Crime & Safety

UPDATE: Police Search DC Park for Missing 8-Year-Old Relisha Rudd

Police are also looking in Atlanta, where billboards around the city are flashing her picture and those of her suspected abductor.

UPDATE Thursday, 10:50 a.m.

Police were searching a park in Washington, D.C. for missing 8-year-old Relisha Tenau Rudd Thursday morning, according to The Washington Post.

The Northeast DC park is near the Kenilworth neighborhood and four miles from the homeless shelter where the girl was living. Police say she disappeared with a janitor, Kahlil Malik Tatum, who worked there. 
The search is concentrated near the 1500 block of Anacostia Avenue NE.---
By Hunt Archbold, in Atlanta

The FBI says a man accused of shooting and killing his wife in Prince George's County could be in the Atlanta area along with missing 8-year-old Relisha Tenau Rudd.

Investigators believe the suspect, Kahlil Malik Tatum, 51, has ties to the metro Atlanta area. 

Digital billboards in downtown Atlanta were flashing photos of the two on Thursday morning. Billboards from Pennsylvania to Florida are reportedly flashing their photos.

Police issued an Amber Alert for the Washington girl last week after they found a woman linked to the case dead from an apparent gunshot wound in a Prince George’s County hotel room. Officers later found the white 1976 GMC truck they believed the two were traveling in on March 20 in Hyattsville, MD.

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Tatum is described as a black man, standing 5-foot-7 and weighing 170 pounds. He has tattoos on his chest and both arms, and a scar on his left arm. He should be considered armed and dangerous.

Relisha Tenau Rudd is described as a black female, standing four feet tall and weighing about 70 to 80 pounds, with black hair, brown eyes, and a medium complexion.

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An arrest warrant has been issued in Prince George’s County for Tatum for the killing of his wife, Andrea Denise Tatum, 51, of Washington.

The Prince George’s County Police Department believes Tatum, also of Washington, has taken the girl.

Police on Tuesday released video of the pair in a hotel hallway. The surveillance footage of Rudd and Tatum was taken on Feb. 26 at the Holiday Inn Express in Northeast D.C., says FOX DC. The video shows the two walking down a hallway in the hotel. Rudd is shown wearing a pair of pink boots and a purple Helly Hansen brand jacket with white stripes in the video.

Investigators have traveled to several states in an effort to find Rudd and Tatum, police told the TV station. Police will not say where the two were last seen together.

Antonio Wheeler, the little girl’s stepfather, says Kahlil Tatum was seen at the D.C. homeless shelter where he works on March 19. 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 announced a reward of up to $70,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of Tatum and the location of Rudd. 

The investigation is being conducted jointly by the Metropolitan Police Department, Prince George’s County Police Department and the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Anyone with information is asked to call 911 or contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.


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