Relisha Rudd Re-release

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2:00My name is Sarah Turney and this is Voices for Justice.

2:10Today, I am discussing the case of Relisha Rudd. Relisha was only 8 years old when she went missing from Washington, D.C. in 2014. Unfortunately, by the time that she was reported missing, her family hadn't seen her in 18 days. It wasn't until her school began to investigate her absences that they discovered that she was having an inappropriate relationship with an adult male. Relisha has never been found. This story was brought to my attention by several of my followers on TikTok. They told me that I absolutely had to cover this case, and after reading about it, I knew they were right. Her story breaks my heart.

2:47She was let down by almost every single adult in her life that should have been taking care of her. As you can imagine, that really hits close to home for me. But I want to be there for Relisha now, in the only way that I know how, which is by raising awareness for her. Before we jump in, I also have to give a major shout out to the Washington Post who covered Relisha's story extensively. I have over four pages of resources for this episode, and a ton of them come from the Washington Post, so I just wanted to give credit where credit is due. But without further introduction, this is the story of Relisha Rudd.

3:24Relisha was born on October 29, 2005 in Washington, D.C. She was born to her parents Shamika Young and Irving Rudd. I want to take a moment and give you some background on Relisha's parents. Her mother Shamika spent a lot of time in homeless shelters growing up, and she entered the foster care system at the age of six. Shamika's mother Melissa would come in and out of her life throughout the years, but ultimately, she would age out of the system when she turned 18. About a year later, Relisha was born. I wasn't able to find a ton about how Relisha's father grew up. However, I was able to find that he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter of his 17-month-old daughter in 1992.

4:08Apparently, she'd been beaten and thrown against a table. She later died from her injuries. After Relisha was born, Shamika and Irving moved into an apartment complex in a pretty seedy neighborhood in Edgewood. Here, they would have another child together, a boy. In July of 2007, when Relisha was only one, the first report from Child and Family Services came in. Relisha had some very apparent injuries on her body. They also reported that there was inadequate food and supervision for Relisha and her newborn baby brother. The police were contacted, but it was determined that no assault could be confirmed and no children were removed from the home.

4:47That same year, Shamika and Irving moved out of the apartment complex after someone started shooting and injured seven people in total. Eventually, Relisha's parents end their relationship together, and Shamika would meet Relisha's future stepfather, Antonio Wheeler. They would go on to have two more boys together, giving Relisha a total of three younger brothers. Unfortunately, the alleged abuse and neglect didn't stop with Relisha's biological father being out of the picture. In April of 2010, there was another report made to Child and Family Services. In the report, it was alleged that one of Relish's younger brothers was not getting the required medical attention he needed after a surgery.

5:29The report also mentioned that the family was living in, quote, environmentally unsafe conditions. It noted that there was debris and cigarette butts all over the apartment, and that the children were bathing themselves without supervision. Again, none of the children were removed from their care. The family bounced between many different apartments during this time, often getting evicted. In the end, at least five of Shamika's former landlords would try to take legal action against her for breaking tenant contracts. Eventually, the family would end up at a motel for about three months before going to the DC General Shelter in 2012.

6:07Before I tell you more about Relisha, I want to explain what type of place this shelter was. First, the D.C. General Shelter was never supposed to permanently house anyone. The building was originally the D.C. General Hospital. After it shut down, they converted it into a temporary shelter to deal with the ever-growing issue of homeless families in the area. The shelter basically provided housing as well as other assistance to families it served. It wasn't a place where you just randomly checked in for the night and then left. These families were under the care of the shelter. They participated in programs to help them get back on their feet, and they had to be there every night.

6:46The shelter was funded by the city. They paid the non-profit organization, the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, or TCP for short,$13 million each year to run this makeshift shelter. So ultimately, all liability for this shelter lays in the hands of TCP. If you guys don't know, I used to work in non-profit, so I was super curious about what was going on with this funding. I used a website called charitynavigator.org to find more information. Basically, this website rates non-profits based on how much funding actually goes to programming, how transparent they are with reporting, and a ton of other factors.

7:27To be fair, TCP has an incredibly high rating on there right now with a perfect score of 100. But again, I just wanted to dig a little bit deeper. I was able to find that in 2013, the year before Relisha went missing, the charity made almost$100 million in total. That same year, their executive director was paid close to$200 ,000, and the deputy director and CFO each made about$100 ,000. Honestly, this isn't that crazy for non-profits. I've seen much higher salaries in organizations that pull in a lot less than$100 million a year. Of this close to$100 million that TCP made in 2013, about$2.5 million was left unspent.

8:13That is still an incredibly high percentage of their funding that goes directly towards programming. After all, most nonprofits strive to pad their savings a bit so that they have funding for programs should donations, grants, etc. decrease. These financials were not super shocking to me, but I think it puts things into context a little bit more, especially when you hear about the conditions of the shelter. On the 2013 financial statement I found, they list out a few shelters that they provided funding to, but the D.C. General Shelter wasn't on that list. So I'm assuming that this whole deal with the city is considered to be a separate contracted job.

8:53All of this to say that it looks like the charity most likely used only the$13 million given to them by the city and nothing more to fund the shelter. This relationship between TCP, the city, and the DC General Shelter looks and feels like, to me, just a contractual agreement as opposed to an actual charitable endeavor. I also have to say I'm not a lawyer. I haven't this contract, it's entirely possible that TCP was perhaps unable to allocate any more funds. I also acknowledge that it is extremely expensive to house families in a shelter and to provide them these resources. I tried to look up a definitive cost to house a family per year, but it was kind of all over the place.

9:35So I have to admit that it's entirely possible that the$13 million a year just wasn't enough to cover the needs of the about 800 people being housed there. But I also have to state that the conditions of this shelter were absolutely unacceptable. And ultimately, no one wanted to take responsibility for it, which is why I wanted to dig deeper into this relationship. Because lack of accountability will be a tragic theme that I believe led directly to Relisha's disappearance. The DC General Shelter was in this area where if you go one way, you have Lincoln Park and you have the Capitol, and if you go the other way, you'll find a methadone clinic, a morgue, and just run-down neighborhoods.

10:17The land itself is actually extremely valuable. But again, the conditions inside were nothing short of horrific. The building was absolutely infested with bugs and pests. There were bedbugs, mice, raccoons, and more. Close to 30 people were hospitalized just for bites. Not just treated, but actually hospitalized. Now, I've seen counter arguments to this saying that there's just a lot of people coming and going and that it's entirely possible that the residents are bringing these things with them at just a super high rate that is difficult for the shelter to handle. Again, I'm not an expert. Like I said, I don't know everything about this shelter, but I do have some personal experience in this area.

11:02I used to work for an organization that cared for hundreds of children in the foster care system here in Arizona. Part of my job was to read each and every incident report in the organization. These reports included everything from a child cursing to being abused to there being pest problems in the houses. Much like the DC General Shelter, these kids would come in and out of the foster care system on a daily basis. There were absolutely incidents involving pests. There were bedbugs, lice, and more. I understand that it just happens when you have so many people coming in and out, just like a hospital or hotel.

11:40But in my about two years with this organization, reading these reports every single day, I never saw a child or adult staff member be hospitalized due to a bite. So when I read that there were over 30 people hospitalized because of these bites at the D.C. General Shelter, I was pretty shocked. One couple reported that they had to sleep in shifts to ensure that cockroaches stayed off of their five-month-old baby. Multiple residents reported that the entire facility smelled like feces, and that there were trash and dirty diapers everywhere, inside and out. There were also several reports of sexual assault, shelter workers taking photos while residents were showering, money being exchanged between employees and residents for sex, tax scams, and even a child being taken and recovered a year later in LA as a possible victim of sex trafficking.

12:37So as you can imagine, 8-year-old Relisha Rudd didn't enjoy living in this facility. She would often call it the G or the trap house. It got to the point where she was known to ask her school security guard, Regina Pixley, if she could just stay at the school a little bit longer instead of going home to the shelter. She even faked asthma attacks so she could stay with her aunt Ashley Young instead of going to the shelter. It is extremely apparent that Relisha would have done anything to stay away, even if that meant being without her mother, stepfather, and brothers. Let's talk about Relisha. Despite her rough situation, she was by all accounts a good kid.

13:21She loved singing and dancing and still slept with her teddy bear named Baby. And like a lot of kids, she enjoyed dressing up as a princess for Halloween. Although her family moved a lot, she did attend Farabee Hope Elementary School from pre-K until first grade in 2013. Relisha was also very interested in after-school activities. She was in Girl Scouts, to which her grandmother Melissa would state that she ate more cookies than she sold, but she enjoyed it. Relisha was also in cheerleading, which is where she would receive the most support. Her cheerleading coach, Shannon Smith, remembers when she first met Relisha.

13:58She walked right up to her and asked to be on the team, and she started showing her how she'd been practicing spelling victory with her arms. Shannon Smith was very impressed that at the time a first grader was able to spell such a big word. Relisha was immediately accepted to the team. This is when Shannon Smith became very close with her. She noticed that she would often come to school with dirty clothes, dirty hair, and an empty stomach. Eventually, it became pretty routine for her to take Relisha to the restroom to clean her up before class, and to keep clean clothes on hand for her to wear at school.

14:33Shannon Smith also recalled some other incidents that disturbed her. There were several days where she noticed that Relisha and one of her younger brothers were among the last to be picked up by their parents. She also recalled a specific incident in which she was late returning from a field trip she'd chaperoned, only to find Relisha and her brother still at the school waiting to be picked up. So Shannon calls their mother and offers to give them a ride home, but Shamika refused to give the address of where they were staying, and she hung up on Shannon. Shamika then called the school directly and asked them to tell Relisha and her brother to walk home.

15:07Shannon Smith would tell the Washington Post, quote, all that girl wanted was to be hugged, end quote. Unfortunately, Farrah B. Hope Elementary School closed in June of 2013, so in the fall, Relisha would attend Payne Elementary School and essentially lose that support from Shannon Smith. Where Relisha lived and went to school wasn't in the best area. About half the kids lived in poverty, half the families couldn't afford a vehicle, and over 42 ,000 people were receiving government assistance. In addition to this, the unemployment rate was also almost 10 % higher in this area than the rest of the state.

15:46Relisha was just one of 55 homeless children at her school, and one of about 600 children at the D.C. General Shelter. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. Money is this invisible thread that ties us all together. It's something everyone has to deal with. That's why teaching kids about money isn't just smart, it's essential. Greenlight is a debit card and money app for families. It's a safe way to teach kids and teens about money. With Greenlight, parents can send money quickly, get spending notifications, and even assign chores. Greenlight turns responsibility into real-world learning. Kids and teens learn how to save, invest, and build money confidence.

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17:25and consider it done.

17:30Try Monday Sidekick, AI you'll love to use, on Monday.com. This brings us to early 2014. Relisha is now eight years old and in the second grade at her new school. She's still living at the shelter with her mother, stepfather, and three younger brothers. And she's doing absolutely everything she can to get away from the shelter. She was kind of passed around between her family a bit. She even had a cat named Missy at her grandmother's house, but ultimately no one was able to care for Relisha full-time. This is when Relisha starts spending a lot of time with a 51-year-old man named Khalil Tatum.

18:07Let's talk about this man for a minute. He was a convicted felon charged with breaking and entering, larceny, and burglary. He was in prison from 1993 to 2003, and again from 2004 to 2011. Eventually, he would marry a woman named Andrea, and he lived with her in an apartment across from the Canal Worth Park and Aquatic Gardens in D.C. According to Andrea's daughter from another relationship, in 2014, Andrea and Khalil were having domestic issues, and Andrea was considering leaving him. All of these things will be important to keep in mind as we get deeper into Relisha's story. What's important to remember right now is that Khalil Tatum was also a janitor at the D.C.

18:51General Shelter. Shamika Young reports meeting Khalil in 2005. This would be while he was serving his second prison sentence. However, Relisha's aunt and grandmother wouldn't meet him or be aware of his existence even until Relisha's family moved into the shelter. But by 2014, Shamika told her family that Khalil Tatum was Relisha's godfather. You see, Khalil Tatum was apparently doing a lot for Relisha at the shelter. Despite the rule set by TCP that shelter employees were not supposed to have personal relationships with residents, we know this rule was being broken left and right. Khalil Tatum was certainly no exception.

19:31He was known to break this rule with lots of young girls, often giving them extra attention and gifts like$20 bills. But it appears that he took a very special interest in Relisha. He would take her out shopping for new clothes and take her to get her nails done. He also gave her a brand new tablet for Christmas. Shamika Young would tell one news station, quote, I didn't see anything wrong with him. He's a good guy. When Relisha did go out with him, he brought her back. He would take her shopping, he took her to Disney on Ice, he bought her a tablet for Christmas, took her out to eat with his granddaughter, end quote.

20:06Relisha's Aunt Ashley recalls that one day she was watching Relisha when she got a call from Tatum. She had no idea who this guy was, but he said he was coming to pick Relisha up. Ashley is like, wait a second, who are you? How'd you get my number? Like, what is going on? Khalil Tatum says, I'm Relisha's godfather. Her mother says I can pick her up. I'm on my way. Ashley was obviously super confused and concerned, but Shamika assured her that it was fine, so she went with it. Pretty soon, Khalil Tatum was known to Relisha's entire family. It became normal that he spent a lot of time with her. Relisha's grandmother Melissa said that she did have reservations at first, but eventually, she also saw this as normal.

20:48Relisha spent a lot of time with him, but she would come back talking about how much fun she had with his granddaughter, so the family assumed it was fine. But these days with Tatum and his granddaughter would turn into sleepovers, and weekends, and as we will learn, eventually even trips out of state. Now, this next part of the timeline is a little hard to follow and there are definitely some things missing, so stay with me here. It was around this time, early 2014, that Relisha began missing a lot of school. Most of the days she missed were excused by her mother. She told the school that Relisha was being treated for a neurological issue, and she was producing doctor's notes.

21:26So the school didn't think much of it. But not all of the absences were excused. On February 25th, Relisha hits her fifth unexcused absence. At this point, the school schedules a parent-teacher conference with Shamika for March 5th. On February 26th, at about 7.30pm, Relisha is seen on surveillance video with Khalil Tatum at a Holiday Inn Express. This video shows them walking down the hallway, each holding bags, before eventually going into one of the guest rooms using a key. Tatum's bag looks more like a reusable shopping bag, while Relisha's bags look more like grocery bags. But their contents are unknown.

22:04Shamika would later state that she thought Relisha was going to a pool party for Tatum's granddaughter. But this Holiday Inn Express didn't even have a pool. So why Relisha was here possibly, most likely, alone with Tatum is obviously terrifying. It's difficult to know exactly what happened on March 1st, 2014, because we have some conflicting stories. Relisha's aunt Ashley stated that she saw Relisha and her three brothers that morning. She even remembers doing Relisha's hair in pink and white bows. Relisha wasn't feeling well and stayed home from school. From here, she says Relisha is picked up by her mother, Shamika.

22:44Before Shamika and Relisha leave Ashley's house, they record a video that would be posted to Shamika's Instagram. Ashley says this is the last time she saw Relisha. Shamika states that she did pick Relisha up, but quickly dropped her off with her grandmother Melissa. Shamika says that this is the last time she saw Relisha. From here, Relisha somehow makes it back to Khalil Tatum. To this day, No one has stepped forward to say that they were the person that allowed Relisha to go with Tatum. Shamika blames Melissa, and Melissa blames Shamika. But we do know that Relisha was with Khalil Tatum on March 1st.

23:23The pair was captured on surveillance at a day's inn on New York Avenue. They are seen walking past a fountain in front of the hotel, then through the lobby, and eventually walking into a guest room. This is the last confirmed sighting of Relisha Rudd. The next day, Khalil Tatum is seen buying a pack of 42-gallon contractor-sized trash bags. He also buys a shovel and lime. The same day, he's seen at the Kenealworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, which, as you might remember, was the park near his apartment. Around this same time, Relisha's stepfather Antonio Wheeler posts pictures to Facebook displaying a stack of$50 bills and New Air Jordan sneakers.

24:05On March 5th, Shamika Young meets with the officials at Relisha's school to discuss her unexcused absences, and at this time, they offer additional services to help get Relisha to school. Shamika again reiterates that Relisha was under the care of a doctor for a neurological disorder and has produced several doctor's notes. An interesting note here is that both on March 5th and on March 7th, the school would report sightings of Relisha, But after further investigation, the police couldn't confirm the sightings, and they maintain that March 1st was the last confirmed sighting of Relisha. I know all of this is a little confusing, so I want to remind you that while Shamika is attending this parent-teacher conference on March 5th, she hasn't seen or spoken to her daughter in four days.

24:54All of this time, Relisha is still away from her family and racking up these unexcused absences. Finally, on March 10th, school officials call this doctor that was treating Relisha and tell him, you need to provide more documentation to excuse these absences. So the doctor is like, no problem, I will absolutely get that to you. And he tells them that Relisha will be discharged from his care by the end of the next week. On March 12th, Relisha's grandmother, Melissa, calls Khalil Tatum to ask him if he can fix the tablet he bought Relisha for Christmas. She also asks him if he had Relisha. Melissa told CBS News in Baltimore, quote, I said, Mr.

25:35Tatum, have you talked to Relisha or do you have Relisha? His answer to me was no, he don't have her. Then he said, do you know where I am? And I'm like, you should be home getting ready to go out of town on your trip. He was going to Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah, you're right, but I'm already in Atlanta, Georgia, he said. We're already in Atlanta, Georgia. And I said, who? You, your wife, your daughter, and your granddaughter? Then he says to me, no. Me, my wife, Relisha, my granddaughter, and my daughter. He went on some type of retreat, but he told Micah it was at some medical retreat or family retreat or something.