TN TN - Tabitha Tuders, 13, Nashville, 29 Apr 2003

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http://www.wkrn.com/Global/story.asp?S=1826068&nav=1ugBMhQW

Tabitha Tuders' family marks anniversary of disappearance with hope, love

One year ago Thursday, a 13-year-old East Nashville girl disappeared while waiting for her school bus. Early Thursday morning, Tabitha Tuders' family and friends gathered to mark the somber anniversary, as well as to ask everyone to keep up hope and keep looking for Tabitha.

A missing poster still hangs on the porch of the Tuders' Lillian Street home, where friends gathered for the "Continue the Search" walk. Inside the house, Tabitha's room is just as she left it as she headed for the school bus stop one year ago.

Tabitha's father Bo Tuders told News 2 that he's satisfied police are doing everything they can. Bo said that he's believed from day one his daughter was abducted. The Tuders family says it has been a nightmare. It's been a year of sleepless nights, waiting for the phone to ring. Comfort comes in letters from complete strangers.

Bo Tuders read from one of the letters, which said, "I just wanted to send a quick note to let you know your family is in my prayers has been and continues to be. The one-year anniversary is this Thursday, so I pray for comfort for you on this day. Keep the faith and know you're never alone."

Metro Police officers say that they have run out of fresh leads in the case, but they will continue their search for Tabitha. The Tuders family asks everyone to continue to look for her. Adult volunteers who want to help in the search can call (615) 566-0943 or (281) 482-5723.

http://www.wkrn.com/global/video/po...&activePane=info&playerVersion=9&rnd=46644796

Lillia Marigza for News 2 at 6 am
4.29.04
 
Today Marks One Year Anniversary Of Tuders Disappearance
Video
Posted: 4/29/2004 9:47:00 AM
Updated: 4/29/2004 11:21:06 AM



Thursday, friends and family of Tabitha Tuders, 14, marked the one year anniversary of her disappearance from her east Nashville neighborhood.



Also on Thursday, police will search the wrecked car of someone described by police as a “person of interest” in Tuders disappearance.

Earnest Fred Brown was seen in the area of the Tuders home several times Wednesday. He later crashed his car in that same area and ran from the scene, police said.

The crash caught the attention of detectives because Brown had been seen in the neighborhood the day Tuders disappeared.

Police impounded the vehicle to look for evidence. Brown was released after questioning.

Tuders family said they still hope for her return.

”I wish she was here... so we wouldn't have to do this. We're not going to give up. We're going to find her,” said Deborah and Bo Tuders, Tabitha’s parents.

To mark the one year anniversary of her disappearance, family and friends met at Tuders home on Lillian Street Thursday morning. And walked the route Tabitha took to her bus stop the morning she disappeared.

The parents of Tabitha Tuders called police after they learned their daughter did not make it to school.

Photos of the girl were put up around the neighborhood, and police searched near where she disappeared but didn’t turn up any clues.

In July, a police investigation led detectives to believe foul play might be involved in the case. Once again, officers canvassed the area near her home, but didn’t find anything.
 
http://www.wkrn.com/Global/story.asp?S=1827670&nav=1ugBMiOk


Person of interest" in Tuders case speaks out


Ernest Fred Brown rode a bike along a neighborhood street in East Nashville on Thursday, knowing police have called him a "person of interest" in the Tabitha Tuders case.

Brown said, "I don't care what people think about me. I know what I am and what I ain't...I'm just myself. I ain't no killer and I ain't no rapist."

Police detectives say they have talked with Brown several times before. But he was brought back into their focus Wednesday night when he wrecked his car near the bus stop where 14-year-old Tabitha was last seen one year ago.

"I thought it was all about the car wreck until they took me down there and talked to me about her," said Brown.

Tabitha's family told News 2 that Brown had been speeding up and down their street earlier in the day.

Brown said, "I drove by yesterday, and they told me I was going too fast and I apologized to them and said they were right."

Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas isn't commenting on the events of Wednesday night, but he asked the public to continue calling in leads.

"Most of what we're getting is stuff we've either already heard of or seen, or stuff that's just not real. It's make believe, it's rumor, it's folklore. But what we want is every one of those pieces of information, because a kernal of truth may be in one of them and we don't want to miss it," said Serpas.

Chief Serpas says that in the last three months, Metro Police have received 42 tips in the case, and has conducted 55 interviews. He says their investigation has included 21 different law agencies in 10 different states, plus the FBI.

Melissa Penry for News 2 at 4 pm
4.29.04
 
Tuders case shadows neighbor whose life has not been sunny

http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/04/04/50617712.shtml?Element_ID=50617712

By IAN DEMSKY
and CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF
Staff Writers

Earnest Fred Brown admits he's a crack addict and a thief with psychological problems. But he said yesterday that he didn't abduct Tabitha Tuders.

Brown, 22, was already a ''person of interest'' in the yearlong investigation into the girl's disappearance. Then he was in a bizarre car crash Wednesday that thrust him into the spotlight on the eve of the anniversary of the girl's vanishing.

The east Nashville girl, then 13, disappeared on her way to a bus stop April 29, 2003.

Yesterday, more than 100 people turned out to follow the two-block path she would have taken that morning. Bo and Debra Tuders, the girl's parents, prayed for a miracle as the buzz about Brown circulated through the crowd.

Over the past year, he has been interviewed extensively by Metro police investigators, who said he had cooperated with them.

''If I knew who did it, I'd snitch, 'cause it's wrong,'' Brown said yesterday outside his home on Boscobel Street, about a block away from Tabitha's home.

About 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Tuderses had asked Brown to stop speeding past their Lillian Street home, where children were playing.

Minutes later, police say, Brown drove in reverse through a stop sign at 14th and Boscobel streets, crashing a borrowed Buick Century over metal posts and into a tree.

He then ran to 1213 Boscobel, the home of his girlfriend, Tammy West, the car's owner. Officers found him there about 7 p.m., according to police reports.

Brown was questioned and released Wednesday night. He was given misdemeanor citations of leaving the scene of an accident and driving without a license. Police impounded the wrecked car and are searching it for any link to Tabitha.

A week ago, Brown was released from jail on a car-theft charge. Since 1999, he has been arrested 14 times on charges including theft, driving without a license, illegal weapons possession, aggravated burglary, aggravated assault and probation violation, police records show. His arrest history before 1999 is confidential because he was a juvenile.

Known to family and friends as Fred, and to exasperated neighbors as ''Fast Fred,'' Brown said the crash happened as he attempted to recover a bike that had been stolen from his girlfriend's son. He told police the car's brakes failed.

''Fred just didn't think to turn the car around,'' said his mother, Charlene Brown.

Brown said it was a coincidence he wrecked the car near Tabitha's bus stop a year after she disappeared. Police detectives are also treating it that way.

''My brother might be a thief, but he's not a killer,'' said Christy Brown, his sister. ''He's not violent. I've hit him before, and he just stands there and takes it.''

His mother said neighbors had harassed her troubled son and that, after a year of questioning him without any evidence, police needed to leave him in peace.

''There's a lot of mental people in this world, and they're not all killers,'' she said.

Charlene Brown said police had interviewed family members many times, searched their vehicles and explored their yard with police dogs.

She also said her son just can't keep a secret. If he was involved with Tabitha's disappearance, he would have told his family, she said.

''He can't keep nothing to himself,'' said Dorothy Cox, his grandmother. He is very open about his drug problems, mental illnesses and property crimes, she said.

Brown agreed. ''I'd even snitch on myself.''

Early in the investigation, Brown became a ''person of interest'' after ''people in the neighborhood identified him as someone we should look into,'' said detective Faye Okert, who added that police have no suspects.

Brown was examined again in February after a written message relating to Tabitha was found in his cell at Metro's Hill Detention Center. Police say they think another inmate may have written it to spite Brown.

Police were also interested in a red Chrysler LeBaron that Brown had destroyed at a scrap-metal yard several months ago, Okert said. A 10-year-old boy, perhaps the last person to see Tabitha, told police she got into a red car that morning while he was waiting for the bus.

Police said earlier in the investigation that they had questions about the boy's story.

Detectives were unable to examine the car before or after it was destroyed. Okert said she was confident that Steiner-Liff Iron & Metal Co. would have checked the car before melting it down.

The car had broken down and was parked near Brown's Boscobel Street home for a time, his grandmother said.

''If it had a body in it, we would have known it.''

Even the neighbors whom Brown has stolen from said yesterday they didn't think he had anything to do with Tabitha's disappearance, though they wonder why he's still on the streets.

As for the Tuders family, they say they have no reason to suspect Brown, but they are reserving judgment while the investigation continues.
 
http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/04/04/50680454.shtml?Element_ID=50680454


There was also a request for prayers for Tabitha Tuders, the east Nashville girl who disappeared from her neighborhood a year ago last week. The request was put forward by letter writer Virginia Trimble, whose daughter, Marcia, disappeared in 1975 while selling Girl Scout cookies and was found slain a month later.

Today, the Trimble case is one of Nashville's most notorious unsolved homicides.

''On behalf of Bo and Debra Tuders'' — Tabitha's parents — ''thank you for the coverage that you've given this child,'' Trimble said.

''Marcia Trimble was my daughter — is still, is my daughter. She was murdered 29 years ago. She was 9 years old. And I do appreciate The Tennessean for honoring her so many times over and mentioning, bringing her case to the public, because we want to solve her case. I want the killer of my Marcia to see, written in your newspaper, her name. I want him to see this, and I want him to be found.

''I just talked with the Tuders before I came and told them that I had this great opportunity to speak Tabitha's name before the public.''
 
http://www.nashvillescene.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?story=This_Week:Columns:Love_And_Hate_Mail

Nashville Scene Love Hate Mail

Hope prevails


Kudos on the Tabitha Tuders editorial ("Failing Tabitha Tuders," April 29). I pray every day for the family of this missing little girl. I'm outraged that there hasn't been more assistance for this family to find their little girl. Somebody knows what happened to Tabitha. Actually, more than one person has to know; a person doesn't just vanish into thin air without a little help. I challenge the police department to take time to care again. I know in this world of crime and drugs and murders every day, it's easy to become hardhearted to the plight of one person. But what if this was one of their 13-year-old daughters, or what if she was the daughter of some well-to-do Nashville official? Tabitha most likely would already be home if that were the case.

For Tabitha's family, I pray for peace in this time of a void in your lives. I pray that she is safe and will eventually be returned to you. I know with each passing day the hope grows dimmer, but just keep the faith in miracles. And I pray that whoever knows where Tabitha is will come forward and end this family's grief. Tabitha, wherever you are, know that there are people who love you and pray you are safe. No one has forgotten you, and we will never give up hope that you make it home safely to your family.

Heather L. Aldrich
 
The breaking news involved the vehicle that Ernest Fred Brown was driving and material found inside the vehicle which has been sent off to the FBI. I am not able to discuss at this time what was found. New information and more person's of interest have developed because on these events.
 
johnny said:
The breaking news involved the vehicle that Ernest Fred Brown was driving and material found inside the vehicle which has been sent off to the FBI. I am not able to discuss at this time what was found. New information and more person's of interest have developed because on these events.
Click to expand...

Thank you, Johnny! I appreciate you sharing what you can. We are all praying for Tabitha and her family.
 
thanks for keeping us posted on the breaking news. I had thought that the reason it never appeared on tv was that the law enforcement did not want it out too soon. hope that this is some good info and findings that will find the person that did this to the tuders family. please keep us posted as to what new developements may come about.
 
Why has Ernest Brown been a person of interest? Had we known this name before? I can't remember, so if anyone could refresh our memories that would be great.

Thank you.

Praying for Tabitha,
jat
 
earnest fred brown if I recall correctly became a person of interest while jailed in nashvilles sheriffs dept. on other charges, apparently he or someone had made some type of statement which was found scratched into a window about tabitha. I beleive if I understood that the window was in the same cell as earnest was. nothing as far as I know really ever came of it, but the police have been keeping close eyes on him. earnest lives in the same neighborhood as tabitha. the evening prior to april 29 2004 which marks the one year mark of her disappearence he was speeding thru the neighborhood and ended up crashing his car at the same location she turned missing. I think that he at some time had mentioned that he was on the same street as tabitha the morning she disappeared. websleuths member " JOHNNY " may have a better handle on all of the particulars about him. he and I along with many others have been searching for tabitha for the past year.
 
how hard is it in small town Tennessee to go to a hospital to deliver a baby while keeping the mother's identity hidden?

If the doctor sees an underage woman having a child, are they forced to report it?
 
Rocky said:
how hard is it in small town Tennessee to go to a hospital to deliver a baby while keeping the mother's identity hidden?

If the doctor sees an underage woman having a child, are they forced to report it?
Click to expand...
Near my small Alabama town, about 10 years ago there were a group of adult women staying at a local Holiday Inn. They had a young woman with them, who gave birth at the motel. They reported that it just suddenly happened and that they could not make it 3 miles to the hospital, but oddly enough they just so happened to have with them several items needed or useful in childbirth, such as disposable waterproof pads, scissors, cord clamp, bulb syringe, along with baby clothes and baby blankets and personal hygiene items for the new mom!!!
They showed up at the hospital the next day, wanting to get a birth certificate, and the authorities were notified. The mother was not a young girl, but the circumstances were so strange that it was reported. I do not know the final outcome, but had the women NOT tried to get a birth certificate and just left and moved on or went back home, no one would have ever known anything had happened at all!!
 
Rocky said:
how hard is it in small town Tennessee to go to a hospital to deliver a baby while keeping the mother's identity hidden?

If the doctor sees an underage woman having a child, are they forced to report it?
Click to expand...

rocky, in tennessee hospitals they report underage birth mothers to law enforcement if a legal parent or gaurdian is not present or accounted for, doctors for the most part will know that if a woman giving birth is underage or not. :twocents:
 
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