NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Friday marks 19 years since Tabitha Tuders went missing from her East Nashville home. She was 13 years old at the time.
Many leads and tips have come in over the years, but detectives have continued to hit dead ends.
As her family still searches for her, they have a lot of support from law enforcement and The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In fact, Tuders has been featured many times on the nonprofit’s social media.
The case had some movement in 2020, when detectives searched a rural part of Hickman County after receiving a tip about the case.
Records showed the property was tied to a man long considered a person of interest in Tuders' disappearance.
Last year, when NewsChannel 5 spoke with Detective Matthew Filter with MNPD, he said there was some information they were still working on related to the search.
John Bischoff, the Vice President in the Missing Children Division for NCMEC said all they can do is hold on to hope that one day Tuders will come back home.
“It's unfortunate, it's tragic, that they must go through this. As an organization, we'll always stand by them. It's what we do. It's what we do as an organization. We'll never forget about Tabitha, and they certainly weren't either,” Bischoff said.
Since it’s been nearly two decades since Tuders disappeared, she would look a lot different today, now 32 years old. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children uses forensic artists to make age progression composites of the missing. Artists make these composites every two years for children under 18 and everyone older gets one made every five years. It’s almost time for a new age progression composite of Tuders.
Artists spend about eight hours on each subject. Bischoff said the artists feel very connected to each case, because missing children are growing up on their computer screens.
NCMEC works with over 270 photo partners across the nation to keep missing persons photos and composites in the public eye daily. They ask the community to stop and look at them, with the hope someone will recall something that might help.
“Children don't just fall off the face of the earth. Right? Someone knows something. We must keep her image out there; hopefully get it in front of the right set of eyes. It just takes one person to be that hero and we just want to find out where she is,” Bischoff said.
Tuders' case remains active and open, so if you know anything about the disappearance of Tabitha Tuders, call Crime Stoppers at 615-74-CRIME.
You can learn more about The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on their website.
