http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/03/05/32264573.shtml?Element_ID=32264573

Monday May 5, 2003

SHELLEY MAYS / STAFF

Search for Tabitha intensifies
By MARGO RIVERS
Staff Writer

Craig Akers hopes Tabitha Tuders' parents don't follow in his footsteps.

The founder of the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation, which helps find missing children, has been looking for his son Shawn since the 11-year-old vanished seven months ago near his home in Richwoods, Mo.

Wearing a button bearing Shawn's face, Akers took time out of his personal search to help the Tuders look for 13-year-old Tabitha, who's been missing for nearly a week. Akers, along with five foundation members and three tracking dogs, spent yesterday canvassing the woods near the Tuders' Lillian Street home in east Nashville.

''It's frustrating to me to no end when it happens again,'' Akers said. ''And it doesn't get any easier.''

Metro police are considering Tabitha a missing person. Tabitha disappeared Tuesday while on her way to school. Her parents reported her missing shortly after 6 p.m. that day after learning she didn't get on the bus or attend classes at Bailey Middle School, police said.

Officers and volunteers searched Tabitha's neighborhood Tuesday and Wednesday, but nothing has panned out, police said.

Members of Team Tabitha, a group of family, friends and volunteers, contacted Akers' group to see if a new set of eyes could uncover any clues to the teenager's whereabouts, said Irvin ''Bo'' Tuders, Tabitha's father.

After a rumor that Tabitha was talking on a chat line, Tuders said, the police planned to subpoena the family's phone records but has not yet done so.

Meanwhile, Akers' search and rescue team planned to meet today with another search group, the Laura Recovery Center Foundation from Friendswood, Texas, to go back to Tabitha's neighborhood near her two bus stops on Boscobel Drive. Team Tabitha director Johnny White said he also expects a team from Kentucky to join in the search this week.

''We're going to canvass the immediate area at the same time she would normally be going to school,'' Akers said. ''Maybe somebody who drives the road every day might have seen something. Right now we have no clue as to what happened.''

There is a $5,000 reward for information leading to the safe return of Tabitha Tuders. Team Tabitha also is collecting donations at the Eastland Baptist Church, 1215 Gallatin Road, to help with search efforts. Anyone with information can call the Metro Police Department's Youth Services Division at 862-7417 or police communications at 862-8600.

Police have ruled out one lead in the disappearance of Tabitha Tuders.

Late last week, Metro police were asking for help finding William Keith Butler, 19, for questioning. Yesterday, detective Melvin Curtis of the Youth Services Division said that officers had interviewed Butler but that Butler was unable to provide information about Tabitha's whereabouts.

http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/03/05/32396044.shtml?Element_ID=32396044

........................
Note: There are three threads in this forum devoted to search for Shawn Hornbeck and also a thread with Missouri title.

Here is what they need:

Help to distribute her flyers in Memphis. If anyone here has a connection in Memphis, please try to help. The police have suggested blanketing the state and they specifically mentioned Memphis.

A helicopter and pilot to search the river area while the water has receeded.

Public pressure on the talk radio shows and local TV news to keep the story going and keep showing her picture. Nothing has gone statewide and that's such a shame considering the Elizabeth Smart case and how that ended. We need to launch a campaign to get the Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga local stations carrying this as well and Matlock is right, even into Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, etc.

I will try to post the emails and phone numbers of the talk radio hosts and local TV stations if anyone is interested in a phone call and email blitz.

Other than that and getting her picture everywhere in Nashville (it's pretty well saturated) I don't know what else to do.

Any suggestions?

The problem is they don't really know where to search. None of the other cities in the state have aired much about it on the news, such as Memphis, Chattanooga or Knoxville. The police really have no leads. She's just vanished. The last I heard they were asking for boats and a helicopter. I've put the word out to two helicopter pilots I know and various boat owners. Do you think anyone cares enough to even answer my email? Nope. Seems the public here is very disinterested. I'm shocked. I've put up flyers, handed them out, got a friend to send them to Memphis and Chattanooga to be put up in Waffle Houses.

That's all anyone can do for now. It's sad but there is really no way to get the media to keep it alive, mostly I think, because there are no tabloid circumstances here; no affairs, no dirt on the parents, etc.

I don't think the authorities should be able to classify anyone under 16 as a runaway UNLESS there are prior instances of it, or evidence such as a "goodbye note".....

But just to assume a child ran away, probably because she is 13 and not from a wealthy family... that's just WRONG.

http://www.nashvillescene.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?story=This_Week:News:Cover_Story

Writing her off as a runaway makes no sense. This was a straight A student, very close to her parents, and more like a child than a teen. She took no money, no clothing, no personal posessions when she left the house that morning.

Most importantly, her scent was tracked to the bus stop, then AWAY at exactly the point where a suspicious vehicle was sighted. Yet for some reason, the cops have deemed this sighting "not credible" and continue to write Tabitha off as a runaway.

"And Tabitha's 24-year-old brother Kevin, who was arrested two years ago for his involvement with a money laundering and prostitution ring, has never been asked to take a polygraph test."

can you believe they haven't followed one of the best leads to her disappearance?

which of Kevin's pimps drives a red car?

did anyone get arrested from the prostitution charges several years back that was released prior to her abduction?

http://www.news4jax.com/news/2308116/detail.html

Tuesday, 06/10/03

Witness saw girl near home before her disappearance

Tabitha Tuders

Tabitha Tuders, a 13-year-old east Nashville girl missing since April 29, was seen outside her home by a neighbor on the day she disappeared, Metro police said yesterday.

A neighbor woman who seemed ''very credible'' told investigators she saw Tuders outside the girl's 1312 Lillian St. home the morning she was supposed to board a bus to school, Metro police spokesman Don Aaron said.

The teen was supposed to catch the bus at 15th and Boscobel streets. She never boarded the bus and never made it to Bailey Middle School. Students at the bus stop said they didn't see her at the corner, Aaron said.

Police have believed all along that Tuders probably went out and began walking toward the bus stop, said Capt. Karl Roller, who heads the police department's Youth Services Division. ''But the big question is what happened after that.''

— Sheila Burke

© Copyright 2003 The Tennessean
A Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper

Area law enforcement are alerted to watch for a missing Nashville, Tennesse girl.

6/19/2003 - 06:45:12 PM

Lieutenant Bret Friesz with the Nebraska State Patrol says they received intelligence from Nashville Police concerning 13-year-old Tabitha Danielle Tuders.

They received tip through National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A girl matching her description was possibly seen in the Scottsbluff area.

Tuders is described as five-foot-one… one-hundred pounds… blonde hair and blue eyes…
The information received says a girl matching Tuders description was possibly seen on May 24th… with a white male in his late forties…with long brown hair…driving a black Ford four-door sedan with a dent in the drivers door.

Tuder is listed as a missing person by the Nashville Police.
She was last seen by her parents before she left for school on April 29th.

If you have any information on the case, please call local authorities or call Detective Sgt. Calahan or Detective Sgt. Miller, Metro Nashville Police Department, Youth Services Division at 615-862-7417.

www.kduhtv.com/viewStory.php?id=1971

Thursday, June 19, 2003

New Information In Case Of Missing Girl

It's been seven weeks since Tabitha Tuders, 13, disappeared from her East Nashville neighborhood.

Her family said they continue holding hope that she is still alive.

In recent weeks reports had indicated the command center for volunteers in her neighborhood had closed. However, the center's director told NewsChannel 5 the center remains open.

The information came on the heels of a Tennessean article reporting that at least five registered sex offenders live within a mile of Tuders' East Nashville home.

"It shocks me that they live around here. I don't really know or associate with anyone around here. We keep close to our family ourselves at home,” Debra Tuders said.

Metro police told NewsChannel 5 some of the offenders that live in and around Tuders' home have been eliminated as potential suspects in her disappearance.

www.newschannel5.com/news/0306/19/tuders.htm

© 2003 NewsChannel 5.com

Thursday, 06/19/03

Police look at five sex offenders near Tuders

Tabitha Tuders, 13, has been missing from her east Nashville home since April 29.

By IAN DEMSKY, SHEILA BURKE
and CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF
Staff Writers

Some are ruled out in missing-girl case

At least five registered sex offenders live within a mile of missing teenager Tabitha Tuders' east Nashville home, a Tennessean investigation found.

Some of the offenders have not been cleared as suspects in the 13-year-old girl's disappearance, police said yesterday.

Debra Tuders, Tabitha's mother, said yesterday that she had no idea the sex offenders lived in her neighborhood and that she was concerned that they had not all been ruled out in her daughter's disappearance.

''We have investigatively checked many of those persons out,'' Metro police spokesman Don Aaron said. ''Some have been eliminated from the investigation. Some, for various reasons, have not been eliminated from the investigation.''

The Tennessean used computer software to map the location of sex offenders in relation to the Tuders' Lillian Street home.

The sex offender data used by The Tennessean was obtained from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and is current as of June 11.

The same information also is available at the TBI's Web site (www.tbi.state.tn.us). However, none of the data includes those convicted before 1997.

The software found five sex offenders living within one mile of the Tuders' home. The closest one was 739 feet away.

Debra Tuders said she last spoke with police on Tuesday.

''It's still the same,'' she said of the search for her daughter. ''They search all the leads and they don't pan out.''

The family usually talks with the police every two days, she said, and has tried to hold on to hope that Tabitha will be found safe.

''We're doing OK,'' she said.

''We have our good days and our bad days.

''We're not going to give up hope that she's going to come back safe.''

Federal statistics show that sex offenders often commit the same crimes again.

Released rapists are more than 10 times as likely as non-rapists to commit rape, according to a 1997 report released by the U.S. Department of Justice.

According to the report, those convicted of sexual assault are more than seven times as likely to be arrested for a new sexual assault as other criminals.

The five offenders who live near the Tuders home were convicted of sexual battery, sexual battery by an authority figure, statutory rape and rape.

Yesterday, Metro police talked to a possible suspect in Memphis. Investigators did not release details about the man or say why police wanted to talk to him.

At the request of Metro police, he was picked up and interviewed by Memphis officers.

Metro police also interviewed him over the telephone, Aaron said.

''At this point, the lead that produced his name is not going to be a good lead for this investigation,'' Aaron said yesterday. ''It is not entirely ruled out, but based on interviews today, it does not look like it's going to pan out.''

Police have classified Tabitha as a missing person and say there is no credible evidence that she was abducted or is a runaway.

Her family always has maintained that the girl has never run away from home before and would not do so.

www.tennessean.com/local/archives/03/06/34610168.shtml?Element_ID=34610168

© Copyright 2003 The Tennessean
A Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper

If they don't classify her as abducted, then they may as well say "runaway" in the eyes of the public. This makes me angry- this girl was obviously abducted, but in my opinion, the classification of "missing" is like a no-man's-land....it gives the impression she possibly left on her own.

If a child has no prior history of running away, and if there is no evidence that shows that they ran away (like missing clothing & suitcase, or a "goodbye" note), then they should be considered abducted and in immediate danger!!!

I'm not saying that the police aren't looking hard for her- but I hate the "politics" of classifying a child as "missing" or "runaway" vs "abducted". It sends messages of a lack of urgency to find her.

Two mothers connected by bond of missing children

ALAN POIZNER
Debra Tuders, left, is comforted by Virginia Trimble yesterday after speaking with the media outside her home in east Nashville.

By SHEILA BURKE
Staff Writer

Two women bonded by an experience no mother wants came together yesterday in east Nashville.

Both their daughters went missing from the streets of Nashville. Both disappearances captivated the city. One vanished almost three months ago. The other disappeared nearly three decades ago.

Virginia Trimble, whose 9-year-old daughter, Marcia, disappeared in 1975, offered comfort to a mother who has been waiting months for her daughter to come home safely.

''She's going through what I went through,'' Trimble said as she stood beside Debra Tuders, mother of missing teen Tabitha Tuders.

The women wrapped their arms around one another as they stood in front of the Tuderses' Lillian Street home against the backdrop of a banner emblazoned with Tabitha's face.

Debra Tuders has been waiting 89 days for 13-year-old Tabitha to come home. The girl disappeared April 29.

You think you're going to lose your mind, Trimble told Tuders, but you're not.

Trimble, however, hopes that Tabitha will come home.

Many longtime locals mark Marcia Trimble's 1975 disappearance and slaying as the end of Nashville's innocence. Marcia disappeared while selling Girl Scout cookies in her Green Hills neighborhood. Hundreds of volunteers searched for the girl before she was found dead in a neighbor's garage 33 days after her disappearance. The case remains unsolved.

''I was 15 when she lost her daughter,'' Debra Tuders said as she clutched a photo of Marcia Trimble. She wept and said she knew Virginia Trimble would help her get through this time. She also told Virginia Trimble that she wanted Tabitha to meet her as soon as she comes home.

The last time that Bo and Debra Tuders saw their daughter they expected her to board a school bus about a block away from her home and go to Bailey Middle School.

When she didn't return home that afternoon, the family learned that she had never made it to the bus or school.

The day after her disappearance, Metro Police said there was no evidence of foul play and that the girl might be a runaway. The Tuderses say their daughter would never have run away.

Police announced two weeks ago that they had shifted the investigation's focus and were looking into the possibility that the girl was a victim of foul play. There's still no evidence to indicate the girl has been harmed, but police said they changed focus because she's only 13, she's been gone for a long time and they have no significant leads.

Sheila Burke covers the police beat for The Tennessean. She can be reached at 664-2194 or at sburke@tennessean.com.

http://tennessean.com/local/archives/03/07/36647649.shtml?Element_ID=36647649

© Copyright 2003 The Tennessean
A Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper

1) Several students now say Tabitha boarded the schoolbus on the day of her disappearance. (I question the credibility of this; middle-school students, trying to remember back 3-1/2 months ago, could easily confuse one day for another.)

2) A pastel, Winnie-the-Pooh "business card" was found in Tabitha's room, with her address, phone number, and the nickname "Sexy Girl" crossed out and changed to "Ghetto Girl".

Article, with graphic of Tabitha's card:

http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/03/08/37523949.shtml?Element_ID=37523949

has anyone gone through the Library's computers and found any chat programs with this nick?

have they searched through to find out where she had been in the way of chat rooms?

This paints a very grim picture of where Tabitha might be right now, being pimped out to perverts.

I've done some websearches and came up with some scary sites with users with the same nicks...

here's one of them.

http://www.mds.mdh.se/~ent94hlm/musik/chatt/lesthugschatt.htm

and another

"Marihuana Guestbook
... GHETTOGIRL <GHETTOgirl5@sms.at> ... love-tyler Tyler Webb <tyler__webb@hotmail.com> Union City, TN, US - Monday ... 207.150.217.79/gbook/volume57.htm "

one of the chatrooms in Georgia had a tabitha and Ghettogirl that had been members this year...

I think they are finally on the right track, it's too bad they couldn't have had this information sooner.

http://www.virgin.net/chat/chatredirect.html

"Craig David guestbook entries
... Name: GHETTO GIRL E-mail: GHETTOGIRL@HOTMAIL.COM Submission-comments: LOVE YA CRAIG AND ... If never come memphis tn one day just holla that are town drop email to ..."

and her writing will stand out, she is just a child trying to act big... like

"you idiots,what's wrong with you? you are too stupid to be alive. you should be dead, aahleiah should be alive. you idiodts probably planned the terrosists attacks. you should be exicuted for killing her! retards!!!!
danielle <smilinpunkin@hotmail.com>
Kingsport, TN USA"

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATeeNsGroup-Megs-Pics/messages

it has both sexygirl and ghettogirl from Tennessee listed as registered users on one of my searches.

JS

I looked up the locations on MapQuest. The attempted abduction site is 2.69 miles, 6 minutes from Tabitha's house, via the shortest route.

http://www.wkrn.com/Global/story.asp?S=1403151&nav=1ugFHTbw

Parents, go to the bus stops or take your children to and from school. At the very least be at the bus stops when the bus stops. Kids wont like it, let them scream but it's better to be safe than sorry.

In our neighborhood, there is a tiny, tiny little girl that walks to the bus stop ALONE each morning including winter when it's still dark. I suppose her parents never heard of the little girl that was taken by knifepoint, thrown in a trunk of the perps car. Yes it happened 100 ft from our home, couple years ago.

The outcome: there were two girls, he said he was looking for his lost puppy. One girl got away and called for help. The perp knew he was caught, abandoned his car 2 miles away with the girl locked in the trunk...he was arrested, thank goodness the child was not harmed !

a couple 2 doors down from where Tabitha lived are both sitting in jail for a related offense, the wife forced a teenager into having sex with her husband.

the street they live on has quite a few questionables, I'm surprised it's taken the police 4 months to start looking closer at the neighbors.

one of the people close to the family says the name sexygirl was crossed off and Ghettogirl was written in by Tabitha.

The cards also have one of Tabitha's teachers name on the cards, so it could have been a school project she had been working on.

http://www.wkrn.com/Global/story.asp?S=1406966&nav=1ugFHWgt

The brief news release was vague, why wont LE elaborate ? Maybe they're squeezing Boyd hmmmm.

>and more like a child than a teen.
?????????

>She took no money, no clothing, no personal posessions when she left
As I said, the runaway theory doesn't have to make sense.

>Most importantly, her scent was tracked to the bus stop, then AWAY
>at exactly the point where a suspicious vehicle was sighted.
Where a vehicle is claimed to have been sighted, but such a sighting would be inconvenient for the police.

Cards? Okay, lets face it. The family is fairly poor. Does their printer have the capacity to print that card? Is it on cardstock? Where did she go to get it printed? It sounds more like a teen experiment with a 'social card' than a 'business card'. And a Winnie the Pooh holding a valentine ain't a teen prostitute's business card.