Nashville missing child Tabitha Tuders did not disappear.

 

Everyone in Nashville wondered how 13-year-old Tabitha Tuders disappeared on April 29, 2003 somewhere between her home on Lillian street and the bus stop on Shelby Avenue, a distance of only a few blocks. But Tabitha did not disappear.

There is no such thing as someone ‘disappearing,’ even in a magic act. There is a reasonable, sometimes simple, explanation to how all magic tricks are accomplished. After all, the only ‘magic’ in magic is making people believe it is real. The reality is, Tabitha Tuders was either abducted or left on her own accord. A reasonable explanation exists but no one knows what it is. And therein lies the heartache the Tuders family has endured for six years.

Looking at her photographs, you see a typical 13-year-old girl: skinny arms and legs, cocky smile, striking poses. She is a tough little girl but with a sweet side. She looks unflinching into the camera even in her baby pictures. Tabitha is the youngest of three, teased by her older siblings, but tough enough to take it. The baby of the family, a mamma’s girl; she started each night tucked in her bed but by dawn was sleeping soundly in a pallet at the foot of her parent’s bed to be near them. Parents Bo and Debra Tuders are both native Tennesseans, strong and tough, but good hearted. When Debra loves someone she’ll say, “they’re my heart.” This is how she describes her youngest child, and it always brings tears. Their home is overflowing with family photographs.

Tabitha’s room remains the same as she left it: An array of teddy bears, all shapes and sizes, overflow two rows on her shelves. Debra removes them to dust them off occasionally. She returns them exactly as Tabitha had originally placed them. Dolls sit here and there. Her favorite color, lavender, dominates the simple room. Clothes no longer hang in the closet; “I finally moved them out,” Debra said tearfully. “It took me a while to be able to do that.” There have been some changes: trophies won by Team Tabitha, their racecar, and other mementos sit on her dresser.

The amount of money spent in the search for a missing child is equivalent to the family’s income; the cost of posters, buttons, flyers, bumper stickers, and billboards not donated comes from the family budget. For low – income families, this means a lot less dollars to work with. Neither of Tabitha’s parents completed high school; Bo is a truck driver and Debra works in food service for a school cafeteria. Neither can afford to quit work to search full-time. The first two weeks of Tabitha’s disappearance, Debra was too upset to work, and until last year she could never work the anniversary date of Tabitha’s disappearance. The day she did go into work staff and students kept a watchful eye on her. “I got through it,” she said, her voice wavering. Work can be therapeutic. “You have to do it,” Bo explained. “You have to keep going, every day…hoping one day you’ll get a call to come pick her up,” his easy smile cracks and his voice falters, and you see that wish in his heart as clear as the tears in his eyes.

Debra also believes in the power of prayer, as evident by the written prayers accompanying Tabitha’s photos on the shelves. “You have to pray. We’ve had so many prayers.” She paused. “You know, the first two years (of Tabitha’s disappearance) I’d hear her voice, as I’d be driving along, saying something funny, like she did, and I’d laugh out loud. Then I’d look over to where she should have been sitting, and start crying. I’d just cry and cry.” Debra saw her family break down in different ways at various times. She encouraged them to let it out. “You can’t bottle it all in.”

Both of the Tuders recall a trip to Gatlinburg, what was supposed to be an escape, a retreat from the ongoing sadness, if only for a brief time. Tabitha had loved Gatlinburg. But every corner they turned, everywhere they looked, Tabitha’s sweet face was there: the rides she’d beg them to brave, the shops she’d love to peruse. “We cried the whole time, just walk and cry,” Bo admitted.

A 45-year-old next-door neighbor was devastated when her husband died, so Tabitha would go next door to sit with her and talk, telling the widow, “everything will be okay; you'll make it.” When the woman’s air conditioner broke down, Tabitha invited her to stay with the Tuders, welcoming pets and all: “Mamma and daddy won’t mind, I’m sure.” Tabitha lovingly referred to an elderly woman neighbor as “Gramma” and she would check out books from the school library to take to Gramma’s house to read to her. On Tabitha’s birthday, these women would have a small party for her. Tabitha’s older siblings would chide her for “hanging out with those old ladies” but Tabitha would ignore the ribbing; these ladies were her friends.

Tabitha loved Slim Jim beef sticks and Dr. Pepper, and if they were going out to eat she immediately requested Taco Bell. “Other kids want McDonalds,” Debra chuckled. Tabitha was crazy for chicken nuggets, and if she didn’t like the dinner menu at home, she would meander next door and ask “Gramma” for chicken nuggets, who always obliged. “You would think she’d get tired of ‘em,” Bo sighed, shaking his head. Tabitha would then call home and say, “I already ate at Gramma’s,” and Debra knew immediately what she had eaten.

Because the story of Tabitha’s missing has not been in the news, “People think she’s come home, or been found,” Bo explained. The Tuders found many friends began avoiding their home simply because no one knew what to say or how to act, or because it wasn’t the same without Tabitha there. They also feel it has brought their family closer, and not apart, as tragedy has a tendency to do. The family has also found something of a calling. When Northport Alabama’s Heaven Ross went missing in 2003 on her way to the bus stop, the Tuders immediately packed up and headed down to volunteer to assist the family. Debra spoke personally with a Clarksville teenaged girl who felt her father was being unreasonable by asking her to be careful around strangers. After seeing the Tuder’s appearance on Maury Povitch’s talk show, another young girl escaped an attempted abduction at a bus stop; she met the couple on their second appearance on Povitch and collapsed in tears in their arms. Because of what she had learned by watching Tabitha's story and the Tuders, “They saved my life,” she told Povitch.

Despite her mature behavior with the neighbors, Tabitha was a simple little girl. Unlike most 13-year-old girls, she was not into fussing over makeup or serious mall time, but favored family get-togethers and blue jeans and T-shirts. She was on the cusp of turning into a little lady, but the smattering of freckles on her nose kept her cute. She loved cuddling and playing with her nieces and nephews, and its evident on a homemade family video the Tuders show a guest on a small television. Debra leans close to the TV screen, as close as she can get, until the video ends, a smile on her face. She appears to want to climb into the scene and be there again, when everyone was safe and carefree together. Bo watches the video silently until it ends. “That’s her,” he says simply. “She’s just a little girl.”