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*To protect the identity of the witnesses, names have been changed

According to at least three witnesses, Tabitha Tuders departed her residence on Lillian Street on April 28, 2003 at about 7:50am, walked north on South 14th, turned down Boscobel to catch her school bus, and disappeared. She never made it to Bailey Middle School. But an interview with a schoolmate and neighbor brings forth possible new evidence to Nashville's most baffling missing child case.

Barry Harris* attended Bailey Middle School with Tabitha in 2003 and remembers her as someone he would wave and say, "hi" to as they passed in the hallways. Barry's mother, Pam Harris*, knew Tabitha because Tabitha's older sister, Jamie, dated Barry's older brother. Pam remembers Jamie well, and notes both girls were polite. Tabitha tended to be shyer. Both Barry and Pam agree on one thing: Tabitha did not walk the route from her home to Boscobel on April 28, 2003, and she was on school property that day.

"The day she went missing, we were watching the news that night," Barry Harris explains. "When they said she never made it to school, our mouths dropped open. That part wasn't true." Pam agrees. "I saw her walking up the street here," she indicates, from Lillian toward South 11th, in the opposite direction other witnesses have placed her that April morning. "Because I had just let my own kids off to school." She was unable to recall an exact time. According to the Harrises, Tabitha caught the bus at a stop near 11th and Fatherland. This is the same area where Barry caught a bus.

The bus that Barry rode ran a bit late that morning, and according to Barry, it arrived at Bailey Middle School about 7:15am. Barry hurried off the bus to the cafeteria for breakfast when he scanned the crowd outside the school, as normal, seeking out friends. This is when he spotted Tabitha Tuders walking away from the school, toward the street. "I know it was her," he says with conviction. "I know her. Same hair, everything. There aren't a lot of girls that look like her." Barry never saw Tabitha again. Classes started at 8:00am and his teacher for first class, Ms. Jones, was waiting. He was shocked later that evening, when the media reported Tabitha was abducted from Boscobel Street en route to the school bus stop near South 15th. News reports also announced Tabitha never made it to class.

"Of course they would report she wasn't in class that day," Pam Harris says. "Class didn't start until eight o'clock, and she left (campus) before then. So she wouldn't be on the roll."
Tabitha was not one to get into trouble, Pam is quick to point out, and Jamie was likable and sweet. The Tuders were strict parents with set rules; The Tuders girls were not allowed to aimlessly roam the streets or "hang out" with unsavory characters. After Tabitha went missing, rumors flew as to her moral fiber: drinking, drugs, boys, but none of this was true. "Her daddy was real strict," Pam says with fervor. "And those girls (Jamie and Tabitha) followed the rules." Occasionally Pam saw Tabitha walking to the corner market accompanied by friends, but Tabitha did not gather in other people's yards to visit and play like other children her age. Tabitha stayed close to home.

The Metro police have not questioned the Harrises, and the Harrises have not volunteered the information to the police (This writer, passed the Harrises information to the Metro police department and was told the department would "follow up on it,"). Is it a case of mistaken time? Or another strange piece in an already broken puzzle in the Tabitha Tuders case?

"I don't know what happened to her," Pam Harris says, arms folded tightly despite the warm sun as she looks out of her door onto Lillian Street, where she claims to have last seen Tabitha. Barry Harris gazes off for a moment. "She would have been, what? Eighteen? No, nineteen now," he says. He thinks a minute, and then says softly, sadly, "it doesn't seem that long ago..."