“Relisha is our baby”: New documentary aims to raise awareness about the disappearance of Relisha Rudd

Here’s The Deal with KG
Kirstin Garriss
November 10, 2025

The girl with soulful eyes.

That’s one of the lines that stuck with me as I watched several old news reports and in-depth stories about Relisha Rudd, the 8-year-old girl who disappeared from a homeless shelter in Washington, DC in 2014.

Her big brown eyes say so much without uttering a word.

Whether you live in the District or not, Relisha’s story is worth your time because her story isn’t the only one out there.

More than half a million people were reported missing last year, according to the latest FBI data available. Of those numbers, more than 193,000 of those reported missing cases were for Black men, women, and children.

But when you’re Black and missing, your story isn’t seen, shared, or heard as much. In fact, these cases aren’t always taken seriously by law enforcement either, especially in the initial hours of a disappearance.

This is Relisha’s story – one of a little girl with soulful eyes who fell through the cracks of the city’s social services system with a community still searching for answers.

“Justice is keeping Relisha’s story alive”

On what would have been her 20th birthday, dozens of family, friends, and community members gathered together to remember Relisha Rudd.

More than a decade after her disappearance, a new documentary series called “The Vanishing of Relisha Rudd: A Cold Case Reexamined,” revisits what happened in the spring of 2014. The 8-year-old vanished from D.C. General, the now-shuttered homeless shelter in the city where she lived with her family.

“Justice is keeping Relisha’s story alive until there are answers as to what happened to her. We can no longer turn a blinds eye to this case. We cannot forget about it. We have to continue to move forward to find her,” said Natalie Wilson, executive producer of the series and co-founder of The Black and Missing Foundation.

Leaders of the Black and Missing Foundation said the goal of the documentary is to help spark new leads in Rudd’s case. Derrica Wilson, one of the organization’s co-founders, believes Rudd is still alive and that someone out there knows something related to her case.

“Relisha is our baby, and we all want answers…We are hoping that this documentary will bring answers, bring in tips so we can have justice for Relisha. We’re also wanting this documentary to also show that there’s been so many systems that failed her, and it’s an opportunity for agencies to review their policy and their procedures how they respond to missing person cases,” said Derrica Wilson, the other executive producer of the series and co-founder of The Black and Missing Foundation.

Authorities say Relisha Rudd was last seen on March 1, 2014, on surveillance footage at a Holiday Inn Express in Washington, DC. In the video, she was with 51-year-old Kahlil Tatum, a janitor at the homeless shelter. Tatum befriended Rudd’s family during their stay at the shelter and became very close with Relisha.

Rudd missed several weeks of school at Southeast Washington’s Payne Elementary before a school social worker alerted police. Authorities searched for Tatum, but before they could question him, officers say he died by suicide.

The FBI is still offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the location and return of Relisha Rudd.

Derrica Wilson believes it will take law enforcement, the media, and the community to find Relisha. She said the Black and Missing Foundation has a tipline available 24/7 where information can be shared anonymously.

“When we understand that our community has this distrust with law enforcement, they rely on our organization to help provide or be that vehicle to get tips in. And so it just really shows the value of our partnership coming together,” said Derrica Wilson, co-founder of The Black and Missing Foundation.

In addition to outlining what’s known about Rudd’s disappearance, the series also explains how missing persons cases can be connected to sex trafficking.

“These predators are preying on vulnerability. We encourage parents out there, stop being their children’s friends, be their parent, have these uncomfortable conversations, these discussions, because it really is life-changing,” said Derrica Wilson, co-founder of The Black and Missing Foundation.

In this video, Derrica Wilson outlines some of the troubling stats related to sex trafficking and what families should be on the lookout for.

“Getting closure for our family”

Birthdays are often full of emotions, and that’s exactly how Antonio Wheeler, Relisha Rudd’s stepfather, felt on October 29, which should have been his stepdaughter’s 20th birthday.

“I’m just happy for everybody who hears her story and really cares, and hopefully we can bring her home,” said Wheeler ahead of the screening of the docuseries about Relisha.

Wheeler told me it was a “living nightmare” seeing Rudd’s face on the news during the height of the initial search for her. He said she still has siblings looking for her too. Wheeler said justice for them is simple: accountability.

“People being held accountable. The right people being held accountable. Us, locating her for one, no matter what form that’s in. Getting closure for the boys, getting closure for our family, that’s what justice would look like for us,” said Wheeler.

He hopes this new documentary doesn’t just help raise awareness about Relisha’s story but the stories of other missing children.

“Relisha is not at peace.”

Metropolitan Police Department Detective Mike Fulton has been investigating unsolved missing persons cases in the Washington, DC area since 2016. This includes the cases of Pamela Butler, Marta Rodriguez, and Unique Harris.

During these investigations, he connected with The Black and Missing Foundation, and now he said he’s been working to bring justice to missing persons of color.

Relisha Rudd is one of those cases.

Because her case is now cold, Detective Fulton told me there are some challenges for law enforcement.

“As time passes, people’s memories fade, witnesses die, evidence could get misplaced,” said Detective Fulton. “With this particular thing, when you’re looking at you don’t, you don’t have a victim who can tell you what happened. You don’t even have a victim’s body to be able to tell you what happened. So it’s trying to, just like, start there, and trying to figure out what happened.”

Detective Fulton said her case has generated a lot of traction on social media over the years, but he believes the one voice that’s always been missing is Relisha’s.

“Relisha is not at peace,” said Fulton during the screening of the docuseries. “The truth is what’s going to set everybody, it’s gonna set Relisha free, it’s gonna set the family free.”

During the height of her case, Detective Fulton told me it wasn’t just law enforcement involved with searches for Rudd.

New voices lifting up Relisha’s name

Even though Rudd has been missing for more than a decade, there are still people learning about her story. DC native and social media influencer Antonio Shell is one of them. Shell learned about Rudd’s story about six months ago.

“If I’m just now found out about her, it’s a lot of people that do not know her story, and I feel like that her story needs to be heard. It needs to be any more press out there. And I always ask myself, and I’m not racist, but I always ask myself, if this was another color with like would have been another way? So I always say, like, we got to do something, we got to do something big. We got to do something for her,” said Antonio Shell.

Since then, Shell has amplified Rudd’s story several times on social media to more than 1.5 million followers. Shell told me there are so many connections with Rudd’s story.

“Relisha, we love you.”

I asked a few people what they would say to Relisha if she saw any of the coverage about her documentary. These are some of those messages.

“Daddy, love her. I’ve been fighting. I got your brother’s back. We together. We just waiting for you to come home,” said Antonio Wheeler.

“Relisha, we love you. You are our baby girl. We will not stop looking for you. We want you back home,” said Derrica Wilson.

Below is the official trailer for the documentary series about Relisha Rudd. You can watch Part One and Two on The Black and Missing Foundation YouTube page.

Photo credit: NCMEC, Homeless Children’s Playtime Project