now, like I said, Ralecia did not like to go home, especially not to the shelter. That was one thing that was for sure is she absolutely hated the shelter and she called it the trap house. So that tells you a lot about what was going on there. So she would always try to find ways to stay late at school. If there

wasn't some program going on, she would literally ask the teachers to stay late and like help them out or hang out with them. Sometimes a security guard would find her just wandering around the school like outside and inside for hours. And she would always ask if she could please just stay longer at the school. It's so sad. She spent a lot of her time at this one after school program called the Homeless Children's Playtime Project, which I will link below if you guys would like to donate. And this really helped her out. They did all kinds of activities. They made art projects put on plays. They did singing and dancing, and they just got to play, hang out, and be with other kids. Not only did Rolisha participate in all of it, she also would go early and help set up.

She would help clean up. She was as helpful of a kid as you could be. She also would try to stay longer at her auntie's house, Ashley's, and sometimes she'd actually pretend she was sick so that Ashley would feel bad and let her stay at the house, one time she even faked an asthma attack to stay at the house longer. She would also beg to go to her grandmother's house, her grandmother had a cat there that she loved, and her aunt Ashley still saw them, you know, every other week or so and remained active in their lives. But over time she said she started to see Rolisha less and less. But one day Rolisha was over at her house and a man called Ashley didn't even know who this guy was

but he said that he was coming to pick up Rolisha. He said he was literally on his way that he already had the address and this freaked Ashley out. She demanded to know how he got her name, number, and her address. But he was kind of weird about it. So she hung up and called Shamika. She said, if this was even a legitimate thing, and Shamika said, yeah, it is. She said, this was Rolisha's Godfather. She said it was totally fine for him to pick her up. She said his name is Khalil Tatum and he's a good man. So actually was definitely concerned, but she trusted that Shemika wanted what was best for her daughter and maybe this was a way for her to spend even more time away from the shelter. So she let her go with him. Now her grandmother,

Melissa, was not wild about this guy at first and she thought it was strange for Rolisha to be spending alone time with him. What the fuck? But she too assumed that Shemika was a good mom and knew what she was doing here. And eventually every time she said she grew to like this guy. Eventually she really trusted Khalil with Rolisha. My daughter says, Ma'am, that's Mr. Tatum. You know, I say, but it's not going to look like

for your daughter to go. She said, Ma'am, he goes, she go on to play with the grand daughter. It's fine. Every time my granddaughter comes back, she tells me, I have fun with Mr. Tatum's grand daughter, you know. I want to go back. So it was a strange for us to see that somebody was doing something,

you know, in their time and need. And the more Tatum did, the more the family trusted him. I've been around this man. Like if he is getting off from work and he's coming down on his way home and he's seen me walking, he will pick me up and give me a ride. So I have been in this lands car by myself and I didn't get no uncomfortable feeling. And he seemed to really like Raleisha. He would bring her all these gifts, one of them being a Kindle Fire tablet,

which was a pretty nice gift for a kid. And not only that, he also got her tickets to Disney on Ice, which was a big deal. He took her out to the movies all the time, to the mall, to parks, took her to get her nails done. You would buy her new clothes by her food. So of course, she liked him.

She was happy to be spending time away from the shelter and no one seemed to think it was odd that this grown man who was not related to their family at all was hanging out with her by himself and buying her all these gifts and not doing this at all with her brothers, only her. Chimica even started letting Rolisha sleep over at this guy's grandmother's house. And it wasn't long before she started okaying full weekends for her to go stay with him.

And like I said, her siblings never went. It was just her and him. And during these times that she would go over for the weekend at his grandmother's house, Shemika never even met this grandmother. She just trusted him. She said she thought he was a good man. Trusted that she would be okay. So going into 2014, Relisha starts missing a lot of school. By early spring, she had already missed 30 days, which is very concerning. But a lot of these were actually marked as excused absences,

because Shamika actually told the school that Relisha was currently under the care of this doctor, named Dr. Tatum. Kind of confusing, hang with me, I promise, I'll explain this all. But by March of 2014, Rolisha had five unexcused absences marked down. So even more than that, but five unexcused. And so a teacher ended up scheduling a meeting with Shemika just to figure out what was going on, why isn't your kid coming to school?

They also said, why don't you bring this Dr. Tatum with you because He is taking all this care of relisha. It would be great if we all kind of touched base But when it came kind for the meeting this Dr. Tatum was nowhere to be found Shameka went alone with a note from Dr. Tatum It had his contact information. She said give him a call and he'll explain everything Now this is where it starts to get really confusing. This timeline is definitely dicey. But there are reports that Relisha was at school on March 5th, 2014.

But this can't be confirmed and she may have picked up her other younger brothers at their school in March 7th, but Relisha was absent that day. Her brothers though still had not missed any days. So on Monday, March 10th, the school officials decided to give this doctor Tatum a call. He then explained that he was treating her for a neurological condition, but he said that her treatment was wrapping up and she would be done by the end of the week. So they asked him to provide some documentation for them to excuse these absences. He said, okay, and

then when they got off the phone, he of course sent nothing over and nothing came for days. So by March 13th, she had her 10th unexcused absence and teachers were really starting to get worried. When you download the Kroger app, you have easy access to savings every day. Shop weekly sales and get personalized coupons to get the most value out of every trip every time, whether you shop in-store or online. Download the Croger app now to save big. Croger, fresh for everyone, must have a digital account to redeem offers.

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But you're not going to quit on yourself today. You in, start a body block today. Visit body.com for a free trial. That's B-O-D-I-D-C-O. for a free trial. That's B-O-D-I dot com. So at that point, the school was required by law to report the case of educational neglect to the CFSA. And this was considered a low priority case for them. So a social worker didn't reach out to Dr. Tatum until March 19th. And he actually agreed to meet up in person

with the social worker, but when time came to do that, he did not show. So the social worker went over to the shelter where religious family was staying to check things out. And it was then that she asked if anyone knew who this Dr. Tatum person was. And they said of the only Tatum that they know of there was Khalil Tatum who was a 51 year old janitor at the shelter. That's right. This guy

that Shamika had said was delicious grand or godfather was actually this janitor from the shelter who had been clearly grooming and praying on relisha and it seemed like shimika was just letting it happen so they told the social worker that this janitor had actually worked there that day and that he hadn't missed any recent shifts but he wasn't there at that time he had left early for the day so the social worker put everything together pretty quickly of what had happened here most likely and reported it right away. She called a child abuse hotline and reported everything

to the police. So the police brought Chimie Jann and they questioned her and she continued to refer to this janitor Khalil Tatum as Dr Tatum. She explained that on March 8th, Rolisha had been with the doctor at a medical conference in Atlanta, and she didn't know when they were coming back, but that she talked to Rolisha on March 17th, just a few days earlier, and she insisted that she thought her daughter was safe with Dr. Tatum. She said before that, Rolisha was staying with her grandmother, and she also didn't have a cell phone that was working at the time, so she hadn't talked to her daughter in weeks. She said that March 17th at the time so she hadn't talked to her daughter in weeks.

She said that March 17th was the first time that she had talked to Rolisha on the phone in about three weeks. So they tried to call Khalil's cell phone, but it went straight to Boyce Mail, of course. So the police officially filed a missing person's report for Rolisha Red. And when the investigation started right away, it was a lot of finger pointing and blame going on between the family members and a lot of Disacremants about timeline and what had happened. The police went over to Melissa's house, her grandmother, and they interviewed her, and she said that she was supposed to pick up Relisha that night. And when they told her Relisha was missing, she said, no, she's not missing. And it turns out she knew about Cleal Tatum. She said, she's with this guy Khalil, Dr. Tatum. She's with him, everything's fine. And she claimed that she and Ashley

had both talked to her that morning. And she also said that Ralisha was not with Shemika during the times that she claimed that she was and sort of kind of turning on her. And she started blaming Shemika for letting her go alone with this guy Tatum. But then Shemika is saying something completely different and at one point she actually blamed Melissa for writing some of the doctor's notes from Tatum. She started claiming that

Melissa was involved in her daughter's disappearance. But one of the first things that investigators did was clear up this whole neurological condition thing. They found out that Rolisha had no reason to be under any type of medical care in this condition was made up. Then they looked into Kaleel's background, and it's not good. He had a felony record for burglary, larceny, and breaking and entering, and he was also imprisoned from 1993 to 2003, and then again from 2004 to 2011 and it turns out this guy had a history of hanging out with young girls at the shelter, but apparently a lot of the residents really liked him

He was one of those types of people who comes across as We're really charming and that's the type of people that are sometimes Predators it turned out that a lot of people called him Godfather in the shelter. A lot of teenagers, a lot of young girls, very odd. Now if you remember, the shelter has this policy that employees should not be socializing with residents. Looks like they weren't following it very well, huh? It turns out Khalil was never disciplined, even though many people knew that he was doing this

and socializing quite a bit with many kids. It was a well-numb thing, no one did anything. And the shelter wasn't much help in the investigation because it turns out that there are other policy where they go around into a head count at night. Yeah, that was not happening really either because what they would do, it's just walk around, take a quick peek in,

normally they wouldn't even look in, they would knock on the door, someone would answer and say, yeah, there's three of us in here, there's six of us in there, whatever, and they would just write it down and move on. They weren't going around and verifying and actually doing a head count. So they had no idea and no record. That relisha had not been there in three weeks. And there are rules at home shelters and at this one that you cannot just come and go as you please and use this as your apartment. You have to stay the night every night. So with no good record keeping at the shelter and her family disagreeing on what actually happened, the police were pretty stuck. So they started looking at surveillance footage for clues. And they

started narrowing down that they believed that she was taken on February 25th. She had my school this day and it was her fifth unexcuted absence. On February 26th, there's surveillance footage that shows Rolisha with Khalil at a holiday in Express on Baldensburg, road in northeast DC. And the last confirmed sighting of Rolisha was on March 1st, according to her aunt, Rolisha and her brothers spent the morning at her house. Ashley claims that that morning she did their hair

with pink and white bows, and she thought everything was fine, that they were going to just be going to school like a normal day, but that day, Rolisha said that she was not feeling well, so she ended up calling Shemika instead and saying that she needed to come pick her up, because she wasn't gonna send her to school like that. And then later that day, Rolisha and Khalil are seen at a days in on New York Avenue in DC. And then that day, Shemika posted an Instagram video of Rolisha on her account. And then the next day, March 2nd,

Khalil is seen on surveillance footage in a hardware store. And he's buying 42 gallon size contractor trash bags, a shovel, and a bag of lime. Which I'm sure most of you know, the smell of lime is often used to help cover up the smell of human remains. So it's pretty obvious what he was doing with all that stuff. That same day he was seen in Canilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in North East DC. And the police searched that whole area looking for any signs of Khalil or Rilisha. Then on the evening of March 19th, the same day that Khalil had left work early, he checked into a red roof in in Oxen Hill, Maryland, which is close to DC. Now he went into this room with four people, none of these people being relish, and then lasted an hour later, three people left the room.

Then Surveillance footage showed him and his wife going into that room later that night, and her name is Andrea Kelly Tatum. She was 51 years old. And the next morning, her body was discovered in that hotel room, lying on the bed with a single gunshot wound to the head. Investigators believe that she was either killed that night when they first went into the room or early that morning. So as soon as they realized that this was Khalil Tatum's wife, they issued a blow

for him and his vehicle, which if you don't know what that means, it is beat on the lookout. And because they also believed Relesha was definitely in danger, they issued an amber alert for her as well in Washington, D.C. on March 20th. Khalil was then formally charged with murder on March 21st and they found out he was also wanted on some other charges of

Car theft. Now it turns out Khalil and Andrea had been married for 24 years and he shot her in the head. So that tells you what he's willing to possibly do to Rolisha. And when they talked to Andrew's daughter she said that the two of them were having all typed marital issues and Andrew's daughter, she said that the two of them were having all typed marital issues, and Andrew was about to leave him. But according to court records, it showed that Khalil actually filed for separation on February 7th. So investigators got a search warrant of his home. Inside, they found two passports, multiple cell phones, a photo of Relisha, and some children's clothes and shoes. They also confiscated his iPad and some papers from his office at work. However, none of that information has been made available to the public. When they searched his truck,

there was no evidence found in it at all and no evidence of any type of violent attack or struggle happening inside the truck. By late March the FBI had joined the investigation and digital billboards were being put up all along the east coast from Georgia to Maryland with photos of relisha and keleel. And then on March 31st, police found a body. And it was a man. It was keleel datum. He was found inside of some random shed and he was found with a single gunshot wound to the head. We have not confirmed what the cause of that is, although we will say that it looks like it likely is a suicide. And they found out that the gun that he used was the same gun that he used to kill Andrea. So police obviously decided that they needed to do a full extensive search of that park because maybe there was some reason that he killed himself there.

Maybe he had buried relisha there. So they looked all over. They had detectives, volunteers, dive teams, but they found nothing. The search was suspended on April 3rd, and the search effort actually switched to a recovery mission, which means that they were looking for a body at that point. Because it was pretty obvious that Khalil was the one who did it. Most people believe that Ralisha was probably murdered by Khalil and that he killed himself to avoid charges from that and from Andrea and maybe Andrea knew something. But her family really tried to hold out hope that maybe she was still alive. I still believe that baby girl is a laugh. I might have not had her, but that's my baby, that's my heart, and I want her home.

The family also released these photos of an outfit that Khalil had bought relisha in November of 2013 for her to wear that Easter. And they hope that someone might recognize the clothes which could be inside a Burlington coat factory bag. And then in December of 2018, someone that tipped off investigators that there was this secret tunnel system

through the homeless shelter that relishes family status. And it's true. Turns out that there's all these service tunnels that creepy dingy tunnels throughout the shelter that can be accessed by staff that was built originally when it was the hospital. Antonio also spoke with the media and hope that relisha could still

a life. Every time they look nothing. So like, what de my own. So I owe it to my and I owe it to her. And of course the media has tried tracking down Jamaica for a comment, but they have been unable to do so. So let's talk about possible theories of what could have happened here, because chances are relish is not with us any longer. So one of the bigger theories here is that Relisha was a victim of human trafficking. On March 8th before Relisha was reported missing, Antonio actually posted a various suspicious photo to Facebook,

and it shows a pile of $50 bills, and a brand new pair of Air Jordan sneakers that were allegedly for Relisha's brothers. And this led to a theory online that Shemika and Antonium may have sold relishas into human trafficking. And she is definitely high risk to be trafficked. 40% of minors in the United States that are trafficked are black. And the most common age for young girls to be trafficked is 8 to 12 years old. So it's possible that Khalil was involved in trafficking, relisha, and maybe Shamika knew about it, maybe she didn't. There are reports that Andrea Khalil's wife may have known that he was involved in trafficking, and that's

why he killed her. Which would make a lot of sense, right? Remember how Khalil was seen at the Red Roof Inn with four people? Only one of those people has been even identified and been able to provide an alibi. So those other unidentified people could easily be involved in delicious disappearance. And it was revealed that at one point, one of these people came back to the hotel room

that they were staying in and tried to get in, but no one let get in, but no and let them in so we just left. So not much is known about Shemika as of now, and her mental state or what she may or may not have known. But it should be noted that when she was young she was diagnosed with a mild mental disability, and she also lived in a psychiatric facility for a brief amount of time. And there are also quite a few reports that she had a pretty bad drug addiction and that is why the kids were on their own so often, why they were neglected a lot at the time. And then in 2017, the case got some attention because Melissa and Tony out and Shimmyke were

all on the Steve Wilcoe show. And if you don't know about that show, I don't know much about it either. I know it's similar to Mari, um, lie detector tests. Are you father, that kind of stuff? Family disputes? Really good quality content. Anyway, they went on there and did some lie detector tests. Tony, you came here. you took a lie to tectotest. Did you participate in any way

in the disappearance of Relisha? You answered no. Have you ever had any sexual physical contact with Relisha? You answered no. Did you ever strike any of your children leaving marks or bruises? You answered no.

The results came back to same teach and every question and they came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back to same teacher and every question, and they came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back to same teacher and every question, and they came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back to same teacher and every question, and they came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back to same teacher and every question,

and they came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth.

The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. The results came back that Antonio told the truth. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

You get you to this game too. Melissa, you took a lie detector test, and we asked you, did you participate in any way in the disappearance of your granddaughter? You answered no. Did you give your granddaughter to Khalil Tatum around the time of her disappearance? You answered no, and the results came back

that you, Melissa, told the truth. I talked to the police day to day, and I'm not. They don't never discuss me. They discuss other people. But as you can see, according to the lie detector test for Antonio and Melissa, they were both found to be telling the truth that they had nothing to do with the religious disappearance. However, Shamika refused to take the test. A lot of people find this very suspicious.

Now some people for some reason get annoyed when I say this, but it is important to remember that a lot of the times lie detector tests don't mean much anyway in a court of law as in they won't hold up very well. So it doesn't necessarily tell us everything, but I think the fact that she decided not to take one tells us a lot. So clearly so many people failed for Lysha here so many adults in her life and also the system. This case was handled poorly by the shelter, by the school, by children and family services agency in DC and by the police. This wasn't treated with nearly enough urgency. If any of those agencies would have intervened a little bit earlier, it's possible that Relesha might still be here today. On April 8th 2014 DC Mayor Vincent Gray announced an investigation into the city's response into her disappearance and it examined how each of these agencies failed Relesha, but it ultimately

concluded that no justifiable government actions would have prevented Relesha's tragic disappearance, which a lot of people argue with that. It did confirm that other staff members knew that Colliel had this bizarre relationship with multiple girls and how serious it was getting with Rolisha. People that were working there clearly knew

something wasn't right with that and they also just knew that it was against the policies and nothing was done. The police were also criticized for not issuing an amber alert very far. It was only issued in DC and it should have also gone to Virginia and Maryland DCs so small and she could have been moved out of there so quickly. And there's also been a lot of criticism at the media. Obviously this was covered by local news, but this was never picked up nationally. Just as many people should know about Relisha, as know about John Bade Ramsey and Kaley Anthony, but a lot of people don't. Way less people know about this case.

And what's so unfortunate about this is that young black girls are then targeted more because traffickers know that they're not going to get as much attention from the police and the media. They know that kidnapping girls of color is their best chance of not getting caught. The DC City Council decided that they were going to close the shelter down in 2018 and then replace it with six smaller shelters. However, it wasn't closed until 2019 and these new shelters have never been opened.

And it seems like the school that Relisha went to has also closed down. The local community and DC has remained very vigilant about this case. They definitely aren't giving up hope that this will be solved one day. And in private investigator and founder of DC's missing voice, Henderson

Long has actually been working with the police pro bono since relisha went missing, which is amazing. Luckily, the DC City Council also did pass relisha roads law, which makes it a crime for parents to not report their children missing under the age of 12 within 24 hours, or to report a 13 to 18 year old missing within 48 hours. In 2017, the DC police named July 11th National Relish of Roode, remember in stay, and March 1st is recognized as the Relish of Roode Awareness Day. But to this day, there are no answers, and Relish's body has never been found. The search is still ongoing for her to this day. The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward to anyone who can provide information that actually leads to finding relisha.

Also any information can be shared with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-The Lost or Anonymous Tips can be submitted to the Black and Missing Foundation, which will be linked below. I think it's pretty obvious what happened here and how many people are truly at fault here. I'm just so heartbroken for a relisha thinking about what she could have been, what she could have done with her life

to help serve her community or go on to actually be a model, the way that she wanted to be. She totally could have been when she's stunning. It's just tragic and it's so sad when there are so many people who miss the signs, miss the red flags, or allow them to happen knowing what's going on. I mean, it's just truly a heartbreaking case. That is going to be it for me today, guys.

Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendal Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. When you download the Croger app, you have easy access to savings every day.

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