Tabitha Tuders
Five years ago, 13-year-old Tabitha Tuders walked to the bus stop. Her family hasnt heard from her since.
by Sarah Kelley
The tiny clapboard house on Lillian Street is bustling with visitors on a balmy winter afternoon.
Nearly a dozen rowdy children are playing tag in the backyard, their carefree laughter in stark contrast to the forlorn faces of older guests quietly conversing on the porch. Ominous clouds loom in a dark gray sky, creating a bleak backdrop for the occasion.
Bo Tuders sips coffee from a plastic travel mug as he tends to hamburgers and bratwursts sizzling on the grill. In a daze, he watches the giggling children duck behind several rickety vehicles parked in the grass. A cherry-red Bonneville convertible in need of attention, a rusty Ford pickup truck and an old pontoon boat line the perimeter of the property, along with a brown conversion van with a sticker spanning the top of the windshield that reads Team Tabitha. The latter is a reminder that today is not a celebration, a point reiterated by the buttons some of the guests are wearing. The laminated circular pins show a smiling young girl with freckles, deep-blue eyes and sandy-blond hair. Below the photograph is a plea: Help Find Tabitha Tuders.Pulling a pack of Winstons from the front pocket of his denim shirt, Bo explains that if his daughter were here, family and friends would be celebrating her 18th birthday with a backyard barbecue just as they are doing today. But even in her absence, they are compelled to observe this milestone. We get a little relief out of it, he says, releasing a steady stream of smoke as he speaks.Trying to forget that shes gone is not an option.
Tabitha was 13 years old when she vanished on her way to catch the school bus just three blocks from her East Nashville home on April 29, 2003. Since then, five years of birthdays, Christmases, school dances and summer vacations have come and gone without any answers, and to this day Tabithas fate remains a mystery.
Its certainly one of those cases that haunts the community and haunts this police department, says East Precinct Commander Robert Nash, one of a handful of Metro officers at Tabithas birthday gathering. Sounding genuinely troubled, Nash adds, I think we all very much would like to see this case solved and see Tabitha come home.
But as more time elapses without an arrest, the chances of cracking the case diminishes. Even so, Nash is quick to say that sometimes all it takes is one breaklike a single phone callto solve a cold case such as this.
The police presence on this emotional day represents the departments ongoing commitment to the investigation, but it doesnt erase critical missteps in the beginning. By failing to issue an Amber Alert, and inexplicably clinging to the notion that Tabitha might have run away, the department lost precious time in the early stages of the case. Investigators have since tried to play catch up.
Meanwhile, Tabithas loved ones have continued their own desperate search for answers. In the wake of her disappearance, a circuit of volunteers dubbed Team Tabitha combed the alleyways, abandoned homes and parks of East Nashville looking for any sign of the missing girl. They knocked on door after door asking if anyone had seen her, praying the next neighbor might hold the type of incidental clue that could unlock the mystery. They hung posters with Tabithas picture in corner groceries, at gas stations and on telephone poles, covering a few miles in each direction. But the dozens of volunteers eventually dwindled to just a handful of relatives and close friends who refuse to abandon hope.
Its hard not to think about, family friend Johnny White says at the event honoring Tabithas Feb. 15 birthday. You just think about it all the time. Just an hour earlier, White drove the route Tabitha is believed to have walked the day she disappeared on her way to Bailey Middle School. Its a path hes traveled countless times hoping to gain clues in his role as the unofficial leader of the civilian search effort. Standing outside the Tuders home, White points up the hill toward nearby 14th Street, explaining, Thats the direction the dogs followed.
Without chiming in, the burly but mild-mannered Bo Tuders simply nods in agreement, pulling another cigarette from his pack.
As the afternoon progresses, the gray sky surrenders to a light mist, just in time for the nearly 40 guests to cram inside the living room for a brief prayer service before its time to eat. The mood of the day straddles the line between a special occasion and a somber memorial, and talk of Tabitha alternates between past and present tense.
Among the many family photographs lining a large built-in bookshelf are pictures of Tabitha, including a striking close-up in which straight blond hair frames her tan face, and a wide smile reveals her slightly crooked front teeth. But mixed in with playful photos of the lighthearted child is yet another reminder of the familys ongoing nightmare. Displayed in a brass frame fit for a graduation photo is an 8-by-10 age-enhanced picture of Tabitha, created by experts at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. With a thinner face, and shorter hair, the likeness is a stretch, but its the closest thing the Tuders have to knowing how their youngest child might look as a young woman.
The Rev. Sam Jones, a family acquaintance and minister, steps into the center of the room overflowing with relatives, friends, neighbors and police officers. He begins by explaining that Tabitha means gazelle, an appropriate name given her limitless energy. After reading a few verses from the Bible, the white-haired minister ends with the statement: If shes not alive on Earth, shes alive in the arms of the Lord.
Nothing was out of the ordinary at 1312 Lillian St. on the morning of April 29, 2003.
Debra Tuders awoke at 6 a.m. to find Tabitha sleeping soundly at the foot of their bed, as she often did. Although Tabitha had her own bedroom, she sometimes crept into her parents room in the middle of the night, curling up on a pallet of pillows and blankets on the floor. Unable to explain exactly why she came into their room at night, the couple simply say it made their little girl feel secure, and thats all that mattered.
As her husband still lay sleeping, Debra got dressed and ready for her job as a cafeteria cook at nearby Tom Joy Elementary. I stepped over Tabitha, I got ready for work and I left, Debra explains during a recent interview. I didnt know that was going to be my last time looking at her.
A short time later, Bo awoke and embarked on a similarly unremarkable morning ritual before heading to his job as a short-haul truck driver. Just before he was about to leave at 7 a.m., Bo gently shook Tabitha, who lay in her nightgown on the floor. In detail, he recounts their last, brief conversation, during which he told his groggy daughter to get up and get ready for school, that he loved her, and that he would see her later that evening. She just said, Alright daddy, Im getting up. I love you, too. And that was it.
Once Bo departed, Tabitha was left to get ready for school as usual, but she wasnt home alone. Also at the house that morning was Tabithas older sister, Jamie, and her two young children, who at the time were temporarily residing in the small two-bedroom house. Still asleep with her kids when Tabitha left for school, Jamie said she never spoke to her sister that morning.
At or about 7:50 a.m., the young teen walked out the front door of her weathered white house wearing Mudd jeans, a light-blue shirt and Reebok sneakers, and set out on her quick journey to the bus stop. Despite the short distance, Tabithas path passed through a poor swath of East Nashville filled with sex offenders, ex-cons and odd, troubled souls, whose names would later end up in a police file downtown.
One man told detectives he saw Tabitha turning the corner from Lillian onto 14th Street, still within sight of her home. Other witnesses spotted her walking uphill along 14th toward Boscobel Street, where she caught the bus each morning at the foot of a steep slope.
A television repairman living near the top of Boscobel glanced out the open front door of his dark wood-sided house and noticed Tabitha casually strolling down the hill while reading a half-sheet of paper, which some think was the glowing, straight-A report card she received the day before. She was walking real slow, reading some papers. It didnt look like she was in a hurry, says the neighbor, adding that it didnt appear she was looking for anyone either. Then I just closed the door, and thats it.
Possibly the last person to see Tabitha on her normal route was a young boy waiting for the school bus at the bottom of the hill at Boscobel and 15th Street. And although his account seemed to reveal the most specific and potentially crucial detail about her disappearance, police have questioned his credibility from the beginning.
The boy claimed Tabitha was walking down the hill as a red car pulled up beside her about halfway down the hill. The young witness said Tabitha got into the car, at which point the drivera black male wearing a ball capturned around and headed back up the hill.
Its been five years since their little girl vanished without a trace, and Bo and Debra Tuders still talk about her every day. The sadness is constant, but talking about Tabitha eases the pain.
more at link
http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cove...Tabitha_Tuders/
