Tuders case leaves parents, police frustrated
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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.
ok it was the 80's and it was a pun on valley girls). Anyway, they were pink with hearts on it w/ my phone number but I don't think I put my address. That is the only way the teachers name on the cards would make sense to me if Tabitha made them for her own personal purposes and did so during a class - but like I said previously it seems like if they had been made for a class-related project they would have been able to figure that out by now.