District Report Examines Disappearance of Homeless Girl

a photo of a candlelight vigil for Relisha Rudd, a child who has been missing, organized by the Playtime Project in Washington, DC.

Tommy Wells/Flickr

Actions by city agencies could not have prevented the disappearance of 8-year-old Relisha Rudd from the D.C. General shelter, an official case review has concluded.

The review, released in a redacted form on Sept. 2,  finds D.C. agencies provided appropriate services to the girl and her family in the weeks before she vanished. But it also makes recommendations for improving communications between agencies that help troubled families in the future.

The child, who is feared dead, has been missing since March. She disappeared with shelter janitor Khalil Tatum who was later found dead of an apparent suicide.  In the days leading up to police involvement in the case, school officials questioned the child’s absence from classes but reported that the absences had been excused by her mother,  who said Relisha was sick and in the care of a “Dr. Tatum.”  The case remains under police investigation.

The case review was conducted by a team led by Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services BB Otero and Deputy Mayor for Education Abigail Smith. The team included a number of city officials as well as an independent expert, Judith Meltzer, who is deputy director at the Center for the Study of Social Policy and a court-appointed monitor for the city’s Child and Family Services Agency. Team members interviewed individuals involved in the case and conducted an extensive examination of files before reaching their conclusions.

“After six months, I continue to be heartbroken over the fact that Relisha Rudd remains missing,” said D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray,  after reviewing the report. “Although I understand the desire to identify some action the District government could have taken to prevent this apparent tragedy, I have reviewed the Deputy Mayors’ thorough report and I accept its conclusions. Hindsight is always 20/20. However, given the law’s extraordinary deference to parents, I do not believe District agencies could have done anything that would have changed the sad outcome.”


Issues |Shelters|Youth


Region |Washington DC

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