Kentucky State Police have arrested the maternal grandparents of a missing Ohio County infant and removed her three siblings into state custody.
KSP troopers executed a search warrant Wednesday at Miya Rudd’s maternal grandparents’ residence in the 13000 block of Leitchfield Road in Owensboro.
Troopers did not locate 8-month-old baby Miya, however, troopers seized electronics and arrested both grandparents.
Taletha D. Tucker, 50, of Owensboro was arrested and charged with begin a fugitive from another state (Indiana). David Tucker, 53, of Owensboro, was arrested for a non-payment warrant issued in Daviess County.
Both were transported and lodged in the Daviess County Detention Center in Owensboro. Three of their grandchildren – Miya Rudd’s siblings, were removed by the Cabinet of Community Based Services to another location.
Kentucky State Police announced last week that troopers were searching for baby Miya.
When Miya was born in October, her umbilical cord tested positive for methamphetamine and she was to be removed too, Trooper Corey King told WFIE. However, around May 30, relatives notified police that they had not seen the baby since late April.
As they searched for the baby, police found her parents at a hotel, but not the baby, King said. The parents told investigators that state officials took the baby, but records do not show that, he said.
Miya’s parents, Tesla Tucker and Cage Rudd, and her grandfather, Ricky J. Smith, were arrested and charged with child abuse and abandonment and several drug offenses, police said in news releases. A public defender appointed to represent them did not immediately return a call seeking comment on their behalf.
King said cadaver dogs were used Tuesday to search a church, cemetery and a wooded area behind the family’s Reynolds Station home. In an email, King said that there were no updates in the search and police plan to bring in ground sonar equipment and a forensic examiner team later in the week.
He said investigators have received valuable tips and are asking anyone with information to come forward.
“It really shocked us as an agency looking for a missing child, that we’re getting very little information from the family, the ones who should love and care the most,” King said.
They don’t have evidence that the baby is dead, but they don’t have anything that suggests she is alive either, he said.
“Either way, everyone’s looking for closure,” King said. “I believe the community deserves it, the family deserves it, and we as an agency investigating this deserve to know what happened to baby Miya.”
The investigation is on-going by Kentucky State Police.
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