TN-Tabitha Tuders - 13 - missing since 4/29/03

[Doyle]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/903257/posts

[Doyle]

bump

[Rocky]

I've been going crazy wanting to share this with everyone, Johnny if you're watching get in here as soon as you can to fill us 9in on what you know.

http://www.tennessean.com/local/arch...nt_ID=37523949

"''We thought that students and their parents needed to know that the Police Department needs and wants their assistance,'' Metro police spokesman Don Aaron said. ''This business card is also something we would like to know more about.'' The card has several pastel colors with heart-shaped balloons in the background. On the right side of the cards is a picture of Winnie the Pooh holding a pink heart-shaped pillow. The card has Tabitha's name, address and phone number on it and has the words ''call me'' written below.

The card also contains the words ''sexy girl'' marked out and replaced with the words ''ghetto girl,'' a person familiar with the investigation said. That information was blacked out in the copy that was sent home to parents.

Police found the card the night Tabitha disappeared. It was with several others in a bowl on her dresser, Aaron said. Police do not know who created them, why they were made or what use they might have been to Tabitha. Police want to know if the cards hold any clues to her whereabouts.

In a telephone interview last night, Debra Tuders said she had no idea why her daughter had the card. ''I remember seeing one in her room, and they took it,'' Debra Tuders said of police. ''She just had it in her desk. She never used it or nothing like that.''"

[Rocky]

Johnny,

I found several possible links for you to follow up on, now I really feel she has been kidnapped and being pimped out.

this is what I was talking with you about before,

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Midwest/0...ing/index.html

"Man accused of forcing girls into prostitution"

"DETROIT, Michigan (CNN) -- Detroit police have arrested a 32-year-old man, accusing him of kidnapping girls and forcing them to be part of a prostitution ring, authorities told CNN Wednesday. "

this is an older case, but along the same lines of what I suspected from the start with Tabitha

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/musi...thugschatt.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...

another site of interest that was recently closed...

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 ..."

another thing they should be watching for is if she used her middle name on her posts...

and her writing will stand out, she is just a child trying to act big and tough... like this, anger showing in her writings.

"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"

many people don't realize that yahoo has chatrooms available to children like this one...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATeeNs...-Pics/messages

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

[Ghostwheel]

I'd be interested to know if the cards were computer generated, or printed. There are cards avilable that you can just print (professionally or by computer) whatever you want on a background. Anything Winnie the Pooh that is licensed should have a TM or copyright on it, and that would tell them something, too.

If the whole card is computer generated, anyone could have done it. You can even print "Call me" and make it look like handwriting. I am also assuming here name and address is printed as opposed to written.

After four months, it's going to be hard for the kids to remember that particular day. I will be amazed if some of the parents do not get angry. I know they would here. I had to caution my daughter not to mention everything she knew about a missing girl here (she wanted to help search, so we "searched") to her friends, because some of the mother's don't want their children to "know about these things" (if you can believe that).

At least some new information is coming out, which may help.

[Rocky]

they didn't have a home computer to create her own cards, and if it was something printed out at the library, the librarian would have remembered printing out these types of cards, so now the real question is, which of Tabitha's friends did she spend time with that had a computer?

why hasn't this friend come forward to admit she had used their computer?

now some serious flags are coming up on this case, one of her friends knows more than they are saying.

[Ghostwheel]

There are some other possibilities. She could have created the cards on a library computer, then saved it to a disk, and taken the disk to a Kinkos type of place (copy shop with computers). I don't think she made it herself, though.

Someone might have created the card(s) as a joke, and would be embarrassed to admit it. (it could be a pretty cruel joke, depending on how the card is made, but it's a 12-14 year old kind of thing to do)

[Rocky]

why did the police hold back this information for 4 months?

have they been going to the different printers in the area, trying to find out where the card came from?

If they are preprinted stock, there can't be that many places that offers winny the pooh business cards, and if someone at Kinkos printed off these cards for her, don't you think they would have questioned why a young girl would be printing the cards with her contact info and the nick sexygirl, with a note, "call me" on it?

seems to me, that wouldn't slip by without being noticed.

[Elle Kaye]

You can mock up anything you want and as long as it is in a format they can use any printer will print those cards for you. I create business cards for people all the time and then they just take the file to a printer. The bigger question would be how did the kids get the $40 bucks each to print the cards? I would guess they didn't. These cards are probably the type you print at home.

Ghetto girl is quite a common name. Sort of like Surfer boy. You probably will find it used a lot.

[Rocky]

but if she calls herself Ghettogirl, it sure paints a different picture than the sweet and innocent picture we had been led to believe.

no wonder Johnny didn't get upset with me when I first started asking all of the hard questions when he first joined us.

[Ghostwheel]

Originally posted by Rocky
if someone at Kinkos printed off these cards for her, don't you think they would have questioned why a young girl would be printing the cards with her contact info and the nick sexygirl, with a note, "call me" on it?

seems to me, that wouldn't slip by without being noticed. [/b]

As you should know, at the Kinkos near SDSU, nobody notices anything! I'm sure there are similar places in Tennessee.

One page of color copy on card stock runs less than $2.00. You design it in word, then cut them apart after printing. I made business cards that way waaaaayyyy back when I only needed a few, and couldn't afford printing costs. That's why it matters if the edges are perforated, uneven, exact as any other business card, professionally printed, computer printed, etc.

We haven't confirmed she calls herselfGhettogirl. As I said, it could have been somebody's idea of a joke (which I tend toward because I remember how catty 12-14 year old girls can be). I'm not too clear on why that would make her no longer sweet and innocent, though. If she did call herself Ghettogirl, it could indicate a depression about home circumstances, too.

[Rocky]

I guess what I meant was, she went to the trouble of printing cards so she could hand them out to people with her contact info on it that didn't know her.

she originally called herself sexygirl and after thinking about it, wanted to be bad, so she crossed it off saying next time she printed them she'd be ghetto girl.

If they only found one card, where are the other 7 she printed out? If it was a normal size business card, it would have 8 per page wouldn't it?

where could she have been going to meet boys where she would want a card to hand out so they knew where to reach her at?

The library?
a fast food restaurant?
the boys hanging out in the alley smoking cigs she saw each day on her way to the bus stop?

she gave the card to someone, she had it printed somewhere...

at least one person knows about those cards other than her and her mother, the police have had 4 months and weren't able to track that person down.

which of her friends are hiding the truth afraid they might get in trouble for telling what they know?

[mindys]

Tabitha is still a child. She could NOT have known the full implication of "sexy girl" or what it would mean to older men to have a title like that associated with her. Let us also remember she is growing up in a world of Britney Spears, etc. The "ghetto girl" title could also have something to do with this hip-hop music scene a lot of the young teenagers are into.

She should not be held responsible in any way for what has happened to her.

[Ghostwheel]

I don't believe she printed them, or had someone print them. I think someone else did it, as a cruel joke. But it would still be important to know how they were printed. That knowlege might lead somewhere.

[Rocky]

well according to what we've heard, she has never used a computer other than the one at the library, and they would have remembered printing cards like this for a child.

Is she partly responsible if she had been speaking to someone online, and had planned a meeting, unknowing she was going to be carried away and not brought home afterwards?

Is she partly reponsible if in her flirting teens, she had printed up these cards to hand out to strangers unknowing that one of the people she gave her address to kidnapped her?

if she had printed the cards down at kinkos, who has access to the file she printed it from, any questionable perps that might have seen her come in and followed her to her neighborhood?

lot's of questions, but the main one is, where is she, and where did the cards come from...

I keep hoping for Johnny to show up so we can get some answers.

[johnny]

Ok, people NEW INFO IS AVAILABLE.......Sorry its taken so long for me to get back in here....I try all the time ...things are slower now and hard to get in.

[johnny]

http://www.wkrn.com/Global/story.asp...1&nav=1ugBHTc6

[johnny]

Ok, The card appears to have been printed by a cheap printer on a card stock that had the pastel borders on two sides (the right and bottom) also the card stock was perforated and also low quality. A girl who at school printed them up for Tabitha at school we believe, the name sexy girl was put on them by the girl and Tabitha scratched it out with an ink pen and wrot ein ghetto girl. several of these were found and they had her Teachers name on them as well.

Personally, I don't believe the personal cards have much to offer, other than what Rocky has pointed out about the possible chat names etc.

[johnny]

http://www.nashvillescene.com/cgi-bi...ws:City_Limits

[johnny]

http://www.nashvillescene.com/cgi-bi...ws:City_Limits

[johnny]

Love/Hate Mail

Disappointed in the PD


Many thanks to the Nashville Scene for keeping the Tabitha Tuders story alive. I continue to be shocked at the disgusting treatment the police department has given her disappearance. This week's story ("Criminals Down the Street," Aug. 7) once again illustrates scenarios that police should have red-flagged from the beginning, and that should have convinced them early on that they weren't dealing with a runaway case. I credit the Scene's coverage with the resurgence of attention given by police and the media, and the refocusing of the case. This situation, along with other crime issues affecting our neighborhood, has made me lose confidence in interim police Chief Deb Faulkner. I encourage Mayor Purcell to aggressively continue his nationwide search for a new chief of police.

Cindy Acuff

816 Woodland St. (Nashville)

[johnny]

Tuders case leaves parents, police frustrated
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More Links

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Tabitha Tuders tip site





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August 14, 2003

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- For three days this summer, the neighborhood surrounding 1312 Lillian St. resembled a war zone -- dozens of camouflaged men trekked through yards, alleys and homes while a helicopter whirled above.

It wasn't combat but instead a search for any sign of Tabitha Tuders, a missing 13-year-old girl. Tabitha's parents, Bo and Debra appreciated the July effort by Nashville police -- but they wished it had come when their daughter vanished April 29 instead of 11 weeks later.

"They should've done it when she come up missing," said Bo Tuders, sitting in an easy chair at home as the search concluded July 18.

The Tuders don't deny that the police responded when they reported the seventh-grader was missing the afternoon she failed to show up for classes at Bailey Middle School.

In Bo's estimation, about 50 or so officers searched their working class neighborhood that night. But the nearly four months without their daughter has given the couple much time to wonder what might have happened had police approached the case differently.

The Tuders, whom police have cleared as suspects, always suspected someone snatched Tabitha and that she wasn't -- as police first thought -- a runaway.

The department didn't issue an Amber Alert -- a plan to galvanize the community to look for an endangered child -- because they said Tabitha's disappearance did not fit the criteria.

A police statement preceding the July operation marked the department's shift in thinking, "The focus of the investigation is leaning more toward the potential involvement of foul play."

Debra Tuders said police were told by family and friends that Tabitha showed none of the signs of a troubled teen, like personality changes.

"She was the same person up until the day she left," the mother said.

The parents tick off the things their daughter was excited about: participating in an event with her friends to raise money for arthritis research, new bedroom furniture and the A's on her last report card. Authorities also have found no indication Tabitha ran away.

"All we know for sure is we have a missing child," said Deborah Faulkner, Nashville's acting police chief.

Faulkner defends her department's actions and early skepticism about foul play, saying authorities had little to go on at first.

"It took about three days to nail down with the family what she had on when she was missing," Faulkner said.

The photos of Tabitha first supplied to police were a year old, not good enough when searching for a maturing 13-year-old, Faulkner said.

A family friend found more recent photos on film developed about two months after Tabitha went missing, she said. Police also weren't notified about Tabitha's disappearance until about 11 hours after Bo Tuders last saw her.

The Tuders family routine was normal April 29. Debra went to work at the Tom Joy Elementary School cafeteria, and Bo awakened Tabitha shortly before leaving for his job as a short-haul truck driver.

As always, his daughter told him she was awake and to turn the television to her favorite program, he recalled. She was supposed to get dressed and catch the bus for school.

"I went out the door to go to work and that's the last time I saw her," he said.

When Tabitha didn't come home that night, her concerned parents drove to the school, where a teacher said their daughter was absent that day. The Tuders called police.

The July police operation was a methodical grid search with officers and police dogs of the Tuders' neighborhood, including nearby Shelby Park and the Cumberland River. Police established their command post in the parking lot of the nearby Tennessee Titans stadium.

Police have questioned all sex offenders living in the area and reviewed every field report from the days leading up to Tabitha's disappearance, Faulkner said. When Tabitha's classmates returned to school last week, they got a letter from police asking for any help in solving the case.

"Every resource I can garner I've put on this," Faulkner said.

Yet some look at history and wonder if police would have responded differently had Tabitha lived in a more affluent part of Nashville.

When 9-year-old girl Marcia Trimble disappeared in 1975 while selling Girl Scout cookies in her well-to-do neighborhood, police immediately suspected an accident or a crime.

After 33 days of searching, authorities found her body in a neighbor's garage. The murder remains unsolved on the minds of many Nashvillians. Marcia's mother, Virginia, and Debra Tuders recently met, two women bonded by missing daughters despite differences in class.

Faulkner says the department wasn't influenced by where the Tuders live or work.

"People see her as one of our children," she said. Gary Gardiner, who is Tabitha's case manager at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., said the Nashville police response is not unusual for a missing child.

Publicity about Tabitha's case has come from Gardiner's organization, the national television show "America's Most Wanted" and most recently a billboard with the girl's photo along busy Interstate 24 near her home. Still there are no helpful tips, Faulkner said.

"This is the damnedest thing I've ever seen. It's like every day we get up and hit a wall," the chief said.

[johnny]

http://www.police.nashville.org/news.../08142003a.htm

[johnny]

I'll try to respond to all the questions as soon as possible.

[johnny]

Rocky, as far as the question about why is this information just getting out about the business card????? Thats a good question ...........Letter asks families to help find Tabitha


This is a picture of the business-type card found in Tabitha Tuders' room the night of her disappearance. Metro police want to know if anyone has seen similar cards or knows the source of the cards.



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By DORREN KLAUSNITZER
and CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF
Staff Writers


Metro police sent letters home yesterday to families of students at the school that missing Tabitha Tuders had been attending, asking for help in finding the 13-year-old.

The one-page letter, which also contains information about a mysterious business card with the teenager's name and telephone number on it, is signed by Acting Police Chief Deborah Faulkner. It asks students and parents at Bailey Middle School to report anything, ''no matter how small or insignificant,'' to the police.

Tabitha left her home at 1312 Lillian St. on the morning of April 29 to go to Bailey, but she apparently never boarded the bus and never arrived at school.

Yesterday was the first time that Metro police had sent a letter home with schoolchildren appealing directly to families to help find a missing child.

''We thought that students and their parents needed to know that the Police Department needs and wants their assistance,'' Metro police spokesman Don Aaron said. ''This business card is also something we would like to know more about.'' The card has several pastel colors with heart-shaped balloons in the background. On the right side of the cards is a picture of Winnie the Pooh holding a pink heart-shaped pillow. The card has Tabitha's name, address and phone number on it and has the words ''call me'' written below.

The card also contains the words ''sexy girl'' marked out and replaced with the words ''ghetto girl,'' a person familiar with the investigation said. That information was blacked out in the copy that was sent home to parents.

Police found the card the night Tabitha disappeared. It was with several others in a bowl on her dresser, Aaron said. Police do not know who created them, why they were made or what use they might have been to Tabitha. Police want to know if the cards hold any clues to her whereabouts.

In a telephone interview last night, Debra Tuders said she had no idea why her daughter had the card. ''I remember seeing one in her room, and they took it,'' Debra Tuders said of police. ''She just had it in her desk. She never used it or nothing like that.''

Asked specifically about the nicknames written on the card, she said she did not remember any information the card contained.

Debra Tuders also said yesterday that she was unaware that police were sending letters home with Bailey Middle School children. However, she hopes the information might somehow bring Tabitha home.

''If anybody knows anything, it will help, because it's going on four months,'' she said. ''We still haven't heard nothing. It's like she's just vanished.''

Teachers at Bailey said the letter, which some students will get today, had a chilling effect on their usually bubbly students. ''They were very, very quiet and stunned at first, then they started asking questions,'' eighth-grade resource teacher Charlotte Ray said.

''They were asking each other about it. And one girl expressed deep sadness that they hadn't found Tabitha. She said she prayed a lot they would find her and bring her back.''

Jeannie Sharp, a fifth-grade teacher, read the letter to her class and got much the same reaction.

''They were very concerned. They wanted to know, 'Have they found her?' and 'Where is she?' ''

A few students said they saw Tabitha get on the school bus, a tip Sharp told the students to report to the police. Police have said since early in the investigation that they believe she did not board the bus.

Ruth Murray, Bailey's principal, said the letter is intended to get students thinking about Tabitha and anything they may remember that may help police.

Parent Linda Carr said the letter was a good idea to get children and parents thinking about the missing child. But it made her daughter Jennifer Carr, 13, sad. ''It worries me,'' Jennifer Carr said, and it makes her mother wonder what Tabitha's mother must be going through.

''I lost Jennifer for an hour and a half, and I was worried to death,'' Linda Carr said. ''I don't know how her mama's going through this.''

Police are asking anyone with information about Tuders to call Metro Police Youth Services Division at 862-7417 or CrimeStoppers at 74-CRIME.

Staff Writer Sheila Burke contributed to this article.
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