Amber Alert issued for eight-year-old Relisha Rudd, in the Washngton, D.C. area. The young child’s abundance of absences from school was only the beginning. 30+ days piqued the interest of school officials, and when they tried to reach out to Relisha’s mother, Shamika Young, she told them that the little girl was sick. Officials at the school reached out to D.C. Child and Family Service Agency on March 13, and it still took law enforcement six days to get the search underway.
“I’m not going to get into a lot of details, but I certainly did read a chronology where [the school system] was told the child was sick. . . . It appears to me the agencies involved made responsible actions,” says D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray.
Young, along with Relisha and three of her siblings were staying in a homeless shelter at the time of her kidnapping. Young made friends with the janitor, Kahlil Malik Tatum who happens to be the man that took the little girl. Tatum has killed his wife (details have yet to emerge), and now has the little girl. From invetigative details, Tatum is known to be extremely friendly with children by giving them gifts and watching them for parents – even though it was against the rules of the shelter.
A massive amount of time has passed since officials noticed the girl missing, but FBI has released a video of Relisha and Tatum in a hotel since then. There also is a reward for any information leading to the eight-year-old’s safety. Check out the jump for video footage and more.
Check out the gallery for a better glimpse of the missing child and her abductor.
