Relisha Rudd

Case background and investigation

Relisha Tenau Rudd was an eight-year-old girl living with her mother, Shamika Young, and younger siblings at the D.C. General Family Shelter, a large homeless shelter in Washington, D.C. At the shelter she came into contact with Kahlil Malik Tatum, a 51-year-old janitor employed by the facility's contractor. Tatum, who had a lengthy criminal record, cultivated a relationship with the family, buying the children gifts and presenting himself as a trusted figure.

In late February and early March 2014, Tatum removed Relisha from the shelter. He was captured on surveillance footage at a Days Inn hotel in Washington with the girl on March 1, 2014, which became the last confirmed sighting of Relisha. Critically, her prolonged absence went unreported for weeks; school officials had been given a doctor's note supposedly excusing her absences, and it was not until mid-March that authorities realized she was missing and that the note was fraudulent.

As the investigation unfolded, the case turned tragic. On March 20, 2014, Tatum's wife, Andrea Tatum, was found shot to death in a motel in Oxon Hill, Prince George's County, Maryland. A massive manhunt for Kahlil Tatum followed. On March 31, 2014, his body was discovered in a shed at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in Washington; he had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound from the same weapon used to kill his wife.

Police had earlier documented Tatum purchasing a shovel, lime, and large trash bags, and investigators came to believe he had killed Relisha. Extensive searches of parks and other locations, however, failed to recover her remains. With Tatum dead, the one person who could explain what happened to the girl was gone, and the case stalled.

Relisha Rudd's disappearance prompted widespread scrutiny of conditions at the D.C. General shelter and of the systems meant to protect vulnerable children. In the years since, advocates in Washington have marked a 'Relisha Rudd Remembrance Day,' and police have periodically renewed appeals for information. Although authorities believe she is dead, her body has never been found and the case is officially unsolved, leaving her fate formally unresolved.