Crime Connections

In the spring of 2014, eight-year-old Relisha Rudd vanished from Washington, D.C. She was a child of color, she was poor, and she was living in a homeless shelter. In this episode, we trace the layers of institutional failure that kept anyone from intervening in time, the nineteen-day gap before an Amber Alert was ever issued, and the harder questions about who this country decides to look for, and who gets left behind.

In the summer of 1981, 6-year-old Adam Walsh walked into a Sears store in Hollywood with his mother and never came home. What began as a frantic search for a missing little boy quickly became one of the most heartbreaking and infamous child abduction cases in America. The tragedy not only devastated a family, but forever changed the way missing children cases are investigated, turning Adam’s father, John Walsh, into one of the country’s most recognizable voices for justice. Decades later, the case still haunts the nation as a chilling reminder of how quickly innocence can disappear.

In this episode, we break down the brutal and unsolved murder of Elena Sanchez Hawkins. What began as a normal morning in Elizabethtown, Kentucky quickly turned into a devastating crime scene. We walk through the timeline, the disturbing details, and the key evidence, including the mysterious truck seen in the driveway and the lack of forced entry. We also explore a possible connection to a later case in Hardinsburg, where a woman survived a horrifyingly similar attack inside her own home.