Metro Police and agents from the FBI are digging around a site in Hickman County, following fresh leads in a 17-year-old abduction case. Tabitha Tuders was 13 when she left for her bus stop in East Nashville and never made it to school.
A six-acre plot in Bon Aqua with an abandoned house was just purchased by a new owner, says Sgt. Charles Rutzky, who leads Nashville’s cold case homicide unit.
“There’s been information developed,” Rutzky told reporters at the scene by a driveway into the wooded property. “As to how she may have come out here, that’s something we’re still investigating. So we’re still looking for information in this area.”
A law enforcement team, including MNPD Cold Case-Homicide detectives, Urban Search & Rescue officers & FBI agents, is in rural Hickman County today looking for evidence in the 2003 disappearance of 13-year-Old Tabitha Tuders. Recent information led investigators to Hickman County pic.twitter.com/2auIQYrLkN
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) August 12, 2020
Police say they’ve received tips ever since Tuders’ disappearance in 2003 that have led them all over the country. Earlier this year they had eight suspects.
Fascination with the case led to a documentary about her disappearance. Detectives promised her family, who still lives in the same house on Lillian Street, they will keep searching as long as needed.
“It’s a terrible position for any family to be in,” Rutzky said Wednesday. “The police department wants them to know we’re willing to do whatever it takes.”
Police have not released details of the search. Photos released to the media show them digging on the property, which they expect to continue into Thursday.
Courtesy MNPD Metro Nashville Police Department released this photo Wednesday afternoon of investigators searching a property in Hickman County in connection with the 2003 disappearance of Tabitha Tuders.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM