‘Someone knows what happened.’ Ky. State Police use cadaver dogs to look for missing baby
Dogs were being used Tuesday to search for a missing baby from Ohio County whose parents and grandparents have been arrested since her disappearance.
Kentucky State Police said they were using cadaver dogs to look for 8-month-old Miya (Tucker) Rudd, WFIE, an NBC affiliate out of Evansville, Ind., reported.
“We have no evidence that she’s deceased, but we don’t have evidence that she’s alive either,” KSP Trooper Corey King said in an interview with the television station.
King said the dogs were being used to search a cemetery and a wooded area behind the family’s home in Reynolds Station. He said state police planned to bring in “specialized equipment from the medical examiner’s office” later in the week if the dogs did not find anything.
“We are hopeful,” King said in the interview. But, he added, “the longer this goes, the more grim of an outcome this will be.”
Miya’s family contacted state police to report that they had not seen her since late April, and when state police found her parents, Cage Rudd, 30, and Tesla Tucker, 29, at an Owensboro motel last Wednesday, the baby was not with them, court records show.
The parents are not cooperating with the police investigation, WHAS reported King said.
Both parents have been arrested and charged with child abandonment, as well as other charges including first-degree child abuse, trafficking in a controlled substance (greater than two grams of methamphetamine), trafficking marijuana, trafficking of legend drugs, engaging in organized crime, possession of fentanyl and possession of drug paraphernalia..
Miya’s grandfather, Ricky Smith, 56, was arrested Friday and charged with first-degree child abuse, abandonment of a minor, engaging in organized crime and numerous drug-related charges.
And when police went to the baby’s grandmother’s home looking for the baby, the grandmother, Billie Smith, 49, was arrested on an outstanding warrant for second-degree assault — domestic violence, which was unrelated to Miya.
Another man, Timothy Roach, 37, was also arrested when troopers went to Smith’s residence to conduct the welfare check. State police said that as they were pulling in, they saw Roach throw suboxone that had not been prescribed to him under his vehicle. He was charged with second-degree possession of a controlled substance and first-degree prescription controlled substance not in proper container.
King told the television stations illicit drugs are at the heart of the case.
He told WFIE Miya’s three siblings had been removed from the parents’ home by the Department for Community Based Services “some time ago” and were being cared for by other family members.
He said DCBS had planned to remove Miya as well, after her umbilical cord blood tested positive for meth, according to WHAS.
State police have not received any information indicating the baby was sold, abducted or being cared for by someone else, King said in the interview with WFIE. If someone is holding the baby for the family, he said they should come forward, and “you will not be in trouble.”
State police have said Miya has brown hair and green eyes. She was born in October 2023.
“Someone knows what happened to this baby,” King said Tuesday in the interview with WFIE.
Anyone with information about the case has been asked to contact state police at (270) 826-3312.
