I have been trying not to write about this case ever since it came to light. I figured everyone else would be covering it, so there was no need for me to do so. Then it occurred to me. Perhaps that line of thinking is why we don’t know where Relisha Rudd is or what happened to her. Someone who saw what was going on figured someone else would take care of it. The problem is, no one did. No one intervened on this child’s behalf.
Relisha never stood a chance.
Relisha Rudd and her family were homeless in Washington, D.C., a situation that affects a lot of people due to the high cost to live in our nations capital. That’s another post altogether.
I don’t know what happened in Shamika Young’s, Relisha’s mother, life, but I can’t imagine ever allowing my daughter to go off with the janitor from the homeless shelter. Did she sell Relisha? We all know things like this happen everyday. Remember my story on the Indiana woman who sold her baby to pedophiles? Unfortunately, that is the only thing that makes sense to me. This woman knows what happened to her child with regards to how Relisha ended up leaving with Kahlil Tatum. She just isn’t telling, because once again, she cares more about her own self than she does about Relisha.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said Thursday that the search for a missing 8-year-old girl has turned into a “recovery mission,” signaling that law enforcement authorities do not believe that this baby will be found alive.
Shamika Young still is not helping police in the search for Relisha. She claims she talked to Relisha, and that Relisha is in a “safe place”. Relisha hasn’t been in a safe place since she was born, because she was born to someone who doesn’t care about her.
Parents are supposed to protect their children.
Two police officials said that Young did not want to file a missing persons report when police got involved March 19. She told detectives and the news media that she had talked to Relisha by telephone as late as March 17, and she told police her daughter had accompanied Tatum, whom she described as “Dr. Tatum,” to a medical conference in Atlanta.
She knew Tatum was the janitor at the shelter. What “medical conference” could he possibly be going to? I go back to was Relisha sold for sex trafficking. Did Tatum and Young provide Relisha for some perverted pedophile for a couple of dollars? Is Tatum the perverted pedophile? It has been stated that he gave gifts and candy to the children living in the D.C. homeless shelter, clearly against the rules.
Others knew this, and said nothing. Now Relisha is gone.
I’m praying that Relisha is found unharmed, but it is not looking good at all. With all of this attention to the case, whoever has/had her, would now see her as a liability.
I’m sick to my stomach about this.
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Leslie Wimes
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Thank you for a thought provoking article with no holds barred. I pray Relisha is found safe. The odds are stacked against that. But prayer will continue. Something is clearly amiss with this mother, if it is drugs, immatureness, mental or just a general lack of concern. Children are all our responsibility!
I don’t know what was wrong with that “mother”. I wish the police could charge her with child neglect or something!! Depraved indifference comes to mind as well!!
Relisha’s family has come to the attention of the Child Protective Services numerous times. In spite of the fact that they found her living in squalor, they did absolutely nothing. The creep who had her was in violation of the shelter rule against having a relation with any of the kids, so it’s obvious that the mother allowed this for her own purposes. It’s utterly sickening that both the mother and grandmother lied when Relisha’s school enquired about her numerous absences, claiming that this man was a doctor. The school should have demanded a doctor’s excuse, which would have exposed all three of these cretins as liars. This little girl’s case is a prime example of what should NOT happen in order to keep a child like her from falling through the cracks. The pedophile took the coward’s way out by killing himself, and I believe he did it after killing her. He knew what was awaiting him, either in or out of jail.
I believe the same about her being possibly traded for drugs and or money because it had to be some reason her mother AND grandmother assured her school she was safe and she was just ill. Also the fact that her mother said Relisha and “Dr. Tatum” were at a medical conference when she knew he was a janitor makes no sense. This case is heart wrenching and I can’t get Relisha off of my mind. Alot of people failed this precious girl she had to endure so much in her 8 years …
I agree that I think the mother is not being truthful. I feel Mom was getting money or drugs from Tatum. This little girl comes to my mind every day. I say a prayer for her each night. She is not the only innocent child that is harmed each day. We as a society have to come together to make new strategies to insure that children at risk stop falling through the cracks.
I, too, believe the mother sold her. What other reason would she have for lying about her whereabouts? I think I’ve shed more tears for her than her mother who seems totally detached when interviewed. I *hope* she’s on drugs because at least that would give an explanation for her behavior, rather than simply greed or apathy.
Someone posted this on another board and I wanted to share it:
We Pray for Children
By Ina Hughes
We pray for children
Who put chocolate fingers everywhere,
Who like to be tickled,
Who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants,
Who sneak Popsicles before supper,
Who erase holes in math workbooks,
Who can never find their shoes.
And we pray for those
Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
Who can’t bound down the street in new sneakers,
Who never “counted potatoes,”
Who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead in,
Who never go to the circus,
Who live in an X-rated world.
We pray for children
Who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
Who sleep with the cat and bury goldfish,
Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money,
Who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink,
Who slurp their soup.
And we pray for those
Who never get dessert,
Who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
Who can’t find any bread to steal,
Who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
Whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
Whose monsters are real.
We pray for children
Who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
Who like ghost stories,
Who shove dirty clothes under the bed,
Who get visits from the tooth fairy,
Who don’t like to be kissed in front of the car pool,
Who squirm in church and scream on the phone,
Whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those
Whose nightmares come in the daytime,
Who will eat anything,
Who have never seen a dentist,
Who are never spoiled by anyone,
Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
Who live and move, but have no being.
We pray for children
Who want to be carried
And for those who must,
For those we never give up on
And for those who never get a second chance,
For those we smother.
And for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind
enough to offer it.
We pray for children. Amen.
This is sad and sickening. How a mother does that is questionable.
Relisha, God Bless her is a victim of an unfair society. A society that allows children to be homeless. Her mother should be prosecuted. The child’s picture shows an eight year old that has had a hard life.
Her youthful glow is flawed