D'Wan Sims ////// 160 | Forensic Files

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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families of that Community safe for many many years and our thoughts and prayers
go out to his family all right Captain everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer grab a turkey leg let's talk some
true crime foreign [Music] [Music] Sunday December 11 1994 Livonia Michigan a police officer is responding to the
Wonderland mall on Plymouth Road on a report of a missing four-year-old boy upon arrival at the mall the officer met
25-year-old dewana Harris Tawana is the mother of DeJuan Sims the missing four-year-old boy
the officer immediately obtained the description of the missing child from the mother the Juan Sims is a
four-year-old African-American little boy with black hair and brown eyes he is approximately three foot to three and a
half foot tall and weighing 45 to 60 pounds he was last seen wearing a blue winter
jacket over a multi-color windbreaker jacket dark blue sweatpants and black Fila low
top tennis shoes after receiving the description the officer contacted Livonia Police
dispatch and reported DeJuan Sims is missing a teletype to all area law enforcement
agencies was sent the officer asked the mother to explain exactly what happened when she entered
the mall in detail dewana says her and the little boy left the Residence at approximately 1 30 P.M
she estimated that they probably arrived at the mall between 1 40 and 2 P.M DeJuan Harris stated that she parked her
Ford Thunderbird in the north parking lot across from the Target and walked with her son into the mall entering at
the doors between Target and Famous Footwear [Music] dewana and Dewan then went to the
videotape department where she told her son she did not have enough money to purchase a videotape for him
she told the boy they would go ask dewan's grandmother for some money dewan's grandmother is also dawana
Harris's mother Beverly Harris Beverly is working part-time on the weekends at the Ladies Foot Locker store
on the other side of the mall dewana told the officer that her and Dewan walked through the Target store
just looking around for maybe 20 minutes stating that her and the little boy left
the Target store together at approximately 2 30 PM walking through the East Mall entry doors
Luana said she walked next to her boy until they came to the area of the KB Toys
where she says Dewan was talking to her as he walked behind her she asked him a question to which he did
not give an answer dewana Harris turned around and just like that her little boy Dewan was gone
okay she thought he must have went to the toy store Tawana ran to the KB Toy Store and looked for the little boy she
ran up and down each aisle she did not find her son she then checked the surrounding stores
including the food court area of the mall but she was still unable to locate Dewan
she told the officer I searched for him for about 30 minutes then she located a cleaning lady working
at the mall she tells her about her son who is missing the cleaning woman calls the Wonderland
mall security and forms them of the situation dewana Harris along with several security officers searched the entire
mall for approximately 90 minutes during the search Tawana notified her mother Beverly that Dewan was missing
Beverly assisted in the search when the boy could still not be located Beverly called the Livonia Police
Department after speaking with dejuan's mother and grandmother the responding officer met
with security officer Randy Pfeiffer Pfeiffer told the officer he was notified about the missing boy by one of
the mall's maintenance workers at approximately 3 45 pm at that time Pfeiffer and four members
of the mall security team searched each store and the parking lot along the way they informed all or most
employees of the stores of the missing subject and instructed them to contact the security office if he was found
after meeting with security officer Pfeiffer the responding officer from LPD instructed Pfeiffer to continue the
search until further notice and he requested more LPD to the scene an additional five officers and a
sergeant on duty were dispatched and sent to the mall once the officers arrived at the mall
now seven of them they met at the East end of the mall near the American Eagle store
they were given a description of the little boy along with the specific area for each to search
they searched each store all of the hallways the food court the movie theater each bathroom and the entire
parking lot surrounding the mall they search behind stores and alleyways first an organized grid search
and then when they found nothing the officers along with the security team remained on site and continued to search
triple checking each area and location two of the officers asked dewana to go with them to the Target store
there they learned the Target store had stationary security cameras set up at each of the entry and exit doors to the
store the officers confirmed with the Target store security officer that the cameras
were operating and recording during the time that dewana Harris said she and Dewan had entered the store
the officers requested that they be allowed to view this tape in hopes that Dewan would be seen on tape leaving the
store giving the officers a better idea of the time and potentially a suspect in
the case dewana Harris sat directly in front of the television screen and viewed the
video while a police officer and security guard were present at approximately 1 44 PM video footage
time dewana stated there I am and point it to the video screen officers observed an African-American
female holding the hand of a small child and exiting the store dwana positively stated that was her and
Dewan the officers observed the two subjects walking out of the e-store of the Target
and then standing directly at the threshold of the store it appeared the female was talking to
the child at this point dewana said see I'm telling him that we cannot buy a videotape because the checkout lines are
too long as the tape ran the woman walked further out into the mall still inside of the
video camera dewana said see yep I remember walking out that way officers then observed the female with
the child in the video walks South toward the main aisleway dewana stated yep there we go
the officers continued viewing the tape but did not observe a single child or a child with an adult walk in the opposite
direction or pass the camera police requested security to blow the image up to full View
doing so the police observed the woman that dewana claimed to be with the child in the video
she was wearing a brown hooded jacket and a baseball cap with a white emblem on the front
the officers observed dewana at the present time watching the video to be wearing a black coat without a hood and
no baseball cap the officer then requested that the sergeant come and view the video with
the wanna present again dewana narrated her actions as she watched the subjects on the screen go
out the target doors with the image blown up to full view the officer pointed out to vote the sergeant
and dewana the differences in the clothing between the individual on the screen and dewana Harris
when the officers confronted dewana with this she sat silent for several minutes
and then reconfirmed what she had previously told the officers that's me and then added that's not a
hood that's my caller when the officers again pointed out the differences in clothing both color hood
and ball cap once again dawana sat silent for several minutes and then she said oh well I guess that's not me
the officers then sat with dewana and viewed the surveillance footage from an hour before she said she had arrived at
the store all the way through to an hour after she said the boy went missing at no time did the officers observe
Tawana and Dewan enter the store at no time did the officers observe Dewan on any of the video footage
the officer confiscated the surveillance footage from the Target store in astawana if she would go to the police
department to give a statement to the detective [Music] she agreed to go four-year-old DeJuan Sims was not seen
on any video footage from that Sunday December 11 1994. he was never located that night
and after giving her statement to the detective dawana Harris went home that night
[Music] this is the case of DeJuan Sims [Music] foreign [Music] this is a strange case Captain because
we have a small boy who goes missing from the Wonderland mall in Livonia Michigan back in 1994. now this is early
December December 11th so we we have to put ourselves in the mindset of this mall at the time we are in full swing of
the holiday shopping season and this case came recommended To Us by several of our listeners up in the great state
of Michigan now we were able to track down Randy Pfeiffer who was one of the security guards working at the
Wonderland mall in Livonia Michigan that day that Dewan went missing just to give
you a little bit of an idea here Livonia Michigan it's about a 25 to 30 minute drive west of Detroit to give you a
little idea of the location here yeah with it being turkey week there's going to be a lot of people shopping on Black
Friday and the malls will be packed and this is a big fear for a lot of parents you go shopping and you turn around and
your kid is gone so let's introduce Randy who is working as a security guard yard at the Wonderland mall on December
11 1994. Randy can you tell us a bit about yourself and what occurred that day sure uh so my name is Randy Pfeiffer
I grew up in a small town outside of Detroit and uh on December 11 1994 I was working as a security card
um security guard in Livonia Michigan in a mall it was called Wonderland mall and uh in the nice suburban area of
Livonia Michigan I was going to school and then this was uh kind of during the summer I had taken this job and
continued on into the fall and into the winter so so obviously during the holiday season it's going to be a little
different can you take us through a typical day um so average day for us would be
especially during that time you know the malls crowded malls were still big back
then there was no Amazon or anything of that sort so uh typical day was uh just going in patrolling the areas of the
mall make sure people are safe people are doing the things that they're supposed to be doing helping Shoppers
find things deterring crime if you want to call it uh helping out with a typically like retail fraud type things
if somebody tries stealing something and that that business is always up around that time of the year you know and then
dealing with the lost children or Lost Child calls which we typically would get probably about uh probably 10 a day
maybe around that time and they would just be really quick uh hey um can you meet so and so by the food
court or by the arcade or something they can't find their kid meet up with those
people or meet them at the information booth we I think the longest anyone we had ever at up into that point found
missing is like five ten minutes tops they were always like I said in the arcade or in the toy store or down by
the movie theater or something of that sort okay and then what happened on December 11
1994. so in this day in particular there's nothing nothing out of the normal had happened it was just the
typical Sunday Mall opened a little bit later on Sunday so everything was again going so it's
about two three o'clock in the afternoon and I got a phone call from one of our um help people uh maintenance people
called to say that there was a lady who had lost her child down by the Target area which is where one of the anchor
stores were so we typically we went down there I talked to her for the very first
time she was physically upset you know crying everything asked her for the normal description of her son how old he
was what he was wearing you know was the last place he saw or she saw him and kind of just let us down we you know
went hit the typical places the the toy store he was three years old so I don't know how far he would have gone at three
years old I didn't have kid I was 18 years old at the time so I didn't know it wasn't around me three year old so
now that I think about like where would a three-year-old go and in a mall without somebody saying something so we
checked the arcade checked the Toy Story food court didn't see him so he continued to walk down the mall a little
bit further and you know at that time got the information out to all the other security guards out there even in the
out the trucks that were out patrolling the mall and the out parking lots and internally and over the loudspeaker time
some time went by probably about 45 minutes went by before we actually called the police
um I don't know if that's just you know I guess we just weren't in that frame of
mind and we've never had anything like this happen there was no kind of uh timetable to to call anyone uh there
was no protocol behind it so we just did our best there so we called the police police showed up they met with her you
know we did continue to walk around the mall went to the offices to make phone calls if anybody had you know I believe
if if anyone that she knew had him or you know had come up to the mall or anything of that sort what kind of a
typical situation for this time period I mean you have an average of about 10 kids that go missing per day in this
case you have all hands on deck and you come up empty-handed we came up empty-handed so a little bit later in
time we you know a couple hours go by and we're in uh the target anchor store and the police are with her and I'm in
the the loss prevention area with there were all the targets cameras are and at that time our Mall only had stationary
cameras they were black and white and we only had a couple of them at the entrances but we were lucky that at the
interest that I met her at there was one so that that came up a little bit later
in the investigation that kind of set the framework for the time uh but anyway we were in Target and we were going
through the cameras with the Livonia Police and we were asking her to kind of point out
where she was where she come in at the time she came in um we didn't have her and him on camera
at any point in time coming in into the Target store or into the mall they began
to ask her questions such as can you try and point out does anyone look like your
son that was leaving any of the entrances there she was pointing out a couple people one of them she pointed
out was uh uh definitely uh not somebody that would meet the description of her son and I think at that point the the
Livonia Police started getting a little suspicious they started asking asking a little bit different questions and she
was getting upset about that so she started to clam up didn't really say anything and then right around that time
the father of the boy came in and met us there and they weren't together apparently so he came in and we were
talking and he was you know where is he at where's our son this and that and he was getting pretty upset about it too as
well from that point on we left the Target store and continued just to tell walk around the mall trying to figure
out what was going on you know and we pretty much had every cop in Livonia at the mall at that point that that lasted
till around I want to say like almost seven o'clock at night the mall had already closed and we're still looking
so you guys spent the majority of that day searching the mall the mall closes at 6 pm on that Sunday several of the
other stores including the Target store they remained open for a few hours after
that did you only search that day for Dewan Sims up until then like days after we tore that mall apart even that night
we it was a mall that was a little bit older and it used to be an exterior mall where there was no covering and they
just put a roof on it so it had all these exterior doors so part of the thing was to search that mall top to
bottom I mean there were stairways and basements that were drywalled over we knocked through them to see if there was
anything behind there we had to get in every single back cord or every single back room and basement and and of every
store that was in there and we searched that thing top to bottom and probably about 30 people and came up empty-handed
the mall wasn't the only thing that was searched you know they expanded that search into the areas around our home
railroad tracks by her house if I'm not mistaken to as well and there's just never been a trace of of the child found
anywhere and uh it's just it's just sad [Music] [Music] all right we're back happy turkey week
safe travels to everybody cheers captain we're talking with Randy Randy we're talking about DeJuan Sims four-year-old
dwan Sims has gone missing tell me in a little more detail about when you first encountered his mother
dewana I mean was it everything you expected to see is it the typical reaction by a parent who has lost a
child and where and how did she say that they got separated she basically said that uh they came to the mall they went
in the front entrance of an anchor store which is Target which is an exterior entrance not directly into the mall she
they were walking around and she just looked down and he was gone and then at that point she was looking around for
him and then came out to the exterior mall and got a hold of one of our maintenance people to call and ask for
help to help find the boy yet her demeanor was exactly what I would expect from somebody who was missing a child
um you know she was upset and gave all of all the descriptions she could of what her son was wearing that day how
old he was what his name was and stuff and and was pretty Cooperative at that point walking around trying to find him
so her demeanor is pretty typical of a parent that has just lost their child and does she have any bags with her I
mean she claims that she was in the mall shopping for a while no as I recall she
didn't have anything with her she still had her jacket on and was when I met her
it was just a typical quick conversation what does he look like don't worry we'll
find him this isn't a big deal I remember saying you know he this is this happens all the time this is probably
like the fifth or sixth kid we've had missing we'll find him in a couple minutes I'm pretty sure he's probably
either in the toy store in the arcade which was very close to that entrance and and uh just was very positive about
the outcome being good you know who would have thought anything different at that time so after you guys retrace
dewana's steps looking for the boy in the mall and the Target store you come up empty-handed it's at this point that
the police officers are going to ask Tawana to view some of the security footage with them from the Target stores
yeah correct so uh what had happened was is we had gone into the room there was a
there's two Livonia Police Officers with us we were going through the tapes of the times that she said she entered the
mall and even a half an hour before there if she got her time sir so we went through a ton of tape and she could
never point out herself on camera or her son on camera she the only time she ever
pointed anything out on camera was not um her child with somebody who may have been walking with another kid I think at
some point she even pointed out a little girl that was with somebody but uh you know in the Livonia Police started to
question her more and more about time where she was what are the exact areas she was in in in the store and uh could
get nothing or no video confirmation to where she was at the at the time she said she was there and at that time the
father showed up and he he was very upset and I he seemed upset with her too and I'll even go as far as saying that
he seemed upset with her about where their kid is where their kid was um and then little Livonia Police
started asking a lot of questions like where did you come from you know like did you what time did you get here
what'd you do this morning things of that so it started to try and dig a little bit deeper into the situation and
at that point she decided that she was uh gonna I'm not gonna say she was completely combative or not Cooperative
but she started getting upset is too and just throwing out things like why are you not looking for my son you know and
then it just turned into her just being quiet and then walking along with uh the
rest of the police just answering pretty much the exact same questions uh that over and over that the police had came
up for uh and and were asking her so now her actions kind of seem a little suspicious but before this was she
begging for you guys to like call the police like you know help me find my kid and once you couldn't find the kid did
she go hey call the police no not at all so it was probably it got to be enough time to where we decided that we weren't
going to be able to find the child and and that was a whole uh another thing that happened to us there was things
that happened after this that got put in place because we didn't call the police
in time you know we were all under the gun about why didn't we call Sooner or why didn't you know but hey I mean I was
18 years old and I think the oldest person that was working as Security in the mall was probably like 23 at the
time none of us had any experience with any of these things and and there was nothing written down about calling the
police but we eventually did and uh they came and it you know escalated greatly from there so well there's no protocol
for this sort of thing because like you said you guys get reports of missing children constantly throughout the day
and they're always easily located five ten minutes later at the arcade or the toy store in the food court regarding
that day was there anything that stands out to you as suspicious about dewana's Behavior to that point one of the one of
the big things that came out over the years and and I had known for a long time is that her mother worked in the
mall and never cared to share that information with anyone her mother worked at a Lady Foot Locker that was
down in the center of the mall completely opposite end of where we were and not once did we ever walk down there
and and apparently she knew that her mother was working that day again we never went down there uh to well we went
down that area but never made contact with her mother um nothing was ever said about that that
I know of uh at the time that I was with her and her mother actually was if I'm not mistaken she was at the time of
Wayne County Sheriff sheriff's deputy for I believe the jail down here in Wayne County okay so at this point
suspicion is turning on dewana Harris she's starting to look like she may know a lot more than what she has told the
police by this point but after being questioned by them and being questioned by dejuan's father
did dewana do anything that caused you to question things that she had told you and your staff that day yeah other than
going quiet no because uh it was just that she couldn't corroborate uh couldn't corroborate any of the stories
that she said of with what was on film you know they just didn't line up and that's actually like I said where the
Livonia Police Department started becoming suspicious start acting some you know follow-up questions to a lot of
the stuff and I think it became less of a focus as to you know we need to find this child in the mall as opposed to
where is this kid we don't think he's here um and it wasn't until a couple years I
think it was 2007 maybe it was right around that time that the Livonia Police uh Livonia
Police Department actually finally came out and made a statement this many years
later that they do not believe that that Dewan Sims was ever in that mall at the
time that she says that he was there they don't believe that he was ever in the mall with her that she didn't bring
him to the mall and he was never there how many more interactions did you or the security staff from the mall have
with the Livonia Police Department after that day yeah sure so um I spent a couple days after in the police
department working with one of the detectives the sergeant there who actually consequently was retiring at
the end of the year going through videotape and I was telling him that you know around the certain time that we
were there because apparently there was a discrepancy of an hour of time as to when she actually reported him and when
I actually said that it had happened and it was came down to that the times were
wrong on the videotape so there was a whole hour of difference there that that it took place uh but we did finally go
through the tapes where I said that exactly I was and where we met her and we actually found the only piece of
video that we have from her on camera is of her meeting me at the time I said it
was in the mall entrance where where you know down by the the anchor store Target
and that was the only time she was ever been on videotape alone or I'm sorry um up until that point so just to be
clear we have no video footage of dwana the mother on footage image and no surveillance footage at all and we have
no surveillance footage at all of dewana and her son Dewan none that I've ever seen or have been made aware of
um there was the other kind of it's not so much a theory but there is a separate
entrance to the mall that's right next to the anchor store that she could have very well walked through as well instead
of even going through Target which kind of makes more sense because Target's video never showed her on there but just
to be clear that's not the entrance that she said that she went into when she told your staff and when she's told the
Livonia Police Department she states that she went into a different entrance and this entrance would have had
security camera footage correct and there's no footage of her going in to that entrance there's not in that Monday
after she walked through the whole Mall there was it was pretty much like a media
Extravaganza all the media uh Outlets were there channel two channel seven channel four channel 50 at the time they
were all there in the mall we brought Duane Harris back into the mall to retrace her steps throughout the whole
day as to where she was where she went and all that so they ended the Livonia Place was little bony police was with
her that whole time as well no I never worked security so I'm kind of the odd man out you did Nick did yep
um if this if something like this happens you're gonna remember this you're going to carry this with you yeah
this is something that has stayed with you Randy and this is something you have carried with you for for years many
years to this day right I I set up a website for it um I I just want people want to know
like what happened to this child and if not I where he is he has to be somewhere
and somebody has to know where he is or where he was at the time somebody has to
know there's somebody out there that knows this and and what we've asked for is somebody please come forward it is
enough time has passed please somebody say something said you've been following this cage for so many years and you're
local to the case as well what has happened since 1994 with this case yeah yeah so I mean there's been a lot of
things I mean the first five years after were just the spattering of this and that they had
um news I believe one of the news companies hired a psychic to come in that after is the house that she had
lived in they brought a psychic in to try and figure out what had happened that ended up being nothing uh there was
a period time where they found bones in a park not too far from the house that they had tested they ended up being
animal bones there's been numerous things over the year that have happened every time there's a child abduction or
or something of that sort along that happens it always kind of gets brought up everyone remembers this incident
remembers this incident here in Livonia um you know you bring it up and anybody who was around that time will know it
some of the things that seem really significant now is the fact that I'm a parent now like I have two girls and
if my kid ever went missing that would be my life's work for the rest of my life until I figured out what happened
you know I think just locally now we are I'm sorry not locally but just in the news we hear about is it Natalie
Holloway's husband or a father is now possibly found bones remains of her of of his daughter you know that guy never
stopped like nothing would stop me as a parent to find out where my child was if
he was missing even even 20 years going by I'd still want to know um and she has and and I'll be as bold
as saying she's pretty much wiped him from the face of the Earth you know she's reached out to a group that
ran on Facebook about leaving her alone leave her family alone that were causing
her undue stress that you know she doesn't want to deal with this and you know her her boy's gone things of that
sort I mean she almost pretty soon after this happened she moved away from the area I find that odd because you know
who would move away from the area that your your child's missing from um you know she basically started a new
life I believe she has kids now and got remarried I understand the fact that you
move on with your life but to to wipe any kind of any kind of information about a son that
you had years ago gone you know just completely missing from your life that your your daughters don't know about it
that you have now it's it's just very odd uh she commented to a newspaper um not too long ago many years about
five six years ago about she about her having a picture of her son in her car and that she looked at it every single
day before she goes to work um you know I I don't know how true that is but I know that she has nothing on
her Facebook when we've you know had interactions where there's nothing at all in any of her social media that even
mentions her son at all so I I find that very odd what information Randy do you have regarding the investigation itself
and any type of uh communication that dewana would have had with the Livonia Police Department to that point I think
it was the day after or two days after she took a polygraph test and failed it she failed the first polygraph test went
back in and took us second and she actually physically ripped the paper out of the polygraph machine because she did
she failed it a second time and then left yeah there is so many things out there that uh
that just point I'm sorry point to her point to her 100 there's nobody else that has any
information about where this boy is um the things leading up to that that's that's the whole point that's the
mystery of of everything is where was she the night before and up until the point where she said
she got to the mall where was her son uh there's a little bit of information out
there uh some of the reports that I've been able to get a hold of I know from the Detroit Police Department a lot of
the stuff was blacked out but uh I did get a chance to talk to some of the detectives not too many years ago about
the case who were on that and there's they've they've even speculated us as far as that the the child actually
didn't belong to or was not the the man who met us uh that day that it was not his child that it happened to be uh the
child of some guy that she was hanging out with who she just so happened to be with that evening there's several
stories that went around as that uh uh from the neighborhoods about the guy that she was with didn't want any kids
so she got rid of them I mean obviously all speculation and just just rumors from around that part of town but uh
yeah nothing nothing else there's nobody there's been no Ransom no there's been no phone calls nothing it's just been
complete radio silence since the day it's happened locally what are rumors and what's some suspicions that you have
had right you know the rumors that uh she sold her child or gave her child to somebody you know that one was around a
long time uh but you know for the longest time I believe that he was alive and now I mean there's so much time
that's passed now yeah I don't believe he's alive I believe that this child's dead I don't I don't see how any other
outcome could be the truth at the moment any strange leads that you have come across through the website what's really
strange is we did have um last year two years ago we had somebody reach out to us and think that
um they were Dewan and that they didn't know who their parents were and they felt like their parents were lying to
them they felt like they were the son they were Dawsons and they felt like they uh looked very similar to him and
and they don't had they don't have a lot of recollection of their past which we took that pretty seriously I I took all
the information that we have and I forwarded over to the Livonia Police Department what happened with it at that
point um I don't know but uh that's the only time anyone's actually come forward
and said hey I believe I'm this child but um CSO we that was a while ago I don't nothing ever came of it so I doubt
it was anything of substance Randy was there ever any other child abductions in that area during that time period so
when it comes to other abductions in the area at the time or even in the past zero none there was there was absolutely
nothing on on the radar if anyone ever being abducted in that City uh on that scale let alone a child
um and anything up until this point I mean uh never there's never been anything that I
know of of a child abduction in that City but you do believe that her house was searched uh yes yeah the the she was
definitely her house was searched I know that there were people who live right by
her who who had recounted that you know the days that the the police were there going through the house and even after
she moved out they went back through the house I don't know what time period that
was but I know that they did go through her house after she had moved out of it there was a public Rally or some type of
Candlelight vigil where we have dewana Harris going on record and complaining that because of the Susan Smith case now
this took place just months before Dewan went missing she's claiming because Susan Smith was in the news
that her son is not they're not searching for Dewan the way that they should be yeah correct so yeah I
definitely I'm glad you brought that up because yeah the Susan Smith case was taken uh was brought up uh right around
that time was when if I'm not mistaken that was the case where um Susan Smith had said that her child
was abducted by an African-American gentleman and uh it really wasn't the case she actually I believe drowned them
or something of that sort but um yeah she I believe she went on record saying that if this was the only reason
that um nobody's looking for her son or this doesn't have um you know larger larger outpouring of
support was that it was a young black child and nobody was looking for him in a White City
it was something along that line so I'm definitely paraphrasing though you have firsthand knowledge that law enforcement
and the community was not taking this case lightly yeah not at all I'm glad you hit on that too as well because I
mean they were out for us at Livonia Police Department immediately you know uh was working with the Detroit Police
Department I found out mistaken that Detroit Police Department also that also then brought in the FBI so you had like
three different um forms of law enforcement or districts or whatever it would be working on this
case um I know that areas of Detroit I even went on a couple we were walking down I
didn't even have to do this but volunteer just go walk the railroad tracks looking around her area of her
house looking for her son um you know at that point obviously the police were thinking that maybe somebody
dumped him or she had possibly done something with him but uh you know weeks had passed people were still out looking
for him um one of the I remember one night I was working in the mall and some lady I
believe it was probably maybe like a week or two after this had taken place some somebody had heard some gossip or
thought they heard something on the news that he was found in a dumpster in the back of the mall and a bunch of people
started running towards the back of the mall and codified there was nobody out there it was just a movie theater
garbage car trash compactor that was back there and there was nobody out there they didn't
find anything but somebody started almost like a little bit hysteria in the mall like probably 10 to 20 people were
running through the mall trying to trying to go see if they they had found him in the back of a dumpster Randy what
if anything could have law enforcement done differently in this case you know I'm a firm believer they had that uh
some of the technology that we have today I I the only thing I can say and and this is
not uh I guess any of the police department is that I don't think that they were equipped for something like
this happening no one would have expected something like this to happen in a city like that and I think that's
maybe where any if any misstep was was taken it was just that fact like nobody would have thought that would have
happened there well Randy thanks for taking the time out to talk with us today and thanks for your continued work
on this case yes thank you Randy for all of your insights regarding The Disappearance of DeJuan Sims you have a
wonderful and happy turkey day my friend you too thank you foreign [Music] this is one of those cases captain that
once you when you really start diving into the details you really hope to fight hold on once
you can get to the details this was one of the hardest cases I mean any of the research I did online it was like uh
kind of fictitious stories fake news everywhere well you really hope that you can find somewhere in there that the
mother is right that what she's complaining about to the security and to the police department what she's
reporting to them that holds some truth the fact of the matter is there's nothing there there's no evidence that
she was telling the truth at all that day we have we have eyewitness testimony that states that that she didn't arrive
at the mall when she said she arrived right and that she was seen in the parking lot pulling in and getting out
of her vehicle without anybody with her without a boy a girl or anybody with her
at all yeah and I believe that there was more than two eyewitnesses but there's at least two credible eyewitnesses that
saw her get out of her car with nobody with her and we also have a situation where we have her changing her story
throughout the time that she's with the police officers we have the police report that was taken that evening now
what we might have some people that have reviewed that police report and they'll
say well uh Randy says that the security department was the one that notified the
police the police report I believe states that dewan's mother I'm sorry dewana's mother Beverly Harris called
the police right it's very likely that both of them did the fact of the matter is that no report
states that dewana Harris was the one that called police or states that the police should be called yeah and I don't
know if that matters but I think what matters here is the times that she is possibly lying you know or like people
will say well maybe she didn't go into that entrance so she wouldn't have been seen on tape well she says that she you
know lost contact with her son somewhere in the mall again this there's no footage of this there's no footage of
her in that mall with her son there's no eyewitness that can place her and her son in that mall there's no footage of
her entering the the mall or the Target store in the entrance that she said on more than one occasion that she used and
what I mean by more than one occasion is she's got she's had to go through her story time and time again and she will
stick to one story until there's no video footage to corroborate that then once once that's pointed out to her her
story changes just a little bit mind you she failed two lie detector tests within
days of her son having gone missing yeah again so if you want to make an excuse you can say well maybe chalk that up to
nerves but when you're pointing out people on surveillance cameras and claiming that's you and your son and
they know that's not you and then later on the you know the cops have to point her out to her walking by herself
um the times never line up um it's it's very fishy it's it's you know to me all the evidence points to
that something happened and this was her idea to cover it up you're exactly right
this this looks to me like a pivot Captain like something happened I don't know if it was something on
purpose or some type of accident but something happened and then she had to Pivot and she came up and presented this
whole story of you know I'm going to take myself to the mall and I'm going to make it I'm going to report that he went
missing he was walking with me through the stores through the mall and that's what happened to my son and to my little
boy yeah she wasn't truthful that day she wasn't truthful afterwards and when her story started to fall apart what she
ultimately did was she turned this around on the police and the community and both the police and the community
had her back from the beginning they wanted to believe her story well they wanted to look for an abductor yeah but
we don't know what the interactions are or were from the get-go with the police officers well what I do know is that
they took our statements and they let her go at the end of the evening yeah um that that's a fact well and we knew
we know that they called in a bunch of backups so they had a lot of officers at that mall looking for this child right
and but what I'm getting at here is when when she didn't tell the truth and when
things didn't go her way and once they didn't look Beyond her she basically said you know what they're
screwing up this investigation they're centering this thing around me they're not handling this thing the right way
they're not looking for my boy because he doesn't look like the rest of this city they're not doing everything that
they can to find him and we know that that's not the truth there are plenty of police of newspaper reports right third
party reports that the Detroit Police Department was extremely active in the search for this little boy and active in
the investigation into what could have happened with this little boy well and if they weren't told lie after lie after
lie they might know where to actually look we actually have uh one statement that came from the Livonia Police
Department to the media at the time that said this came out just before Christmas
where the police department announced that they had received over 700 tips by the Christmas time and since the boy had
gone missing that they had paid out over forty three thousand dollars in mandatory overtime because of all the
searches for the boy and just because the holidays were coming up the mandatory overtime would not end they
announced that their officers may have to see their families um may not get to see their families on
the holidays or spend time with their families that they would have to work that around this mandatory overtime
while this investigation was still hot I wonder if she picked them all as a cover-up story because her mother worked
there that's one thing that to me almost seems like a dumb move on her part and I
don't think that dewana Harris I don't think she's stupid by any means I think that she may have pulled something off
and gotten away with something because I think she outsmarted a lot of us even though we were suspicious of her
I think that was her one dumb move was going to where her mother worked at this part-time gig yeah but what I'm saying
is that out of all the people in her life and her son's life that would probably be really up in arms
about this or be suspect of her it'd be the mother right her mother so by having him supposedly go on go
missing where you work and where there's surveillance cameras that you know you're not going to focus on me well
from everything that I read this is this is what makes it a little tough for the
investigators from everything that I read regarding this case was that Beverly the grandmother dewana's mother
she was in full support of her daughter during the course of this whole investigation right however I do want to
be very clear about this everything I read regarding Beverly the grandmother she was extremely Cooperative with the
police and she's the one that called the police right she's the one that called the police her home was searched after
uh during this investigation as well but where we remain to this day Captain basically the facts of this case are are
this DeJuan Sims was never seen on any of the surveillance footage from that day when he was reported missing there
is not one single person that has ever come forward stating that they saw Dewan at the reported location of his
disappearance there is currently no activity on this case the lavono the lavona police department
they still to this very day hold the belief that Dewan Sims was not at the mall that day that he was reported
missing well I think that's where all the evidence points and I think if you're going to say otherwise well then
you have to prove some evidence of that and we also have the mother who failed two lie detector tests just days
following him him having been reported missing there have never been any charges filed against anyone in this
case and dewan's mother dewana to this day maintains her innocence in this case but it also seems to me Captain like
this investigation um even though they left it open it looks to me that because of the
person that this should center around right when she up and left town I think she left her son her son's memory and
anything to do with him in the rear view that day and when she left I think every
lead in any potential of possibly solving this case left with her that day and I think we both agree for the most
part on the idea that when you have a missing child and the parents leave that town it's very odd yeah it's suspicious
it's not it doesn't seem to be typical Behavior now we do understand that sometimes people have to leave because
of their jobs because their families other things pull them away to other cities but nine times out of ten Captain
what we see is that a mother or a father parents of people that disappear of children that go
missing they don't up and move especially children that are of a young age because their thought is you know
what if he or she ever breaks free if they have that moment with where they could get reach out to me right they'll
come back to their home where they grew up where they remember living or most of
the time they don't even change their phone numbers yeah because for fear that one day if they get the chance to pick
up a phone and call and reach out for help I better have that same phone number I
better be there to answer the phone or answer the door when my child my missing child comes back for help and comes back
to me now if all this evidence is wrong if there's a logical explanation for all
this evidence then I do feel for and that would make some logical Sense on why she'd want to move away and maybe
why she doesn't have all these uh things on her Facebook about her missing son because
basically all the fingers Point towards her and I'd like to tell you that there's a little light at the end of
this tunnel Captain I don't see it here I don't see this case getting solved I mean it's very strange that they've not
recovered any remains that turned out to have been Dewan to this point right I mean we're over 20 years later they have
from time to time release you know the age progress progressed photos of what he may look like but I just I just don't
see this one getting solved without any help from his mother without any help from dewana or the the close family
members there's a good chance that if anybody knows what happened it's the mother but there's also the potential
that somebody else in that family might know something right that maybe she told
somebody and without that information I just don't see getting the break in the case that this thing needs how about a
little recommended reading Captain all right hit me okay here we go this one is this one has been long awaited for and
and I highly recommend this one it's called member of the family and this is by Diane Lake who is Diane Lake well she
is the youngest member of the Manson family and Charles Manson just uh died in late 1967 at the young age of 14
Diane Lake became one of Charlie's girls fully recruited and fully accepted into
the Manson family she was with she was in the family for about two years and she described the mixture of sexual
manipulation psychological control and physical abuse that came with being a member of the family she also talks
about Charles Manson's true nature Diane did not participate in the gruesome murders committed by the members of the
family but some of the members confessed to her following her arrest she was able
to transform trauma into Triumph finding the courage to face Manson and testify against him in court do yourself a favor
and check out member of the family by Diane Lake and for holiday gifts if you want to check out our website truecrime
garage.com if you click on our store Page we have the new logo shirts plus I ordered a new batch of the parts on
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here's the moment where we give thanks we want to thank everybody for listening we want to thank everybody for telling a
friend and for subscribing to the show everybody have a very safe and Happy Thanksgiving until next week we will see
you back here in the garage until then be good be kind and don't litter thank you
[Music] [Applause] [Music]

D'Wan Sims ////// 160

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

December 11, 1994; Dwanna Harris went to the Wonderland Mall in Livonia, Michigan with her son D'Wan. D'Wan is just a little guy, four years old and about three foot tall. The Wonderland mall was very busy with holiday shoppers. The two talked together as they made their way through the mall. D'Wan was walking almost directly behind his mother as they talked. Dwanna asked the little boy a question but he did not answer her. She turned around and her son D'Wan was gone. Tonight we discuss one of Michigan's most famous missing child cases.

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the disappearance of four-year-old DeJuan Sims from a Michigan mall and the ensuing investigation that raised suspicions about his mother.

Key points

Surveillance Footage Confusion. Dewana Harris identifies herself in the video, but discrepancies arise.
The Disappearance of DeJuan Sims. A four-year-old boy goes missing from a mall during the holiday season.
Suspicion Turns to Dewana Harris. As the investigation unfolds, suspicion begins to focus on Dewana Harris, the mother.
Failed Polygraph Tests. Dewana Harris fails two polygraph tests, raising further doubts about her involvement.
Community Response to Missing Child. The community rallies for Dewan, but Dewana feels overlooked compared to other cases.
The Disappearance of DeJuan Sims. A mother’s story unravels as evidence points to her possible involvement in her son's disappearance.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Stay thirsty, my friends!

Nick's playful sign-off about the beer.

1:46WatchNov 28, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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