Police to Search National Arboretum for 8-Year-Old Relisha Rudd

D.C. police will search the National Arboretum for Relisha Rudd, an 8-year-old girl who has been missing since March 2014.

Chief Cathy Lanier said at a press conference that the search will begin Wednesday morning and continue through Thursday, according to an ABC7 report.

The search will include K-9 dogs and 60 D.C. police personnel.

Rudd has been missing since March 1, 2014, when she was last seen with Kahlil Tatum, who was the janitor of a homeless shelter she lived at with her mother and siblings.

The body of Tatum's wife was later found in a motel, and Tatum himself was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Northeast D.C., but police have so far been unable to locate Rudd.

Social workers had been to Rudd's house several times over the years and found evidence of neglect and abuse. The family later began living at a homeless shelter at the old D.C. General Hospital, where she met Tatum. Police think that her mother, Shamika Young, handed her daughter over to Tatum, a charge that Young has denied.