Relisha Rudd: Police Again Search for Girl, Case Linked to PG County Murder

A two-day search of the grounds of the National Arboretum is under way in an effort to find missing girl Relisha Rudd, a case with ties to Prince George’s County.

Washington, D.C., police will search the arboretum, including sending divers into a pond on the property. They are hoping to find the girl, who was 8 years old when she went missing in March 2014, and is feared dead.

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

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

Relisha 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.

Police say Tatum killed his wife, Andrea Denise Tatum, 51, also of N Street, Southeast Washington. Her body was found in a motel room in the 6100 block of Oxon Hill Road on March 20, 2014. She had died from an apparent gunshot wound.

Tatum himself was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Northeast D.C., but police have so far been unable to find Relisha.

On March 2, Tatum bought contractor-weight trash bags and spent a considerable amount of time in a Kenilworth area Washington, D.C., park where investigators and search dogs focused efforts a year ago.

Police can’t ignore the possibility that “he may have killed her,” the police chief said of the girl’s fate in March 2014.

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.

Antonio Wheeler, the little girl’s stepfather, says Kahlil Tatum was seen at the D.C. homeless shelter on March 19, 2014. He then vanished when Wheeler asked him to bring Rudd home; authorities have said the family trusted Tatum and Rudd often stayed at the Tatum house.

The FBI has offered a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the location and return of Rudd, matched by a $25,000 reward from the Prince George’s County Police Department.

»Photo of Relisha Rudd, courtesy of Washington, DC, Police