Through The Cracks | Episode 2: Ties That Bind (Transcript) 

Jonquilyn Hill: I​ 'm Jonquilyn Hill and from WAMU and PRX, this is Through The 
Cracks, a podcast about the gaps in our society and the people who fall through 
them. 

Relisha Rudd: R
​ -E-L-I-S-H-A. 

Jonquilyn Hill: T
​ his season on Through The Cracks, we're investigating the 
disappearance of Relisha Rudd.  

Relisha disappeared when she was eight years old, when her family was living in a 
D.C. homeless shelter. It took 18 days for anyone to realize she was missing. In the 
next few episodes, we'll look at the world Relisha grew up in her school, the shelter, 
her family. 

Melissa Young: I​ didn't know what was going on. The police officer..."You know your 
granddaughter Relisha Rudd is missing." 

"No, she's not." 

"Yes, she is, ma'am." 

"No she's not. She's with Kahlil Tatum." 

Patrick Madden, WAMU: I​ think everyone realized they effed up. 

Jonquilyn Hill: Y
​ eah. 

Patrick Madden, WAMU: E

​ veryone and no one wanted to take responsibility for 
this. 

Jonquilyn Hill: M
​ ore than 99% of missing persons cases in D.C. are resolved quickly, 
but not this one. Little girls don't just vanish into thin air. There's always a story 
behind a disappearance and Relisha's story was one that was years in the making. 

Ashley Young: W​ hat could I have done better for her not to be missing? What 
could I have done for her not to be in this situation? 

Jonquilyn Hill: O
​ n this episode, the cycles of poverty and trauma and Relisha's 
family, because Relisha isn't the only one who slipped Through The Cracks.  

– 

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Jonquilyn Hill: O
​ ne day, in 2008, Antonio Wheeler was on a bus on Potomac Avenue 
in southeast D.C.  

This is where he met Shamika, Relisha's mom. 

Antonio Wheeler: ​And Relisha was actually the one that got us talking 'cause I was 
like, oh, she's such a pretty little girl. She's beautiful. So she.. you know, grabbed my 
hand, we was walking so me and her mother were looking at each other like...what? 
So it was like OK, you can talk. So me and Shamika we stood there for like another 
five minutes and Relisha asked me to come home with her, with her mommy. Can 
you come home with my mommy? I just thought it was so cute, I just...her mother 
said yes and I went.  

Jonquilyn Hill: L
​ ike a little matchmaker. 

Antonio Wheeler: ​Yeah, like a little matchmaker. That's my baby. I miss her. I miss 
Relisha so much. 

Jonquilyn Hill: A
​ ntonio was 21 at the time. Shamika had her own place in northeast 
D.C. She lived there with her two kids. Relisha and Relisha's younger brother. We're 
not going to use his name. He's still a minor and we want to protect his privacy. In 
any case, Relisha's matchmaking worked. Antonio and her mother quickly became a 
couple and did what a lot of couples in D.C. do. 

Antonio Wheeler: ​We was dating for, like five months before I decided to move in. 

Jonquilyn Hill: S​ o Antonio, this still pretty young guy in his early 20s, was suddenly a 
father figure to Shamika's two young children. And even though Antonio and 
Shamika never got married, Relisha still called him dad, but he didn't always get that 
parent respect in the family.  

Antonio Wheeler: ​It was always like that little wall right there. It was like I was 
Daddy when things got hard with the family, but when things was easy, everybody 
wanted to do what they wanted to do and send the kids this place and that place, I 
wasn't Daddy.  

Jonquilyn Hill: A​ ntonio might not have fit seamlessly into his new family, but parts 
of it were a better arrangement than what he had growing up. I know this because 
of my first conversation with Antonio. This was pre-pandemic and he met me at a 
library with producer Ruth Tam. As we were starting to wrap up, Ruth asked Antonio 
about the t-shirt he was wearing. I remember it was white and it had a photo of a 
bunch of little kids grouped together. Antonio told us it was a picture of his siblings 
and then he said something that took me completely by surprise. 

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Antonio Wheeler: ​Altogether, it's nine of us. Me being the oldest, then it's Maurice. 
Then I had a sister named Monica. She's deceased. She died when she was...She 
was murdered when she was two. 

Jonquilyn Hill: O
​ ne of his little sisters was murdered when she was two. I thought I 
was there to talk about Relisha, but it turned out that Antonio had already been 
through more than one trauma.  

Antonio Wheeler: ​Then I had a brother, Andre. He's deceased; he was murdered, 
too. So. And that's why we was in foster care. You can look that up on Google. 

Jonquilyn Hill: I​ did look it up on Google as soon as I got back to the office. It took 
me about three minutes to get the gist of everything. I started my search with 
Wheeler murder, then Wheeler murder D.C. From there, I searched Monica Wheeler 
murder. And that brought up a Washington Post article from 1997. 

Here's the story. Antonio's mother had a boyfriend who was a father figure to 
Antonio and his eight siblings. Kind of like the relationship Antonio had with 
Shamika and her kids. One day this boyfriend was watching Antonio's little brother 
and the boy died in his care. Nobody except the boyfriend knows what really 
happened, but it's thought that he drowned in the tub by accident. 

Three years later, the same boyfriend was watching his little sister, and she died too, 
from a beating. It turned out that the boyfriend had killed her while he was high on 
PCP. He eventually went to prison and got the maximum sentence, 13 to 40 years. 
He's currently serving time in a federal prison in New Jersey. 

Antonio Wheeler: ​I mean, it happened when I was a kid and when I was a kid, I was 
quiet. I hid a lot of stuff in. And that's another reason why I'm always angry, because 
I held a lot of my childhood feelings in, too. People just taking, taking, taking, taking, 
so it's like I've been going through shit my whole life. 

Jonquilyn Hill: F ​ or Antonio, Relisha's disappearance was one more trauma in a life 
full of them. It wasn't just the deaths of his two siblings. It's also what happened 
afterwards. There were so many echoes of Relisha's story, a trusted person watching 
the kids, death, unstable housing. I wanted to hear more about his upbringing. I 
spoke with him again early in 2020 and then the pandemic hit. I didn't get a chance 
to speak with him again until this past September when we met outside in a park.  

What I found out was: After the murder of his sister, his mom lost custody of Antonio 
and his six remaining siblings. Antonio and one of his brothers were placed with a 
foster family in Prince George's County. The county surrounds the eastern side of 
D.C. and it's not far from where Antonio had been living. But there's a stark contrast 

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between the two places. Prince George's County is home to some of the wealthiest 
Black communities in the U.S. The family had two parents and a son who was a little 
bit older than Antonio. 

Antonio Wheeler: ​He was cool. He was older than me. And my brother had a Sega 
Genesis, he had games in his room, he had a water bed, you know, this was out [in] 
Forestville. They kept us in contact with our mom, against the court's wishes, you 
know, behind closed doors. You know, that's why I love them to this day. You know, I 
haven't spoken to them in over 27 years. I haven't seen them.  

Jonquilyn Hill: A
​ ntonio told me social workers found out that his foster parents were 
letting him and his brother visit with their family. So that ended that. After that came 
a series of group homes. One of these homes, in D.C., really stands out in his 
memory.  

Antonio Wheeler: ​It was up on Northwest on U Street, off of U Street. It was 

"Grandma's House." It was a house for kids like an orphanage. It was like six other 
kids. Me and my brother Maurice. It was a lot of kids there. So them kids was like, 
really unfortunate. They didn't have family that could send them toys and clothes, 
like my family know me and my brother. So all the other kids started getting jealous 
because of my brothers have new clothes and new toys and they kept wanting 
each other's clothes so the group home administrator made us share our clothes. 
So ever since then we've been fighting with the other children in the group home. 
We've been getting mistreated by the staff members. One staff member burnt me 
on the shoulder with a cigarette, you know, for what reason? I really don't know. All I 
could remember, because I was young, all I could remember was it was over dinner.  

Jonquilyn Hill: J
​ ust for the record, that group home is closed now and we were 
unable to confirm Antonio's memory of what happened to him there. When they 
were teenagers, Antonio says his brother Maurice kept running away from the group 
home. Antonio also says he and his brother heard the same things from the staff 
there over and over again. 

Antonio Wheeler:​ I got people telling us that our mom didn't love us, that we 
wasn't going back home. These are professionals. Social workers. Me growing up in 
foster care, I ain't gonna say it gave me an ideal about the world at an early age. It 
just opened my eyes. You know, it was an experience that I'm never gonna forget. 

Jonquilyn Hill: A
​ ntonio started running away, just like his brother. He smoked a lot 
of weed, started drinking. At one point, he was sent to a rehab in Baltimore and he 
ended up in a gang there.  

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Antonio Wheeler: ​I made a bad choice joining the Blood gang out there. I really 
don't never talk about that. But, I joined the blood gang out there because, you 
know, D.C. and Baltimore back then, they didn't like each other. And it was really 
bloodshed out there, like the...I was in...they had D.C. boys and ... Maryland boys, 
Baltimore kids. But one of the new administrators broke all that up and had all of 
them want to join. And it was endless brawls, fights, people get stabbed up with 
the... And we're going to school there. It was, it was scary. So I just had to tell my 
administrator, I need to get out of here. I don't need to be here with these kids. They 
do hard drugs. I don't do crack, I don't do coke. I don't do heroin, speed, ecstasy. Like, 
come on. I learned about a lot of drugs out there. Thank God. But I don't...uh uh. I 
just smoke weed.  

Jonquilyn Hill: W
​ hen Antonio aged out of foster care, he lived with his aunt for a 
while. 

Antonio Wheeler: ​She was helping me, my mom, my uncle, you know, she was 
helping a lot. And I know she was going through a lot. And, you know, she put me 
out. She was like, nephew, if you can find somewhere to go, because a lot of people 
in here, nephew, I ain't putting you out. But if you could find somewhere to go, you 
know, I help you. I got really upset at that because I wasn't no older than 20. So I 
wasn't really sure, you know, until I met Shamika. 

Jonquilyn Hill: A
​ lot of different people were responsible for Antonio throughout his 
childhood. His mom, a friend of his mom, and then foster parents and social workers. 
That's a pattern we heard from each of the people closest to Relisha. Ending up in 
the care of a variety of people again and again. Relisha's other family members 
struggled with this too when they were young. That's after the break.  

– 

Jonquilyn Hill: M
​ y first interview with Antonio was back in 2019. I've been reporting 
this podcast for well over a year. That's because investigative journalism, like 
Through The Cracks, takes a ton of preparation. Part of the reason I'm able to work 
on a show like this is because I work at WAMU, which is a listener-supported public 
radio station located in Washington, D.C. Public media, including this podcast, is 
funded by listeners just like you. If you'd like to directly contribute to the show, you 
can do that at WAMU.org/SupportThroughTheCracks. And thanks.  

Shamika Young: ​Relisha, this is your mommy writing to you, because I'm lost for 
words, right now. I don't know what happened to you... 

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Jonquilyn Hill: T
​ his is Relisha's mother, Shamika, reading a letter she wrote to 
Relisha shortly after she disappeared. It was recorded by The Washington Post in 
2014.  

Shamika Young: ​Relisha, it is not a day nor night that doesn't go by that I am not 
thinking of you. Sometimes I think about you so hard it causes me to have a 
headache or hot flashes because I'm so worried about you. 

Jonquilyn Hill: O
​ f course, we want to talk to Shamika, but she hasn't responded to 
our repeated requests for an interview. But we did talk with other family members. 
Shamika's mom and Shamika's sister. And we got a good sense of Relisha's family 
background.  

Melissa Young is Relisha’s grandmother. Relisha was her first grandchild.  

Melissa Young: F
​ irst one I helped bring into the world. I cut her umbilical cord. 

Jonquilyn Hill: O
​ h, you did? That's really sweet.  

Jonquilyn Hill: T​ he first time I met with Melissa, she greeted me and producer 
Patrick Fort in the lobby of her Anacostia apartment. For those not familiar with the 
area, that's a mostly Black neighborhood in southeast D.C. She helped us get signed 
in at the security desk. And after a round of hellos and thank you's for hosting us and 
being willing to talk about Relisha, we walked up the stairs to her apartment. 

Melissa's home is a busy place and she's at the center of it all. Every time I've been 
there, there's always extended family around. This particular time, a brother, a 
godson and a two year old, the first of many kids in the extended family that come 
piling into the apartment. 

While I talked to Melissa in one room, the toddler was banging on the door, trying to 
get in and see what we were up to. I asked Melissa about Relisha's birth and her 
biological dad, Irving Rudd. 

Melissa Young: L ​ ike I said, I pretty much brought Relisha into this world. I cut the 
umbilical cord when she would not stop crying in that nursery, when her daddy 
went around to welcome his beautiful baby girl. She would not stop crying. He 
came around the waiting area and said, "Grandma, I don't know what to do. My 
baby don't like me." I went around the corner. I said, "What's wrong, baby?" She 
heard my voice and I said, "No, I'm gonna send your daddy back around here. You 
act right for your daddy." And he had no more problems. 

Jonquilyn Hill: T​ his is the first time I got a taste for Melissa's storytelling. She has a 
flair for the dramatic and she's at the center of every story. Around the time of this 

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sit-down, Relisha had been missing for about five years, and despite all that time, she 
remains vivid in Melissa's memory, almost sanctified.  

Melissa Young: R​ elisha was awesome. Oh my goodness, she was awesome. She 
knew how to brighten. When she come in the room, it's like the whole room would 
brighten up. Her smile... she got the most beautiful smile. If you notice, I had to 
change the words.  

Jonquilyn Hill: I​ did notice. She went back and forth between present and past 
tense when talking about Relisha. The whole family does this.  

Melissa Young: I​ f she was here and you met her, if you're sad, she'll know what to 
say to brighten your day and put a smile on your face. If you have a child and she 
see your baby is giving you a hard time, she'll look at you and say, May I please stroll 
your baby? Or, take care of your baby? Soon as you give her the OK, she'll say, just 
give me a pamper, a bottle, the wipes, pacifier and the burping blanket. She would 
do all of that. She'll bring your baby back, your baby dried, fed, burped, and sleep.  

Jonquilyn Hill: W​ hen I first talked to Melissa, it was to find out more about Relisha. 
But like Antonio, Melissa's own story kept pulling at me. I started to think that you 
can't really explain what happened to Relisha without understanding what 
happened to her family.  

The second time I interviewed Melissa, it was already pandemic times, so I met with 
her at the Pirate Ship Playground in Anacostia Park and asked her to tell me more 
about what her childhood was like. 

Melissa Young: U​ m, rough. I had some good times and I had those dark times and 
those bad times. So it was rough, pretty rough. You know, my childhood is one that I 
can write a book on and I'll get paid for. 

Jonquilyn Hill: I​ spent an hour with Melissa. And honestly, she could fill a book with 
all she had to say. Like I said, she loves to tell a story. Now, just like with Antonio, I 
can't confirm every single detail she shared. A lot of it is lost to time or memory or is 
difficult to verify because of privacy laws. But overall, I got a picture of someone who 
grew up in the D.C. area, in poverty, with a difficult family. According to Melissa. Her 
mother wasn't always very present. 

Melissa Young: S​ he never been on drugs. Only thing my mother was smoke 
cigarettes and she was an occasional drinker. And I'm like, dag, you know, I got a 
perfect mom, you know? But, I say, for me to have such a perfect mom, who didn't 
do drugs, only what was prescribed for her and wasn't really an alcohol 
drinker...Why am I getting treated like a child that got an imperfect mom? 

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Jonquilyn Hill: M
​ elissa says her mom did party. She remembers adults being around 
and her mom going out a lot. But that's not what she means when she talks about 
imperfection. 

Melissa Young: M​ y mother. She's a sweet person, but she's a hard person to live 
with. And then with her mental history, she thinks everybody is out to get her. 

Jonquilyn Hill: A​ ccording to Melissa, her mom struggled with her mental health. But 
at the time, all Melissa knew was that she had to take on a lot of the work around the 
house. Cooking, cleaning, paying the bills, handling the family's food stamps. 

Melissa's parents split up when she was about four years old and Melissa and her 
brother lived primarily with their mom. Their housing situation wasn't stable. The 
three of them were never formally evicted. No stuff put out on the curb. But Melissa 
remembers at least 10 different addresses she called home. Still, housing insecurity 
wasn't the worst thing she remembers. 

According to Melissa, there was also physical and sexual abuse at the hands of 
several family members. 

Melissa Young: I​ f I let my guard down, that's when people will start taking 
advantage of me. 

Jonquilyn Hill: W
​ hen she was 17, Melissa had her first child, Shamika. A year later 
came her second child, Ashley. Their father was a family friend. He wasn't around 
much, but Melissa says she didn't really want him there. 

Melissa Young: I​ 'm sure Shamika and Ashley's mother and father. He played "now 
you see me, now you don't." He was a part-time daddy. And like me, being a 
full-time parent, he was a part time parent.  

Jonquilyn Hill: M
​ elissa leaned on her brother, and on her dad, who she calls her 
protector. She's still close with her brother and currently lives with him. Her father 
recently died of COVID-19. By the time she was 21, she had three more kids with 
another partner.  

Melissa had some tumultuous relationships. She recalls one partner in particular. 

Melissa Young: A ​ nd I had to let him know: I don't need my son, looking at you, 
thinking you're going to come through these doors and smack his mother in the 
face and then you see his mother bounce you off of every wall in this four bedroom 
house. I got four daughters. I don't need my girls seeing that. And I definitely didn't 
want my son thinking, seeing it and he thinks it's OK for a man to go smack a 
female in their face.  

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Jonquilyn Hill: W
​ hile we were talking, a helicopter passed overhead. There are a lot 
of them in D.C. and you can't hear my question, but I asked if that was the only 
relationship that had gotten physically violent.  

Melissa Young: I​ was in a whole lot of violent relationships. I always won. 

Jonquilyn Hill: M
​ elissa told me that at one point, when they were between places, 
she moved the family into a shelter in Virginia. She says she saw another parent 
abusing their child, so she called Child Protective Services. But then, that parent 
retaliated against Melissa. She says they called CPS on her. The police showed up at 
the shelter and took Melissa's kids away. 

Melissa Young: I​ wound up getting locked up, trying to keep my kids because I beat 
the crap out of a Fairfax County police officer. You would not get my child and I ain't 
do nothing wrong. See, I fight for mine. As you see, I fight for mine.  

Jonquilyn Hill: S
​ he does fight for hers, I found the police report. She beat a police 
officer on the hand.  

Melissa's kids went into foster care, and without children, she couldn't stay at the 
family shelter anymore. She tried staying with friends of friends, but it didn't last. 

Melissa Young: I​ was staying with my ex's cousin. She told me I couldn't stayed 
there no more, I guess, because I didn't have a job. But I was in the process of 
getting a job. When she put me out, I was just thinking where I can sleep at. At the 
bus, by the UHauls, in the hallway, you know, stuff like that. 

Jonquilyn Hill: S​ o Melissa, Relisha's grandmother, has had a pretty rough life. What 
about Relisha's mom, Shamika, Melisa's oldest daughter? We wanted to know what 
it was like for her to grow up in foster care, but since Shamika wouldn't speak with 
us. We interviewed Ashley, Relisha's auntie.  

Ashley Young: I​ was in foster care from a young age up until I was 17. I went to 
school, finished school, graduated high school, 2006.  

Jonquilyn Hill: W
​ ere you in Maryland, Virginia? 

Ashley Young:​ Virginia. Did I like being in the system? No, because it's a whole lot. I 
was told some harsh things while the system. But what I will say: it made me a 
better person. It made me realize that it's not just about self, it's about self, but it's 
also about what you can do with your life. 

Jonquilyn Hill: T​ o recap, after Melissa lost custody of her kids, Ashley and her four 
siblings all entered into the foster care system. It's really hard to keep families 

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together in foster care, let alone five siblings. According to reporting in The 
Washington Post, Ashey, Shamika and their little brother at first were placed in a 
home together. But that reporting says Shamika, Relisha's mom, had some 
behavioral issues. She's moved around quite a bit and ended up in a mental health 
crisis facility for children. When she was 18, Shamika aged out of the foster care 
system, and Ashley, the next older sibling, saw her only sporadically. Shamika had 
her own apartment at this time and Melissa was staying with her. So Ashley thought 
of it as home. 

Ashley Young: I​ was 17. I was home for a visit from foster care. And basically how it 
went was, my sister said, "I have somebody for you to meet." My eyes got big and I 
was worried. I said "I don't want to meet nobody. I don't want to meet nobody." She 
said, "No, you will love this gift. You will love it." So, she went in her room, took her out 
of her crib and said, "Here. Here's your niece." I will never forget because that was a 
blessing. My sister felt like she let me down when she had my niece. But at the same 
time, I got that bond with my niece. A bond I have my sister, I got with my niece. 

Jonquilyn Hill: T​ his new niece was Relisha. When Ashley turned 18, she was also 
released from the foster care system. So, she had to figure out where to live. For a 
brief period, she stayed in a homeless shelter. It was the same shelter where, a few 
years later, Relisha would stay with her family.  

Ashley Young: I​ did the shelter from, I’mma say, 2009 to 2010 when it was real cold 
and we have snow. I didn't like it, so Imma be honest, I didn't stay. I wasn't able to 
get sleep. People were stealing stuff, you had to watch. I wasn't comfortable with 
that. So I pretty much left and stayed on the street until I got my own place going 
according to my income. 

Jonquilyn Hill: A
​ shley had applied for subsidized housing. She was approved in 2012 
and has had her own place ever since. In the meantime, she made efforts to 
reconnect with her family. 

Ashley Young: W ​ ell, to be honest, coming home from foster care, back reunited 
with my family, was kind of hard. I didn't know who all to trust. I didn't know who all 
to give my love to or who not. Which, when you see family, you think about giving 
your love to everybody in your family. It was a little difficult with me, with my mom. 
Reason being is because me not being raised with or around my mom, it made me 
feel like certain things that I went through, like, Mom, I don't need you to be my 
friend; I want you to be my mom. But I didn't know how to explain it. Did I dislike or 
have any hatred towards her? No. 

Jonquilyn Hill: S
​ o it wasn't just Ashley. The entire family was rebuilding their 
relationships. Ashley quickly became an important person in Relisha's life.  

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Ashley Young: W ​ ith her, with Relisha, I was Rescue Auntie. I just remember her 
being...I believe she was one or two. No, she was two. And when I would be asleep, 
she would come crawling out the room, out her crib and she'll come and smack me 
on my face just to wake me up. She smack me. 

Jonquilyn Hill: I​ asked Ashley how Relisha got along with her mom. After Relisha 
disappeared, a lot of the media portrayed Shamika as a bad mother. We'll get into 
how the media covered the family in a later episode. In any case, Ashley says 
Shamika and Relisha were close. 

Ashley Young: T ​ hey had a good relationship. They had a very good relationship. It 
was nothing that anybody can do to tear my sister and her daughter apart. And 
even 'til now, there's still nothing that anybody can do to tear them apart. 

Jonquilyn Hill: R
​ elisha went missing in 2014. Most of the time, Ashley seems to truly 
believe that Relisha's still alive. 

Ashley Young: I​ feel that she's in the area, like not in D.C., but not that far from us. 
Why do I feel that way? Because normally, with any of my family, if you get too far 
from me, I get a headache. So I really haven't had headaches. So I kind of feel like 
she's still local, just not in D.C.  

Jonquilyn Hill: I​ n learning about Relisha's family, there are common threads in each 
of their lives. There's trauma, there's poverty, there's homelessness and housing 
instability. And while this podcast is about Relisha and what happened to her, it's 
also about how difficult it is to break out of this cycle. Next time on Through The 
Cracks, Relisha and her family get kicked out of their apartment. 

Antonio Wheeler: ​When I was a kid, I lived on Brandywine too. On the same street, 
the same building, but just upstairs. 

Melissa Young: T
​ he air conditioner needs to be cleaned. Come to find out it was the 
carpet.  

Beth Mellen Harrison: T​ here’s supposed to be a really heavy thumb on the scale of 
letting that case have a trial. 

Jonquilyn Hill: E
​ viction That's on the next episode of Through The Cracks.  

Through The Cracks is a production of WAMU and PRX. This podcast was made 
possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation 
funded by the American people and also by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. 
Patrick Fort is our producer. Ruth Tam is our digital editor. 

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Poncie Rutsch is our senior producer and I'm your host. Jonquilyn Hill. Our editor is 
Curtis Fox. Mike Kidd makes this episode. Osei Hill designed our logo. Monna Kashfi 
oversees all the content we make here at WAMU. You can find out more about the 
show at WAMU.org/ThroughTheCracks. This podcast would not be possible without 
the generosity of listeners like you. To support the investigative reporting that goes 
into Through The Cracks, give at WAMU.org/SupportThroughTheCracks. We'll be 
back next Thursday with another episode. Thanks for listening. 

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