[5] Rudd suddenly stopped attending school in February, but her mother provided a note saying she was having health problems and was in the care of a "Dr. Tatum".

[6] The Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia launched a missing-persons probe on March 19, by which point Rudd had not been in school for a month.

[4] Tatum's wife Andrea was found shot in the head in a motel in Prince George's County, Maryland on the same day Rudd was reported missing (March 20).

Authorities generally believe that Rudd was either murdered by Tatum or sold to sex-traffickers, although the sex trafficking theory has been ruled out by DC Metropolitan Police Detectives.

In an interview with The Washington Post, a senior law-enforcement official suspected that Tatum had been sexually exploiting Relisha and possibly pimping her to others, and may have killed his wife due to her finding out about his activities.