Tabitha Tuders

The tiny clapboard house on Lillian Street is bustling with visitors on a balmy winter afternoon.

Bo Tuders sips coffee from a plastic travel mug as he tends to hamburgers and bratwursts sizzling on the grill. In a daze, he watches the giggling children duck behind several rickety vehicles parked in the grass. A cherry-red Bonneville convertible in need of attention, a rusty Ford pickup truck and an old pontoon boat line the perimeter of the property, along with a brown conversion van with a sticker spanning the top of the windshield that reads “Team Tabitha.” The latter is a reminder that today is not a celebration, a point reiterated by the buttons some of the guests are wearing. The laminated circular pins show a smiling young girl with freckles, deep-blue eyes and sandy-blond hair. Below the photograph is a plea: “Help Find Tabitha Tuders.”Pulling a pack of Winstons from the front pocket of his denim shirt, Bo explains that if his daughter were here, family and friends would be celebrating her 18th birthday with a backyard barbecue just as they are doing today. But even in her absence, they are compelled to observe this milestone. “We get a little relief out of it,” he says, releasing a steady stream of smoke as he speaks.Trying to forget that she’s gone is not an option.

Tabitha was 13 years old when she vanished on her way to catch the school bus just three blocks from her East Nashville home on April 29, 2003. Since then, five years of birthdays, Christmases, school dances and summer vacations have come and gone without any answers, and to this day Tabitha’s fate remains a mystery.

“It’s certainly one of those cases that haunts the community and haunts this police department,” says East Precinct Commander Robert Nash, one of a handful of Metro officers at Tabitha’s birthday gathering. Sounding genuinely troubled, Nash adds, “I think we all very much would like to see this case solved and see Tabitha come home.”

But as more time elapses without an arrest, the chances of cracking the case diminishes. Even so, Nash is quick to say that sometimes all it takes is one break—like a single phone call—to solve a cold case such as this.

The police presence on this emotional day represents the department’s ongoing commitment to the investigation, but it doesn’t erase critical missteps in the beginning. By failing to issue an Amber Alert, and inexplicably clinging to the notion that Tabitha might have run away, the department lost precious time in the early stages of the case. Investigators have since tried to play catch up.

Meanwhile, Tabitha’s loved ones have continued their own desperate search for answers. In the wake of her disappearance, a circuit of volunteers dubbed “Team Tabitha” combed the alleyways, abandoned homes and parks of East Nashville looking for any sign of the missing girl. They knocked on door after door asking if anyone had seen her, praying the next neighbor might hold the type of incidental clue that could unlock the mystery. They hung posters with Tabitha’s picture in corner groceries, at gas stations and on telephone poles, covering a few miles in each direction. But the dozens of volunteers eventually dwindled to just a handful of relatives and close friends who refuse to abandon hope.

“It’s hard not to think about,” family friend Johnny White says at the event honoring Tabitha’s Feb. 15 birthday. “You just think about it all the time.” Just an hour earlier, White drove the route Tabitha is believed to have walked the day she disappeared on her way to Bailey Middle School. It’s a path he’s traveled countless times hoping to gain clues in his role as the unofficial leader of the civilian search effort. Standing outside the Tuders’ home, White points up the hill toward nearby 14th Street, explaining, “That’s the direction the dogs followed.”

Without chiming in, the burly but mild-mannered Bo Tuders simply nods in agreement, pulling another cigarette from his pack.

As the afternoon progresses, the gray sky surrenders to a light mist, just in time for the nearly 40 guests to cram inside the living room for a brief prayer service before it’s time to eat. The mood of the day straddles the line between a special occasion and a somber memorial, and talk of Tabitha alternates between past and present tense.