Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / GIRL 13, HEADS TO BUS STOP, NEVER SEEN AGAIN: WHERE'S TABITHA? PARENTS BREAK SILENCE

Transcript

GIRL 13, HEADS TO BUS STOP, NEVER SEEN AGAIN: WHERE'S TABITHA? PARENTS BREAK SILENCE · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Just like every morning, a
0:09
Speaker 1: beautiful young girl just thirteen has to the school bus
0:13
Speaker 1: stop and she's never seen alive again tonight, Where is Tabitha?
0:20
Speaker 1: Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I
0:23
Speaker 1: want to thank you for being with us.
0:25
Speaker 2: It's an early Tuesday morning in East Nashville and a
0:28
Speaker 2: family is just waking up for the day. Everyone's getting
0:31
Speaker 2: ready for work and sending their daughter off to school.
0:33
Speaker 2: Neighbors bount thirteen year old Tabitha Tutors heading to the
0:36
Speaker 2: bus stop on South fourteenth Street at eight am that morning.
0:40
Speaker 2: She never meet it on to that school bus.
0:42
Speaker 1: Welcome everyone, joining us an all star panel to make
0:45
Speaker 1: sense of what we know tonight and the disappearance of Tabitha.
0:50
Speaker 1: But first I want to go to two very special
0:53
Speaker 1: guests joining us, Debora and Beau Tutors. These are tabitha parents,
1:01
Speaker 1: her mother and father to the Tutors. Welcome and thank
1:04
Speaker 1: you for being with us. Miss Tutor. Tell me what
1:08
Speaker 1: you remember about that morning when Tabitha went missing.
1:13
Speaker 3: Well, that morning, when I woke up to get ready
1:16
Speaker 3: for work, she was laying at the foot of my
1:19
Speaker 3: bed where normally that's where once we go to sleep,
1:23
Speaker 3: she comes in there. And then her dad woke her
1:26
Speaker 3: up to get ready for school when he left to
1:28
Speaker 3: go to work, and she walked up to the bus stop,
1:32
Speaker 3: and that was the last time we seen her.
1:34
Speaker 1: Did she have breakfast at home that morning.
1:36
Speaker 4: No, ma'am. She normally needs at school.
1:39
Speaker 1: Ah okay, one of those schools where they have breakfast
1:43
Speaker 1: for you. What time of the morning was that, miss Tutors.
1:46
Speaker 1: It was seven fifty seven five zero when she left
1:51
Speaker 1: for school or when she woke up when.
1:53
Speaker 4: She left for school. She woke up at seven.
1:57
Speaker 1: Tabitha was thirteen when she went missing. But she often
2:02
Speaker 1: would come and sleep snuggling in the same bed with
2:04
Speaker 1: you and your husband.
2:05
Speaker 3: Right, she normally made a palette at the foot of
2:08
Speaker 3: the bed.
2:08
Speaker 1: But yes, and when you say a palette at the
2:10
Speaker 1: foot of the bed, you mean on the bed or
2:12
Speaker 1: in the floor or where in.
2:14
Speaker 3: The floor she made it in the floor at the
2:17
Speaker 3: foot of the bed.
2:18
Speaker 1: Would she as a little girl younger than thirteen, was
2:21
Speaker 1: she afraid to sleep by herself? Or she just wanted
2:23
Speaker 1: to be with you, guys.
2:25
Speaker 4: She just wanted to be close to me.
2:27
Speaker 5: And that's where she slept.
2:29
Speaker 1: Mister Tudors, again, thank you for being with us. What
2:32
Speaker 1: do you recall about the morning when Tabitha disappeared?
2:38
Speaker 5: My wife, she got up and left for work.
2:41
Speaker 6: Then the probably about quarter minutes later, I woke Tabitha
2:45
Speaker 6: up till her maybe get up because I got to
2:48
Speaker 6: go to work.
2:50
Speaker 5: She's all right, I'm updated.
2:51
Speaker 6: I said, okay, baby, I love you, and I left
2:54
Speaker 6: for work, and that's the last time I saw her.
2:55
Speaker 1: You know what's shocking about this, And I'm going to
2:59
Speaker 1: go now to my longtime friend and colleague who has
3:06
Speaker 1: searched for missing children since the kidnap of his daughter, Polly,
3:11
Speaker 1: Mark classes with me. And Mark, I want to thank
3:15
Speaker 1: you because I know, well I can't identify with it,
3:20
Speaker 1: but I hear what you're telling me about the toll
3:24
Speaker 1: that the last decades have taken on you, handling one
3:29
Speaker 1: case after the next after the next. So thank you
3:33
Speaker 1: for being with us and for being here for Tabitha
3:36
Speaker 1: and her parents. Mark. One thing that always strikes me,
3:40
Speaker 1: and it strikes me about the murder of my fiance
3:43
Speaker 1: is you and I have discussed off camera, is how
3:46
Speaker 1: everything that morning is seemingly just fine. You think everything's fine.
3:53
Speaker 1: I remember when I walked out of that statistics exam mark,
3:56
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, it's beautiful, it's a sunny, beautiful outside,
4:01
Speaker 1: And within minutes I learned that Keith had been murdered.
4:05
Speaker 1: And when I hear Deborah and Bow Tutors described that
4:08
Speaker 1: morning like every morning, there's something so heartbreaking about that dichotomy.
4:14
Speaker 7: Well, it's the normal patterns of a life. You're doing
4:19
Speaker 7: what you do every day. You're getting your coffee, you're
4:24
Speaker 7: saying I love you to your child in a way
4:28
Speaker 7: that you always say it. But then fifteen twenty minutes
4:31
Speaker 7: later you find out that the whole world has stopped,
4:33
Speaker 7: that the whole world has fallen off a cliff, and
4:36
Speaker 7: you find yourself in this new reality that nobody is
4:40
Speaker 7: prepared for, and you have to do absolutely the best
4:44
Speaker 7: thing you can do to be able to, in their
4:46
Speaker 7: case and in my case, to be able to get
4:48
Speaker 7: up in the morning and to be able to put
4:51
Speaker 7: one foot in front of the other, is you try
4:54
Speaker 7: to unravel this mystery and work with the authorities on
4:57
Speaker 7: discovering what happened to your child. Now, the vast difference
5:02
Speaker 7: between what's happened with the Tutors and what has happened
5:06
Speaker 7: with me is that within two months I had finality.
5:11
Speaker 7: I knew exactly where Pollie was. I knew that she
5:14
Speaker 7: was not coming back alive. But the tutors are stuck
5:17
Speaker 7: in a in a in a loop. They're they're just
5:21
Speaker 7: stuck in this thing where all they've got left is hope.
5:24
Speaker 7: They have absolutely no answers whatever. And I can tell
5:28
Speaker 7: you definitively from my point of view, you're much better
5:32
Speaker 7: off knowing, regardless of what that means, than living in
5:37
Speaker 7: the in the loop of never having the answers that
5:40
Speaker 7: you so desperately seek and so desperately need to be
5:44
Speaker 7: able to move your life forward.
5:46
Speaker 1: Mark, I've got to ask you another question, and I'm
5:48
Speaker 1: going to go back to the tutors with the same question.
5:51
Speaker 1: Taba the tutor's parents, her mother and father are with us,
5:55
Speaker 1: along with Mark Klass and the rest of our all
5:58
Speaker 1: star panel. Mark to things one after Polly's kidnap and murder.
6:05
Speaker 1: Do you every time you say goodbye to somebody you love,
6:09
Speaker 1: Like when I say that you know my toys are
6:11
Speaker 1: driving now? And when I watch simple out of the
6:13
Speaker 1: driveway in the morning, I can't help but think, am
6:18
Speaker 1: I going to see them this afternoon. It's horrible to
6:22
Speaker 1: this day because I remember when I saw Keith drive away,
6:26
Speaker 1: put his hand out in the window and wave goodbye.
6:29
Speaker 1: I never saw him again. Does it ever go away?
6:33
Speaker 7: Mark, I've learned how to compartmentalize, and I can't have
6:39
Speaker 7: it at the forefront of my mind that every time
6:42
Speaker 7: I say goodbye to my wife I might never see
6:44
Speaker 7: her again. It's something that I'm completely aware of, but
6:49
Speaker 7: I don't let it come to the forefront of my
6:51
Speaker 7: mind because I think that would probably drive me nuts
6:54
Speaker 7: at some point. And it's hard enough, as you know,
6:59
Speaker 7: when you go through a tragedy like this, just holding
7:01
Speaker 7: on to your sanity can be a very difficult thing,
7:04
Speaker 7: particularly in the early days.
7:06
Speaker 1: And Mark my other question, and I'm going to follow
7:08
Speaker 1: up with the tutors on these very same two questions.
7:12
Speaker 1: I find myself and I'm wondering this about you and
7:15
Speaker 1: the Tutors as it relates to the Sacs in Tabitha's disappearance.
7:20
Speaker 1: I find myself not allowing my mind to go too
7:23
Speaker 1: close to the facts of Keith's murder, like what exactly
7:28
Speaker 1: went down? Did the bullet go all the way through
7:31
Speaker 1: his head? Did the bullet go all the way through
7:34
Speaker 1: his mouth. I can't, I don't. I can do it,
7:37
Speaker 1: but I don't do it because I don't want to
7:40
Speaker 1: get sucked into that and be morose around the twins.
7:46
Speaker 1: Do you keep Polly's disappearance at arm's length?
7:50
Speaker 7: Listen? She she was so full, she was afraid of
7:56
Speaker 7: the dark, and she was afraid of the Boogeyman. And
7:59
Speaker 7: the Boogeyman came in and took her in the dark
8:02
Speaker 7: and within an hour murdered her. I can't go there.
8:09
Speaker 7: I can't contemplate the last moments of her life. It
8:13
Speaker 7: is just so so I watch my language here, so horrific,
8:18
Speaker 7: so horrible, so dastardly, so inhumane, that I.
8:25
Speaker 5: Have to skirt it.
8:26
Speaker 7: I have to compartmentalize it.
8:27
Speaker 1: Same to Deborah and bow Tutors, who I want to
8:31
Speaker 1: tell everybody by coming on with us today, it's bringing
8:36
Speaker 1: back to the surface everything they went through when Tabatha
8:40
Speaker 1: just went to the to the bus stop and disappeared.
8:45
Speaker 1: Mister Tudors, tell me how has her disappearance affected you.
8:52
Speaker 8: It's heartbreaking and never knowing if you ever see your
8:57
Speaker 8: child again, or you know it's a to fit your cats,
9:01
Speaker 8: you know that she's gone, and but if she's gone,
9:05
Speaker 8: we're there again in the Lord's house.
9:07
Speaker 2: Ms.
9:08
Speaker 1: Tudor's howe has Tabitha's disappearance affected your life?
9:13
Speaker 3: Well, her disappearance, you know, like Bo said, it's heartbreaking
9:21
Speaker 3: not knowing whether she's here with us or not. You know,
9:26
Speaker 3: it took me a while to get back on my
9:29
Speaker 3: feet because she was my baby and not knowing you know,
9:35
Speaker 3: what happened to her or anything, you know, it'll drive
9:40
Speaker 3: me crazy.
9:41
Speaker 4: She woke up that morning, you know.
9:43
Speaker 3: To go to the bus stop and thinking that her
9:46
Speaker 3: day was going to be okay, and then she she.
9:51
Speaker 4: Never came back home.
9:53
Speaker 5: And I know she was scared of whatever happened.
9:56
Speaker 3: What do you mean because Tabitha was she was so little,
10:00
Speaker 3: you know, if somebody took her, she wouldn't have been
10:03
Speaker 3: strong enough to fight at all.
10:05
Speaker 4: She was tightening.
10:06
Speaker 1: And who would have imagined that anyone would make off
10:10
Speaker 1: with Tabitha that early in the morning. Most people can
10:14
Speaker 1: barely get the clothes off straight and have a cup
10:16
Speaker 1: of coffee. And why would you ever imagine that anything
10:20
Speaker 1: could go wrong between your house and the bus stop.
10:23
Speaker 1: It's True Crime Stories with Nancy Grace breaking their silence.
10:38
Speaker 1: Tabitha's parents, her mother and father, are with us. We
10:42
Speaker 1: are now following up on the details the details of
10:47
Speaker 1: Tabitha's disappearance. Tabitha leaves that morning to go to the
10:51
Speaker 1: bus stop and she's never seen again. What do we know?
10:58
Speaker 1: To Sydney Summery joining usmonline dot com investigative reporter, Where
11:03
Speaker 1: exactly did this happen?
11:04
Speaker 2: Nancy? The tutor's home is in the thirteen hundred block
11:08
Speaker 2: of Lillian Street. Tabitha's bus stop is just around the
11:13
Speaker 2: corner at fourteenth in Biscobel, so she would take a
11:16
Speaker 2: right from the house, head down Fourteenth and catch the
11:19
Speaker 2: bus at Boscobol Street. This is where she was last
11:22
Speaker 2: seen by several neighbors. Some do report seeing Tabitha cross
11:26
Speaker 2: Buscobol Street heading towards fifteenth, but those sightings are not confirmed.
11:32
Speaker 1: Well. The bus stop, as a matter of fact, my understanding,
11:35
Speaker 1: Sidney Sumner is only zero point one mile away from
11:40
Speaker 1: her home at fourteenth and Biscobul.
11:42
Speaker 2: That's absolutely correct, Nancy. So Tabitha usually left the house
11:45
Speaker 2: around seven fifty am when she was supposed to catch
11:48
Speaker 2: the bus at eight am, so it gave her five
11:51
Speaker 2: minutes to walk to the bus stop, in just five
11:53
Speaker 2: minutes to wait.
11:54
Speaker 1: To Bo Tutors, isn't that correct? A straight shot to
11:58
Speaker 1: the bus stop, yes, ma'am. She didn't have to go
12:01
Speaker 1: through anybody's backyard or cross a fence or down in alley,
12:05
Speaker 1: nothing like that.
12:06
Speaker 2: That.
12:06
Speaker 1: It was very visible her pathway, correct, mister Tudors.
12:12
Speaker 6: Yes, ma'am, Like like you said earlier, just a straight
12:15
Speaker 6: shot to it. She come out of the house, went
12:18
Speaker 6: to the right, went to fourteenth, took the right, and
12:20
Speaker 6: top of the hill there was the.
12:21
Speaker 1: Bus stop and there were other children there. I remember
12:24
Speaker 1: my bus stop. The whole neighborhood was there. The elementary
12:27
Speaker 1: was on one side of the road and the high
12:29
Speaker 1: school was on the other side of the road. So
12:31
Speaker 1: there were other children there, correct.
12:34
Speaker 5: Yes, ma'am. I believe they said it was the other
12:35
Speaker 5: children there.
12:36
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, Sidney Sumner, I've been looking into it
12:38
Speaker 1: as we started researching the case and delving into the records.
12:42
Speaker 1: There were other children there, correct, Sidney, Yes.
12:45
Speaker 2: That is absolutely correct, And a boy who was waiting
12:48
Speaker 2: at that bus stop actually provided police with a tip.
12:52
Speaker 1: Back to Mark class joining us. Mark, you and I
12:55
Speaker 1: have marveled, not in a good way, at the number
13:00
Speaker 1: kidnappings and disappearances that take place en route to school,
13:04
Speaker 1: to the bus stop, all the way home from school,
13:07
Speaker 1: from the pickup line, everything relating to getting to and
13:13
Speaker 1: from school. What is the statistic regarding the disappearances?
13:18
Speaker 7: Sure, this is something I heard ten years ago at
13:20
Speaker 7: a conference in Dallas, Texas from the lips of the
13:25
Speaker 7: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. One third of
13:29
Speaker 7: all predatory abductions occur on school routes. Now, the thing
13:34
Speaker 7: that incentses me about that, Nancy, is that that's a
13:37
Speaker 7: statistic that if it was out there and people besides
13:41
Speaker 7: you and I were talking about this, things could be
13:44
Speaker 7: done to protect the kids on those routes. We could
13:47
Speaker 7: do low tech things like a neighborhood watch kind of
13:50
Speaker 7: a thing to make sure that the kids are able
13:52
Speaker 7: to get to and from where they're going. We could
13:55
Speaker 7: do high surveillance kinds of things with cameras. There are
13:59
Speaker 7: all kinds of solutions to this problem. But this is
14:02
Speaker 7: something that despite all of the resources they had, and
14:06
Speaker 7: these are from my lips to yours, for all the
14:09
Speaker 7: resources of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has
14:13
Speaker 7: they have never gone to Congress and said we need
14:16
Speaker 7: an initiative to do something about that. They've never highlighted
14:20
Speaker 7: it to the public so that the public can be
14:22
Speaker 7: aware of this grim, grim statistic.
14:25
Speaker 1: To the family of Tabitha Tutor. You guys didn't understand
14:31
Speaker 1: that Tabitha was missing until well on into the school day.
14:38
Speaker 1: Is that correct, is ma'am? What happened miss Tutors?
14:41
Speaker 3: She always comes home, she's at home by five or four,
14:45
Speaker 3: and she didn't arrive home that day. I got worried,
14:48
Speaker 3: so I allowed fifteen minutes for the bus to come
14:51
Speaker 3: to be late, and then she still to come home.
14:55
Speaker 4: And then I'll went to the school to see if
14:57
Speaker 4: she was up there.
14:58
Speaker 3: And I couldn't get nobody to the door, so I
15:02
Speaker 3: came back home. I got my husband both and then
15:06
Speaker 3: me and him both went back up there and knocked
15:09
Speaker 3: on the door, and finally a custodian let me in
15:12
Speaker 3: and we asked him if Tabitha was there, and he
15:16
Speaker 3: said that there was a teacher around the corner with
15:18
Speaker 3: some kids.
15:20
Speaker 4: So I walked around to the corner where they.
15:22
Speaker 3: Were and heim the teacher and all the kids said
15:26
Speaker 3: that Tabitha didn't make it to school that day, that
15:29
Speaker 3: she never got on the bus, and that you know,
15:33
Speaker 3: and then we called the authorities to come out and
15:37
Speaker 3: tell them that she had been taken.
15:39
Speaker 1: So it wasn't miss tutors until well on into the day,
15:44
Speaker 1: late in the afternoon that you realized she was gone.
15:49
Speaker 1: Nobody would answer the door at the school. You had
15:52
Speaker 1: to beat on the door. You finally got a hold
15:53
Speaker 1: of the custodian. And how exactly did you find out
15:57
Speaker 1: she was never in school that day? Who told you that?
16:00
Speaker 3: I didn't know that she was in school today until
16:02
Speaker 3: I went up to the school that evening to see
16:05
Speaker 3: if she.
16:06
Speaker 4: Might have missed the bus.
16:08
Speaker 3: And then the custodian let me in, and I'll talked
16:11
Speaker 3: to the teacher that was around the corner and he
16:14
Speaker 3: said that Tabitha never came to school that day, So
16:18
Speaker 3: I never knew that she wasn't there.
16:19
Speaker 1: What went through your mind when you found out she
16:25
Speaker 1: never made it to school.
16:26
Speaker 3: I was scared myself and just worrying about where you
16:32
Speaker 3: might be or whatever. And then when I got with Bou,
16:35
Speaker 3: you know, we didn't know what to think because we
16:40
Speaker 3: thought that our child would be safe to go to
16:42
Speaker 3: school and she never made it, and nobody ever called
16:46
Speaker 3: us to let us know that she wasn't there, So
16:49
Speaker 3: all day long I was thinking she was in school.
16:52
Speaker 1: Mister Tudor's what went through your mind when you learned
16:55
Speaker 1: Tabitha had never even made it to school.
16:57
Speaker 6: The school should have called. You know, she worked for
17:01
Speaker 6: the school system that time. You know that the school
17:05
Speaker 6: should have called her and let her know that our
17:08
Speaker 6: child was it in school. But then you know that's
17:10
Speaker 6: far beyond the point. But it just excured me. My
17:15
Speaker 6: heart dropped and has been dropped ever since.
17:18
Speaker 1: To Steve Fisher joining us Missing Persons Private investigator at
17:23
Speaker 1: Search Investigations, dot org Stein, thank you for being with us.
17:29
Speaker 1: The first hours are so critical in a search, and
17:32
Speaker 1: when we realized Tabitha left that morning at seven five
17:36
Speaker 1: zero seven fifty a m. All those hours, nearly twelve
17:42
Speaker 1: hours had passed. That's critical. Why is that so important?
17:48
Speaker 9: The time is.
17:48
Speaker 10: Critical because you know, as far as them getting ahead,
17:53
Speaker 10: start getting further away from the last known location is
17:56
Speaker 10: a critical thing. And also survivability. You know, when person's
18:01
Speaker 10: out in the elements, or if a person's been injured
18:04
Speaker 10: and left, you know, those first hours, if we can
18:06
Speaker 10: get to them. You know they have a much better
18:09
Speaker 10: survival rate.
18:10
Speaker 1: Now you're so right, Mark class agree or disagree? Well?
18:12
Speaker 7: Do I do agree? The statistics are pretty clear that
18:15
Speaker 7: seventy four percent of children that are murdered as a
18:18
Speaker 7: result of a predatory abduction will be dead within the
18:21
Speaker 7: first three hours.
18:22
Speaker 1: To Deborah and Bow Tutors, Tabitha's mom and dad. Had
18:26
Speaker 1: Tabitha ever missed the bus before?
18:29
Speaker 3: Yes, once, and she called me at work, and then
18:33
Speaker 3: I came home and took her to school and went
18:35
Speaker 3: back to work.
18:36
Speaker 1: How far away did you work, miss Tutors?
18:38
Speaker 4: Probably not six miles.
18:42
Speaker 1: So ten minutes, yes, ma'am. And mister Tutors, how about yourself?
18:46
Speaker 5: Probably about seven eight miles.
18:48
Speaker 1: Where do you work, miss Tutors?
18:49
Speaker 4: I'm joeyelem Andrew.
18:51
Speaker 1: And what do you do there?
18:52
Speaker 4: Work in the cabeteria serving the tutor's food.
18:55
Speaker 1: And mister Tutors, where do you work?
18:56
Speaker 6: Well at the time, but tabitha disappearance, I would driving
19:00
Speaker 6: truck for Summer's Lumber and Timber.
19:02
Speaker 1: That you were home the day she disappeared, correct, that morning?
19:06
Speaker 5: Then I left about seven and headed to work.
19:09
Speaker 1: So if she had missed the bus, she typically would
19:13
Speaker 1: have gone home and called you and you would take
19:16
Speaker 1: her one of you. Probably you missed his tutors. How
19:20
Speaker 1: long was her walk to school if she had decided
19:23
Speaker 1: to walk.
19:23
Speaker 4: Oh, it's pretty good ways.
19:26
Speaker 1: Okay, so she would have called you.
19:28
Speaker 4: Yes, ma'am, she would.
19:29
Speaker 1: Have called you to get a ride. Okay, okay, guys,
19:32
Speaker 1: this is not the first time by far that parents
19:37
Speaker 1: were not alerted their child never made it to school,
19:43
Speaker 1: causing is you can imagine in my line in a
19:46
Speaker 1: business causing the unspeakable result? Does the name Aliana Defreese
19:54
Speaker 1: ring a bell? Because I will never forget it.
19:57
Speaker 9: Listen, My wife and I were watching a movie of
19:59
Speaker 9: five in the evening and we received a call from
20:03
Speaker 9: miss Cooper and as she asked us, did you guys
20:06
Speaker 9: pick up Aliana? I said, no, we didn't pick her up.
20:08
Speaker 4: If we would have picked her up, we would to
20:09
Speaker 4: contact you.
20:10
Speaker 5: The day before.
20:11
Speaker 9: Why what's going on? And she said she'd never made
20:13
Speaker 9: the school.
20:14
Speaker 1: When the moms and says, do you have Aliana? You
20:16
Speaker 1: called the school, right, and what did they tell you?
20:20
Speaker 9: We were told that there was a glitch in the
20:23
Speaker 9: system that day, so things weren't working. And I asked well,
20:27
Speaker 9: do you have people sitting in offices every time I
20:30
Speaker 9: go to the school. Why can't they directly call parents for,
20:34
Speaker 9: you know, to do what they're supposed to do.
20:36
Speaker 1: You're hearing me speaking with Aleiana's father, Damon. Aleanna had
20:41
Speaker 1: left to go to school that morning as normal, just
20:44
Speaker 1: like Tabitha. She was never seen alive again. To mister Tudors,
20:52
Speaker 1: did you ever ask the school? Why didn't you tell
20:54
Speaker 1: us she wasn't there?
20:55
Speaker 6: They said, We've asked them and they said that's something
20:58
Speaker 6: they don't do.
20:59
Speaker 1: Okay, So the head start that whoever took Tabitha got
21:06
Speaker 1: is almost insurmountable. But it is not insurmountable. But just
21:13
Speaker 1: think about it. Mark class sixty miles an hour. Every
21:17
Speaker 1: hour that passes sixty miles an hour times ten, that's
21:23
Speaker 1: a far distance away from home for a young girl,
21:26
Speaker 1: a thirteen year old girl a.
21:28
Speaker 7: Mile a minute. That's how fast your child can disappear.
21:31
Speaker 7: Another reason that the timing is so important. Another reason
21:35
Speaker 7: that you have to be able to know what's going on.
21:38
Speaker 7: I would hope that that school changed their mindless policy
21:42
Speaker 7: after Tabitha disappeared, and at least now our informing parents
21:47
Speaker 7: if kids don't come then?
21:49
Speaker 1: Is there a break? Was Tabitha spotted getting into a car? Listen?
21:57
Speaker 2: Nashville police canvassing the area receives several tips. Some neighbors
22:01
Speaker 2: report seeing Tabitha at the bus stop on fourteenth and
22:04
Speaker 2: Biscobel Street, but then saw her cross Fourteenth and head
22:07
Speaker 2: down Buscobel. A neighborhood boy says he saw Tabitha get
22:10
Speaker 2: into a red car at the corner of fifteenth Street.
22:13
Speaker 2: He described the driver as a black male thirty to
22:16
Speaker 2: forty years old. Tracker dogs traced Tabitha sent on a
22:19
Speaker 2: route similar to the boy's account. Jamie Tudor's ex boyfriend
22:23
Speaker 2: matched that description and drove a red car, but police
22:25
Speaker 2: placed him elsewhere that morning. The tracker dogs lose Tabitha's
22:29
Speaker 2: sent in an alleyway. Frenzy, Tabitha would have never gone
22:32
Speaker 2: in the alley alone.
22:33
Speaker 1: Okay, let's analyze what we're hearing. I've looked very carefully
22:39
Speaker 1: at the scene. I understand how a little boy at
22:42
Speaker 1: the bus stop could have seen a car where he
22:47
Speaker 1: says he saw the red car. I don't understand how
22:52
Speaker 1: at that distance he could see whether the driver was
22:55
Speaker 1: a male a female, black or white thirty to forty
22:59
Speaker 1: or wearing a hat. Now, one thing that could corroborate
23:02
Speaker 1: that story is that tracker dogs track Tabitha to about
23:08
Speaker 1: that location and then they lose her scent either in
23:13
Speaker 1: the street or in an alley. Way to debor tutors,
23:18
Speaker 1: what do you know about the validity of the eyewitness
23:24
Speaker 1: that says she got into a red car? Do you
23:27
Speaker 1: believe that happened?
23:28
Speaker 3: You know, at this time, I really don't know what
23:30
Speaker 3: to believe. I know, the boy said that she had
23:34
Speaker 3: crossed the street was coming down to the second bus
23:36
Speaker 3: stop in midway. He said the car made a red car,
23:40
Speaker 3: madea you turned and then went back up with Tabatha end.
23:43
Speaker 3: When she leaves the house and turns right at the
23:46
Speaker 3: stop sign to go up the hill, there is an
23:49
Speaker 3: alley there, but she passes.
23:51
Speaker 5: That alley and then her bus stop is at the top.
23:55
Speaker 3: But where the boy is is where she was going
23:58
Speaker 3: down to the second bus stop up because I've always
24:01
Speaker 3: told her, don't stay at that first bus stop by yourself.
24:05
Speaker 3: If the other two kids don't come, go to the
24:09
Speaker 3: second onder because the one just got the most kids.
24:12
Speaker 3: And that's what she did that morning.
24:13
Speaker 1: So you think she passed her first bus stop and
24:18
Speaker 1: was going to the second bus stop. Okay, now I'm
24:21
Speaker 1: understanding why she would have been there. Do you believe
24:25
Speaker 1: bow tutors that the little boy I don't think he
24:29
Speaker 1: was lying, But could he have seen what he thought
24:33
Speaker 1: he saw from his vantage point?
24:37
Speaker 5: From where he was at, he could see all the
24:40
Speaker 5: way up to the top of the hill. He could
24:42
Speaker 5: have he could actually saw what he thought he saw.
24:45
Speaker 1: Okay, another question right there? The tracker dogs, the tracker
24:50
Speaker 1: dogs that follow Tabitha's cent, Do they follow her scent?
24:55
Speaker 1: Do where the boy says he sees the red car.
24:58
Speaker 5: Yes, ma'am.
24:58
Speaker 1: To me, that's the very strong evidence, and to me
25:02
Speaker 1: that corroborates what he says. I still don't see how
25:06
Speaker 1: he could tell who is driving from his vantage point,
25:10
Speaker 1: but the fact that the tracker dogs go to that
25:14
Speaker 1: spot and then her scent ends is very powerful evidence.
25:20
Speaker 1: Mark Klass, what do you make of it?
25:21
Speaker 7: This was certainly unscientific, but more than eighty percent of
25:25
Speaker 7: the predatory abductions that occurred in cars happened within about
25:29
Speaker 7: a mile of a freeway on ramp or off ramp,
25:32
Speaker 7: So I think it's very telling, and I don't know
25:36
Speaker 7: the geography here, but I would think that if this
25:39
Speaker 7: is not within just a mile or so of a
25:41
Speaker 7: freeway on ramp, this had to be somebody local.
25:44
Speaker 2: J C.
25:45
Speaker 11: Lee Duguard blocks up the hill toward her school bus stop.
25:48
Speaker 11: Jac's halfway up the hill when a gray mid sized
25:50
Speaker 11: car with two people and do a U turn at
25:52
Speaker 11: the bus stop and go back to where Jac is.
25:55
Speaker 11: The driver of the car, Philip Garrida, motions for Jac
25:58
Speaker 11: to come closer, and, thinking he needs directions, she complies.
26:01
Speaker 11: As Jac gets near the car, Garta rolls down his
26:04
Speaker 11: window and tases Jacey with a stun gun. Garrito's wife,
26:08
Speaker 11: Nancy gets out and drags Jace get into the back
26:11
Speaker 11: seat of the car.
26:11
Speaker 1: The name J. C. Do Guard is known far and wide.
26:16
Speaker 1: Jac d Guard went on to live in a shed
26:20
Speaker 1: of sorts in the backyard of her to abductors and
26:25
Speaker 1: gave birth to two children by her kidnapper. In that shed,
26:35
Speaker 1: her parents her family had given up hope of ever
26:37
Speaker 1: seeing her alive again, but amazingly, she was rescued again.
26:45
Speaker 1: A child taken en route to a bus stop, en
26:50
Speaker 1: route to school, en route home from school. It goes
26:53
Speaker 1: on and on, and you just heard a disturbing statistic
26:57
Speaker 1: from Mark Class Victims' Rights Champion. One third of children
27:02
Speaker 1: who go missing stranger on stranger abduction occurs related to
27:09
Speaker 1: getting too or home from school. Joining me right now,
27:13
Speaker 1: the parents of Tabitha Tutors. She goes missing on the
27:17
Speaker 1: way to her bus stop. Her typical bus stop was
27:21
Speaker 1: point one mile away from her home. There is another twist. Listen.
27:29
Speaker 2: Tabitha's clothes, toilet, trees, and money were left behind. Tabitha
27:33
Speaker 2: did not even take her backpack to school that day,
27:35
Speaker 2: only carrying her signed report card with her. In Tabitha's
27:39
Speaker 2: desk at home, police find several business cards with Tabitha's name,
27:43
Speaker 2: phone number, and address on them, alongside a picture of
27:45
Speaker 2: Winnie the Pooh. Her parents did not know Tabitha had
27:48
Speaker 2: the cards and could not explain why she may have
27:51
Speaker 2: had them. Investigators also discover a note reading TDT in mto.
27:56
Speaker 2: Detectives believe them to be initials TDT for Tabitha Din't Tutors,
28:00
Speaker 2: but MTL has never been identified.
28:09
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace joining us in All Star panel.
28:16
Speaker 1: I'm going to go now to doctor John Dilatory Psychologists
28:20
Speaker 1: Mediator specializing in forensic psychology. Doctor Delatory, thank you so
28:26
Speaker 1: much for being with us. I'm bringing you into the
28:29
Speaker 1: discussion now because I wanted you to hear everything we
28:32
Speaker 1: know so far, and now we find out about this note.
28:36
Speaker 1: It was a single piece of paper in Tabitha's room
28:39
Speaker 1: that said TDT in caps in small mt L Tabitha
28:47
Speaker 1: and in Tabitha in MTL. It must be nerve racking
28:55
Speaker 1: when you are trying to find your loved one and
28:58
Speaker 1: then you find a note and by them by Tabitha.
29:01
Speaker 1: You have no idea what it means. That ends up.
29:06
Speaker 1: I've learned by victims families in victims families blaming themselves,
29:11
Speaker 1: like who is MTL M mother t toy L love?
29:16
Speaker 1: Who is MTL?
29:18
Speaker 2: Is it?
29:18
Speaker 1: Anybody? Is this real? Does this have anything to do
29:22
Speaker 1: with her disappearance? Why didn't I know? I'm her mother,
29:24
Speaker 1: I'm her father. Teen girls can write anything in their diary.
29:29
Speaker 1: That doesn't make it true.
29:31
Speaker 12: No, it doesn't make it true. But she is entering
29:33
Speaker 12: in that phase of life where she's going to start
29:35
Speaker 12: having and wanting her own autonomy. And it's certainly possible
29:39
Speaker 12: that MTL isn't the actual initials of a person. Maybe
29:42
Speaker 12: it stands for my true love. Maybe it's possible that
29:45
Speaker 12: Tabitha is starting to explore and think about what it
29:48
Speaker 12: would be like to be in relationships with other people,
29:51
Speaker 12: including romantic ones. There's all different kinds of things that
29:54
Speaker 12: is going on within an individual that as parents, you
29:57
Speaker 12: probably have no idea are actually going on. For whatever reason,
30:01
Speaker 12: Tabitha is keeping them a secret. Maybe she's not ready
30:04
Speaker 12: to tell her parents yet. Maybe all of this is
30:06
Speaker 12: fake and she doesn't want to be laughed at and ostracized.
30:09
Speaker 1: Not a jelatory. But my children are in the fifth grade.
30:13
Speaker 1: They came home and announced Katie has a boyfriend. It's
30:16
Speaker 1: a little girl in their class. I'm like, what is
30:18
Speaker 1: a boyfriend to you? No, no, no, They said Katie's dating somebody.
30:22
Speaker 1: I'm like, who is Katie dating since she's eleven years old,
30:26
Speaker 1: and what does dating mean to you? And they went, oh,
30:29
Speaker 1: it's somebody she talked to at school, so it may
30:34
Speaker 1: mean nothing at all. She wasn't on the phone all
30:38
Speaker 1: the time. Her room was ransacked. They looked at everything
30:42
Speaker 1: with a fine tooth comb. There was no indication she
30:45
Speaker 1: had a boyfriend. A boyfriend, hopeful.
30:48
Speaker 12: Nothing, Well, it doesn't matter that it doesn't actually mean
30:51
Speaker 12: anything in.
30:52
Speaker 9: The real world.
30:52
Speaker 12: It matters to her, right, all of this stuff matters.
30:55
Speaker 12: It's important to her, or else she wouldn't have done it.
30:58
Speaker 12: She seems to be a very deliberate a person who's
31:01
Speaker 12: constantly thinking about what she needs to be doing and
31:04
Speaker 12: how she's going to be happy with her life. So
31:06
Speaker 12: she's not doing random stuff just to get in trouble
31:09
Speaker 12: or something like that. She is very particular about stuff.
31:13
Speaker 12: She is very sort of regimented and has a plan to.
31:15
Speaker 1: Bo and debor tutors. As tutors, what does this little
31:19
Speaker 1: note mean? It's no her initials and other initials. Does
31:24
Speaker 1: it mean anything, you ma'am.
31:26
Speaker 3: We don't know who the initials were, you know, because
31:30
Speaker 3: Tabitha she didn't have a boyfriend, and she didn't really
31:34
Speaker 3: talk to boys at all, you know, on the phone
31:36
Speaker 3: or anything, like you said. At the beginning, she was
31:42
Speaker 3: mainly just read to the neighbor next door. They older,
31:46
Speaker 3: their lady, and that's about all she did.
31:52
Speaker 4: So we don't know who the misters they are.
31:54
Speaker 1: A source told me that on one occasion, Tabitha went
31:58
Speaker 1: with one of her little friend girls to the library
32:01
Speaker 1: and used the computer. Is that true?
32:05
Speaker 4: Not?
32:06
Speaker 3: In my knowledge, it's not true. But you know, she
32:12
Speaker 3: was always home. Were very share of let her go
32:16
Speaker 3: somewhere so that we didn't know where she was going.
32:19
Speaker 3: She did go down to the cross the street to
32:22
Speaker 3: a neighbor's house, but we could see her from the
32:24
Speaker 3: back porch.
32:26
Speaker 4: And I will call.
32:27
Speaker 3: Them and let him know that she's on her way,
32:30
Speaker 3: and I stand on the porch and he'll stand on
32:33
Speaker 3: his porch until she gets there.
32:35
Speaker 1: Mister Tudor, is Tabitha's dad is with us along with
32:38
Speaker 1: her mom. What have you been told about the local
32:42
Speaker 1: registered sex offenders?
32:43
Speaker 6: They said they questioned them all and that some of
32:49
Speaker 6: them are cleared and some of them are not. So,
32:53
Speaker 6: you know, I don't know what that means that you
32:55
Speaker 6: had to talk to the authorities about that, cause, you know,
32:57
Speaker 6: because you know, I don't know and I don't understand it.
33:00
Speaker 6: But there was quite a few within a mile rates
33:04
Speaker 6: of our house that we never knew until this happened.
33:07
Speaker 1: To missus Tudor. At first LA law enforcement as a runaway.
33:13
Speaker 1: Did you try to convince them she was not a runaway?
33:17
Speaker 3: Well, I told them at the beginning when they said
33:19
Speaker 3: that she was a runaway, and I told them that
33:21
Speaker 3: she wasn't a runaway, and they said, well, how do
33:24
Speaker 3: you know? You know, because they consider thirteen year old
33:27
Speaker 3: kids runaways. But I know in my heart that she
33:31
Speaker 3: did run.
33:32
Speaker 1: Away again, losing valuable time by labeling her a runaway.
33:36
Speaker 1: She had never run away from home. For Pete's sake,
33:40
Speaker 1: she slept at the foot of her parents' bed by
33:42
Speaker 1: her own desire. To you, Miss Tutors, what is your
33:47
Speaker 1: message today?
33:48
Speaker 4: Well, today is if anybody.
33:52
Speaker 3: Knows anything, just please come forward, you know, and let
33:55
Speaker 3: us know what they know and where she might be.
34:00
Speaker 3: I mean, if she's deceased, let us find where she's
34:03
Speaker 3: at so we can put her to risk and we
34:06
Speaker 3: have closure.
34:07
Speaker 1: Mister Tudors, what is your message?
34:09
Speaker 5: Just to.
34:12
Speaker 6: Love you children conditionally, because you don't never know when
34:16
Speaker 6: something like this is going to happen to anybody, and
34:19
Speaker 6: I don't wish this heartbreak on any parents out there.
34:23
Speaker 1: Miss Tutors. Tabitha went missing April twenty nine, two thousand
34:30
Speaker 1: and three. Do you still think about her every single day?
34:37
Speaker 3: Yes, ma'am. We talk about her every day with the
34:41
Speaker 3: Green Kids and even out in public when I go
34:44
Speaker 3: somewhere as somebody has stopped me and they tell me that,
34:48
Speaker 3: you know, they still have table in their prayers and
34:51
Speaker 3: and everything.
34:52
Speaker 4: You just tell me to be strong.
34:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I still have hope that one day she
34:59
Speaker 3: will come home or we will find or.
35:02
Speaker 1: What about it, mister Tutors.
35:03
Speaker 6: You know we talk about her every day. And our
35:07
Speaker 6: grandchildren that was born after Tabatha come up missing. You
35:12
Speaker 6: showed them a picture of Tabitha and you ask who
35:14
Speaker 6: that is. That's my aunt Tabitha. Somebody took her when
35:17
Speaker 6: she was little. You know they've been talked that way.
35:21
Speaker 1: When you say you talk about her every day, what
35:24
Speaker 1: do you talk about.
35:26
Speaker 5: The memories that we have of her? And what would
35:30
Speaker 5: she be like now? Whatever?
35:31
Speaker 1: What memory in your mind is the most vivid, mister Tudor.
35:38
Speaker 5: Oh, there's a bunch of them.
35:39
Speaker 6: Is just uh. We went to Gatlinburg one year on
35:43
Speaker 6: vacation and then we went to his zoo of her
35:46
Speaker 6: in a little billy goat was coming at her and
35:51
Speaker 6: she she she just froze and they had tears and
35:56
Speaker 6: eyes that secured her so bad. But after it happened,
35:58
Speaker 6: we told her that everything was all right, and she
36:01
Speaker 6: started laughing about it, and just a lot of memories
36:04
Speaker 6: that we have of her.
36:05
Speaker 1: This little girl was so timid, she was afraid of
36:08
Speaker 1: a billy goat. What is your most vivid memory of Tabitha,
36:13
Speaker 1: Miss Tutors.
36:15
Speaker 4: You know, My memory of Tabia was this happy little
36:18
Speaker 4: girl at.
36:20
Speaker 3: Thirteen, you know, and then she just disappeared. And then
36:25
Speaker 3: I still have my memories of her. They won't ever
36:28
Speaker 3: take them. We miss our daughter and we wish she
36:32
Speaker 3: was back home.
36:33
Speaker 1: I do too, Miss Tutors. If you know or think
36:38
Speaker 1: you know anything about missing Tabitha Tutors, she has now
36:44
Speaker 1: been missing over twenty years, contact Memphis tip line nine
36:52
Speaker 1: zero one seven four seven four to three zero zero
36:57
Speaker 1: repeat nine zero one one seven four seven four three hundred.
37:06
Speaker 1: We stopped to remember American hero Florida Trooper Zachary Fink,
37:11
Speaker 1: just twenty six, dying in a crash pursuing a suspects vehicle.
37:17
Speaker 1: He has survived by his grieving mother, father, and loving fiance.
37:24
Speaker 1: American hero Trooper Zachary Fink. Thank you to all of
37:29
Speaker 1: our guests being with us. Thank you to all of
37:32
Speaker 1: you for joining us tonight and every night. Nancy Gray
37:35
Speaker 1: signing off, goodbye friend,