00:00:11
[Music] [Applause] [Applause] thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:00:49
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that knows that if you don't make it on the Buckeye
00:00:54
football squad well you can just go up North and play for Michigan he is the captain welcome to rivalry week welcome
00:01:01
to Turkey week you turkeys it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks thanks for telling
00:01:09
a friend today tonight and for the rest of the week I am and we are drinking Harvest
00:01:19
ale by the brilliant and hard-working people up at Founders Brewing Company garage grade it is impossible not to
00:01:26
give this beer five out of five bottle caps listen up because just like Drew Barrymore used to say it's so magical
00:01:33
because each fall thousands of wet hop cones arrive just hours after being picked by Founders favorite local hop
00:01:41
Growers and thus the Harvest ale a bright IPA bursting with pine melon and citrus stay thirsty my friends and
00:01:49
harvest ale was brought to us by these magical friends first up we have Mindy in Saint Charles Missouri and the big we
00:01:55
like your jib to Colleen in Atlanta Georgia okay this one says get on it like a carb on it that is from Emma and
00:02:03
Steve over the pond in Westcliffe Essex UK been staying in the UK in Edinburgh we have Alana next we have Adrian who
00:02:11
says she loves to lash and listen and also to try Big Rock Brewery that's from Adrian in Calgary Canada and we have the
00:02:19
gentleman hobo from Bismarck North Dakota on this gentleman's Tuesday and last but not least we have a beer fun
00:02:26
donation from someone going by PMT who wants to recognize the end of watch for a good man and a brave officer this is
00:02:33
Deputy Burbridge of the Potawatomi County Sheriff's Department in Iowa unfortunately yeah I hope I said that
00:02:42
right but unfortunately he was killed in the line of duty earlier this year so of
00:02:46
course on this week of giving thanks we want to thank Deputy Burbridge for his bravery and hard work for keeping
00:02:53
families of that Community safe for many many years and our thoughts and prayers
00:02:57
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
00:03:05
true crime foreign [Music] [Music] Sunday December 11 1994 Livonia Michigan a police officer is responding to the
00:03:40
Wonderland mall on Plymouth Road on a report of a missing four-year-old boy upon arrival at the mall the officer met
00:03:49
25-year-old dewana Harris Tawana is the mother of DeJuan Sims the missing four-year-old boy
00:03:58
the officer immediately obtained the description of the missing child from the mother the Juan Sims is a
00:04:05
four-year-old African-American little boy with black hair and brown eyes he is approximately three foot to three and a
00:04:12
half foot tall and weighing 45 to 60 pounds he was last seen wearing a blue winter
00:04:18
jacket over a multi-color windbreaker jacket dark blue sweatpants and black Fila low
00:04:24
top tennis shoes after receiving the description the officer contacted Livonia Police
00:04:31
dispatch and reported DeJuan Sims is missing a teletype to all area law enforcement
00:04:37
agencies was sent the officer asked the mother to explain exactly what happened when she entered
00:04:44
the mall in detail dewana says her and the little boy left the Residence at approximately 1 30 P.M
00:04:52
she estimated that they probably arrived at the mall between 1 40 and 2 P.M DeJuan Harris stated that she parked her
00:05:01
Ford Thunderbird in the north parking lot across from the Target and walked with her son into the mall entering at
00:05:07
the doors between Target and Famous Footwear [Music] dewana and Dewan then went to the
00:05:14
videotape department where she told her son she did not have enough money to purchase a videotape for him
00:05:22
she told the boy they would go ask dewan's grandmother for some money dewan's grandmother is also dawana
00:05:28
Harris's mother Beverly Harris Beverly is working part-time on the weekends at the Ladies Foot Locker store
00:05:35
on the other side of the mall dewana told the officer that her and Dewan walked through the Target store
00:05:43
just looking around for maybe 20 minutes stating that her and the little boy left
00:05:50
the Target store together at approximately 2 30 PM walking through the East Mall entry doors
00:05:58
Luana said she walked next to her boy until they came to the area of the KB Toys
00:06:03
where she says Dewan was talking to her as he walked behind her she asked him a question to which he did
00:06:11
not give an answer dewana Harris turned around and just like that her little boy Dewan was gone
00:06:21
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
00:06:28
ran up and down each aisle she did not find her son she then checked the surrounding stores
00:06:36
including the food court area of the mall but she was still unable to locate Dewan
00:06:45
she told the officer I searched for him for about 30 minutes then she located a cleaning lady working
00:06:52
at the mall she tells her about her son who is missing the cleaning woman calls the Wonderland
00:06:58
mall security and forms them of the situation dewana Harris along with several security officers searched the entire
00:07:09
mall for approximately 90 minutes during the search Tawana notified her mother Beverly that Dewan was missing
00:07:18
Beverly assisted in the search when the boy could still not be located Beverly called the Livonia Police
00:07:24
Department after speaking with dejuan's mother and grandmother the responding officer met
00:07:31
with security officer Randy Pfeiffer Pfeiffer told the officer he was notified about the missing boy by one of
00:07:39
the mall's maintenance workers at approximately 3 45 pm at that time Pfeiffer and four members
00:07:46
of the mall security team searched each store and the parking lot along the way they informed all or most
00:07:53
employees of the stores of the missing subject and instructed them to contact the security office if he was found
00:08:01
after meeting with security officer Pfeiffer the responding officer from LPD instructed Pfeiffer to continue the
00:08:08
search until further notice and he requested more LPD to the scene an additional five officers and a
00:08:15
sergeant on duty were dispatched and sent to the mall once the officers arrived at the mall
00:08:22
now seven of them they met at the East end of the mall near the American Eagle store
00:08:29
they were given a description of the little boy along with the specific area for each to search
00:08:35
they searched each store all of the hallways the food court the movie theater each bathroom and the entire
00:08:44
parking lot surrounding the mall they search behind stores and alleyways first an organized grid search
00:08:53
and then when they found nothing the officers along with the security team remained on site and continued to search
00:09:00
triple checking each area and location two of the officers asked dewana to go with them to the Target store
00:09:09
there they learned the Target store had stationary security cameras set up at each of the entry and exit doors to the
00:09:16
store the officers confirmed with the Target store security officer that the cameras
00:09:22
were operating and recording during the time that dewana Harris said she and Dewan had entered the store
00:09:30
the officers requested that they be allowed to view this tape in hopes that Dewan would be seen on tape leaving the
00:09:37
store giving the officers a better idea of the time and potentially a suspect in
00:09:42
the case dewana Harris sat directly in front of the television screen and viewed the
00:09:49
video while a police officer and security guard were present at approximately 1 44 PM video footage
00:09:57
time dewana stated there I am and point it to the video screen officers observed an African-American
00:10:04
female holding the hand of a small child and exiting the store dwana positively stated that was her and
00:10:12
Dewan the officers observed the two subjects walking out of the e-store of the Target
00:10:19
and then standing directly at the threshold of the store it appeared the female was talking to
00:10:26
the child at this point dewana said see I'm telling him that we cannot buy a videotape because the checkout lines are
00:10:34
too long as the tape ran the woman walked further out into the mall still inside of the
00:10:42
video camera dewana said see yep I remember walking out that way officers then observed the female with
00:10:49
the child in the video walks South toward the main aisleway dewana stated yep there we go
00:10:58
the officers continued viewing the tape but did not observe a single child or a child with an adult walk in the opposite
00:11:07
direction or pass the camera police requested security to blow the image up to full View
00:11:15
doing so the police observed the woman that dewana claimed to be with the child in the video
00:11:21
she was wearing a brown hooded jacket and a baseball cap with a white emblem on the front
00:11:29
the officers observed dewana at the present time watching the video to be wearing a black coat without a hood and
00:11:35
no baseball cap the officer then requested that the sergeant come and view the video with
00:11:41
the wanna present again dewana narrated her actions as she watched the subjects on the screen go
00:11:48
out the target doors with the image blown up to full view the officer pointed out to vote the sergeant
00:11:55
and dewana the differences in the clothing between the individual on the screen and dewana Harris
00:12:02
when the officers confronted dewana with this she sat silent for several minutes
00:12:07
and then reconfirmed what she had previously told the officers that's me and then added that's not a
00:12:14
hood that's my caller when the officers again pointed out the differences in clothing both color hood
00:12:25
and ball cap once again dawana sat silent for several minutes and then she said oh well I guess that's not me
00:12:34
the officers then sat with dewana and viewed the surveillance footage from an hour before she said she had arrived at
00:12:41
the store all the way through to an hour after she said the boy went missing at no time did the officers observe
00:12:50
Tawana and Dewan enter the store at no time did the officers observe Dewan on any of the video footage
00:12:59
the officer confiscated the surveillance footage from the Target store in astawana if she would go to the police
00:13:05
department to give a statement to the detective [Music] she agreed to go four-year-old DeJuan Sims was not seen
00:13:13
on any video footage from that Sunday December 11 1994. he was never located that night
00:13:21
and after giving her statement to the detective dawana Harris went home that night
00:13:30
[Music] this is the case of DeJuan Sims [Music] foreign [Music] this is a strange case Captain because
00:13:49
we have a small boy who goes missing from the Wonderland mall in Livonia Michigan back in 1994. now this is early
00:13:58
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
00:14:06
the holiday shopping season and this case came recommended To Us by several of our listeners up in the great state
00:14:11
of Michigan now we were able to track down Randy Pfeiffer who was one of the security guards working at the
00:14:19
Wonderland mall in Livonia Michigan that day that Dewan went missing just to give
00:14:24
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
00:14:32
little idea of the location here yeah with it being turkey week there's going to be a lot of people shopping on Black
00:14:37
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
00:14:43
your kid is gone so let's introduce Randy who is working as a security guard yard at the Wonderland mall on December
00:14:49
11 1994. Randy can you tell us a bit about yourself and what occurred that day sure uh so my name is Randy Pfeiffer
00:14:57
I grew up in a small town outside of Detroit and uh on December 11 1994 I was working as a security card
00:15:07
um security guard in Livonia Michigan in a mall it was called Wonderland mall and uh in the nice suburban area of
00:15:16
Livonia Michigan I was going to school and then this was uh kind of during the summer I had taken this job and
00:15:21
continued on into the fall and into the winter so so obviously during the holiday season it's going to be a little
00:15:27
different can you take us through a typical day um so average day for us would be
00:15:32
especially during that time you know the malls crowded malls were still big back
00:15:36
then there was no Amazon or anything of that sort so uh typical day was uh just going in patrolling the areas of the
00:15:43
mall make sure people are safe people are doing the things that they're supposed to be doing helping Shoppers
00:15:48
find things deterring crime if you want to call it uh helping out with a typically like retail fraud type things
00:15:55
if somebody tries stealing something and that that business is always up around that time of the year you know and then
00:16:00
dealing with the lost children or Lost Child calls which we typically would get probably about uh probably 10 a day
00:16:09
maybe around that time and they would just be really quick uh hey um can you meet so and so by the food
00:16:16
court or by the arcade or something they can't find their kid meet up with those
00:16:19
people or meet them at the information booth we I think the longest anyone we had ever at up into that point found
00:16:25
missing is like five ten minutes tops they were always like I said in the arcade or in the toy store or down by
00:16:31
the movie theater or something of that sort okay and then what happened on December 11
00:16:36
1994. so in this day in particular there's nothing nothing out of the normal had happened it was just the
00:16:41
typical Sunday Mall opened a little bit later on Sunday so everything was again going so it's
00:16:47
about two three o'clock in the afternoon and I got a phone call from one of our um help people uh maintenance people
00:16:54
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
00:17:00
stores were so we typically we went down there I talked to her for the very first
00:17:04
time she was physically upset you know crying everything asked her for the normal description of her son how old he
00:17:10
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
00:17:16
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
00:17:21
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
00:17:27
now that I think about like where would a three-year-old go and in a mall without somebody saying something so we
00:17:33
checked the arcade checked the Toy Story food court didn't see him so he continued to walk down the mall a little
00:17:38
bit further and you know at that time got the information out to all the other security guards out there even in the
00:17:44
out the trucks that were out patrolling the mall and the out parking lots and internally and over the loudspeaker time
00:17:51
some time went by probably about 45 minutes went by before we actually called the police
00:17:57
um I don't know if that's just you know I guess we just weren't in that frame of
00:18:00
mind and we've never had anything like this happen there was no kind of uh timetable to to call anyone uh there
00:18:07
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
00:18:13
know we did continue to walk around the mall went to the offices to make phone calls if anybody had you know I believe
00:18:19
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
00:18:25
typical situation for this time period I mean you have an average of about 10 kids that go missing per day in this
00:18:32
case you have all hands on deck and you come up empty-handed we came up empty-handed so a little bit later in
00:18:37
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
00:18:44
the the loss prevention area with there were all the targets cameras are and at that time our Mall only had stationary
00:18:51
cameras they were black and white and we only had a couple of them at the entrances but we were lucky that at the
00:18:57
interest that I met her at there was one so that that came up a little bit later
00:19:00
in the investigation that kind of set the framework for the time uh but anyway we were in Target and we were going
00:19:06
through the cameras with the Livonia Police and we were asking her to kind of point out
00:19:13
where she was where she come in at the time she came in um we didn't have her and him on camera
00:19:18
at any point in time coming in into the Target store or into the mall they began
00:19:23
to ask her questions such as can you try and point out does anyone look like your
00:19:27
son that was leaving any of the entrances there she was pointing out a couple people one of them she pointed
00:19:31
out was uh uh definitely uh not somebody that would meet the description of her son and I think at that point the the
00:19:39
Livonia Police started getting a little suspicious they started asking asking a little bit different questions and she
00:19:45
was getting upset about that so she started to clam up didn't really say anything and then right around that time
00:19:51
the father of the boy came in and met us there and they weren't together apparently so he came in and we were
00:19:59
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
00:20:06
well from that point on we left the Target store and continued just to tell walk around the mall trying to figure
00:20:12
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
00:20:18
till around I want to say like almost seven o'clock at night the mall had already closed and we're still looking
00:20:23
so you guys spent the majority of that day searching the mall the mall closes at 6 pm on that Sunday several of the
00:20:31
other stores including the Target store they remained open for a few hours after
00:20:34
that did you only search that day for Dewan Sims up until then like days after we tore that mall apart even that night
00:20:43
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
00:20:49
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
00:20:54
bottom I mean there were stairways and basements that were drywalled over we knocked through them to see if there was
00:21:00
anything behind there we had to get in every single back cord or every single back room and basement and and of every
00:21:08
store that was in there and we searched that thing top to bottom and probably about 30 people and came up empty-handed
00:21:13
the mall wasn't the only thing that was searched you know they expanded that search into the areas around our home
00:21:19
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
00:21:25
anywhere and uh it's just it's just sad [Music] [Music] all right we're back happy turkey week
00:21:48
safe travels to everybody cheers captain we're talking with Randy Randy we're talking about DeJuan Sims four-year-old
00:21:56
dwan Sims has gone missing tell me in a little more detail about when you first encountered his mother
00:22:02
dewana I mean was it everything you expected to see is it the typical reaction by a parent who has lost a
00:22:09
child and where and how did she say that they got separated she basically said that uh they came to the mall they went
00:22:17
in the front entrance of an anchor store which is Target which is an exterior entrance not directly into the mall she
00:22:23
they were walking around and she just looked down and he was gone and then at that point she was looking around for
00:22:29
him and then came out to the exterior mall and got a hold of one of our maintenance people to call and ask for
00:22:34
help to help find the boy yet her demeanor was exactly what I would expect from somebody who was missing a child
00:22:42
um you know she was upset and gave all of all the descriptions she could of what her son was wearing that day how
00:22:50
old he was what his name was and stuff and and was pretty Cooperative at that point walking around trying to find him
00:22:55
so her demeanor is pretty typical of a parent that has just lost their child and does she have any bags with her I
00:23:03
mean she claims that she was in the mall shopping for a while no as I recall she
00:23:07
didn't have anything with her she still had her jacket on and was when I met her
00:23:12
it was just a typical quick conversation what does he look like don't worry we'll
00:23:16
find him this isn't a big deal I remember saying you know he this is this happens all the time this is probably
00:23:22
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
00:23:27
either in the toy store in the arcade which was very close to that entrance and and uh just was very positive about
00:23:33
the outcome being good you know who would have thought anything different at that time so after you guys retrace
00:23:39
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
00:23:47
the police officers are going to ask Tawana to view some of the security footage with them from the Target stores
00:23:53
yeah correct so uh what had happened was is we had gone into the room there was a
00:23:58
there's two Livonia Police Officers with us we were going through the tapes of the times that she said she entered the
00:24:04
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
00:24:10
never point out herself on camera or her son on camera she the only time she ever
00:24:14
pointed anything out on camera was not um her child with somebody who may have been walking with another kid I think at
00:24:20
some point she even pointed out a little girl that was with somebody but uh you know in the Livonia Police started to
00:24:25
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
00:24:33
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
00:24:39
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
00:24:45
he seemed upset with her about where their kid is where their kid was um and then little Livonia Police
00:24:52
started asking a lot of questions like where did you come from you know like did you what time did you get here
00:24:56
what'd you do this morning things of that so it started to try and dig a little bit deeper into the situation and
00:25:02
at that point she decided that she was uh gonna I'm not gonna say she was completely combative or not Cooperative
00:25:09
but she started getting upset is too and just throwing out things like why are you not looking for my son you know and
00:25:14
then it just turned into her just being quiet and then walking along with uh the
00:25:18
rest of the police just answering pretty much the exact same questions uh that over and over that the police had came
00:25:23
up for uh and and were asking her so now her actions kind of seem a little suspicious but before this was she
00:25:30
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
00:25:36
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
00:25:44
going to be able to find the child and and that was a whole uh another thing that happened to us there was things
00:25:48
that happened after this that got put in place because we didn't call the police
00:25:51
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
00:25:58
18 years old and I think the oldest person that was working as Security in the mall was probably like 23 at the
00:26:03
time none of us had any experience with any of these things and and there was nothing written down about calling the
00:26:07
police but we eventually did and uh they came and it you know escalated greatly from there so well there's no protocol
00:26:16
for this sort of thing because like you said you guys get reports of missing children constantly throughout the day
00:26:22
and they're always easily located five ten minutes later at the arcade or the toy store in the food court regarding
00:26:30
that day was there anything that stands out to you as suspicious about dewana's Behavior to that point one of the one of
00:26:37
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
00:26:43
mall and never cared to share that information with anyone her mother worked at a Lady Foot Locker that was
00:26:50
down in the center of the mall completely opposite end of where we were and not once did we ever walk down there
00:26:55
and and apparently she knew that her mother was working that day again we never went down there uh to well we went
00:27:01
down that area but never made contact with her mother um nothing was ever said about that that
00:27:07
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
00:27:14
Wayne County Sheriff sheriff's deputy for I believe the jail down here in Wayne County okay so at this point
00:27:20
suspicion is turning on dewana Harris she's starting to look like she may know a lot more than what she has told the
00:27:28
police by this point but after being questioned by them and being questioned by dejuan's father
00:27:34
did dewana do anything that caused you to question things that she had told you and your staff that day yeah other than
00:27:41
going quiet no because uh it was just that she couldn't corroborate uh couldn't corroborate any of the stories
00:27:47
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
00:27:52
Livonia Police Department started becoming suspicious start acting some you know follow-up questions to a lot of
00:27:57
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
00:28:02
where is this kid we don't think he's here um and it wasn't until a couple years I
00:28:07
think it was 2007 maybe it was right around that time that the Livonia Police uh Livonia
00:28:13
Police Department actually finally came out and made a statement this many years
00:28:16
later that they do not believe that that Dewan Sims was ever in that mall at the
00:28:21
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
00:28:26
him to the mall and he was never there how many more interactions did you or the security staff from the mall have
00:28:33
with the Livonia Police Department after that day yeah sure so um I spent a couple days after in the police
00:28:40
department working with one of the detectives the sergeant there who actually consequently was retiring at
00:28:46
the end of the year going through videotape and I was telling him that you know around the certain time that we
00:28:51
were there because apparently there was a discrepancy of an hour of time as to when she actually reported him and when
00:28:57
I actually said that it had happened and it was came down to that the times were
00:29:02
wrong on the videotape so there was a whole hour of difference there that that it took place uh but we did finally go
00:29:09
through the tapes where I said that exactly I was and where we met her and we actually found the only piece of
00:29:13
video that we have from her on camera is of her meeting me at the time I said it
00:29:19
was in the mall entrance where where you know down by the the anchor store Target
00:29:23
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
00:29:30
clear we have no video footage of dwana the mother on footage image and no surveillance footage at all and we have
00:29:38
no surveillance footage at all of dewana and her son Dewan none that I've ever seen or have been made aware of
00:29:46
um there was the other kind of it's not so much a theory but there is a separate
00:29:48
entrance to the mall that's right next to the anchor store that she could have very well walked through as well instead
00:29:53
of even going through Target which kind of makes more sense because Target's video never showed her on there but just
00:29:58
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
00:30:04
Livonia Police Department she states that she went into a different entrance and this entrance would have had
00:30:10
security camera footage correct and there's no footage of her going in to that entrance there's not in that Monday
00:30:18
after she walked through the whole Mall there was it was pretty much like a media
00:30:25
Extravaganza all the media uh Outlets were there channel two channel seven channel four channel 50 at the time they
00:30:32
were all there in the mall we brought Duane Harris back into the mall to retrace her steps throughout the whole
00:30:38
day as to where she was where she went and all that so they ended the Livonia Place was little bony police was with
00:30:45
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
00:30:52
um if this if something like this happens you're gonna remember this you're going to carry this with you yeah
00:30:58
this is something that has stayed with you Randy and this is something you have carried with you for for years many
00:31:03
years to this day right I I set up a website for it um I I just want people want to know
00:31:10
like what happened to this child and if not I where he is he has to be somewhere
00:31:13
and somebody has to know where he is or where he was at the time somebody has to
00:31:19
know there's somebody out there that knows this and and what we've asked for is somebody please come forward it is
00:31:26
enough time has passed please somebody say something said you've been following this cage for so many years and you're
00:31:32
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
00:31:39
things I mean the first five years after were just the spattering of this and that they had
00:31:44
um news I believe one of the news companies hired a psychic to come in that after is the house that she had
00:31:50
lived in they brought a psychic in to try and figure out what had happened that ended up being nothing uh there was
00:31:56
a period time where they found bones in a park not too far from the house that they had tested they ended up being
00:32:01
animal bones there's been numerous things over the year that have happened every time there's a child abduction or
00:32:07
or something of that sort along that happens it always kind of gets brought up everyone remembers this incident
00:32:13
remembers this incident here in Livonia um you know you bring it up and anybody who was around that time will know it
00:32:20
some of the things that seem really significant now is the fact that I'm a parent now like I have two girls and
00:32:27
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
00:32:33
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
00:32:39
Holloway's husband or a father is now possibly found bones remains of her of of his daughter you know that guy never
00:32:47
stopped like nothing would stop me as a parent to find out where my child was if
00:32:52
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
00:32:59
as saying she's pretty much wiped him from the face of the Earth you know she's reached out to a group that
00:33:07
ran on Facebook about leaving her alone leave her family alone that were causing
00:33:12
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
00:33:19
sort I mean she almost pretty soon after this happened she moved away from the area I find that odd because you know
00:33:26
who would move away from the area that your your child's missing from um you know she basically started a new
00:33:31
life I believe she has kids now and got remarried I understand the fact that you
00:33:35
move on with your life but to to wipe any kind of any kind of information about a son that
00:33:41
you had years ago gone you know just completely missing from your life that your your daughters don't know about it
00:33:47
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
00:33:55
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
00:34:03
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
00:34:09
her Facebook when we've you know had interactions where there's nothing at all in any of her social media that even
00:34:16
mentions her son at all so I I find that very odd what information Randy do you have regarding the investigation itself
00:34:23
and any type of uh communication that dewana would have had with the Livonia Police Department to that point I think
00:34:30
it was the day after or two days after she took a polygraph test and failed it she failed the first polygraph test went
00:34:37
back in and took us second and she actually physically ripped the paper out of the polygraph machine because she did
00:34:43
she failed it a second time and then left yeah there is so many things out there that uh
00:34:50
that just point I'm sorry point to her point to her 100 there's nobody else that has any
00:34:56
information about where this boy is um the things leading up to that that's that's the whole point that's the
00:35:01
mystery of of everything is where was she the night before and up until the point where she said
00:35:07
she got to the mall where was her son uh there's a little bit of information out
00:35:11
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
00:35:16
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
00:35:23
the case who were on that and there's they've they've even speculated us as far as that the the child actually
00:35:29
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
00:35:37
child of some guy that she was hanging out with who she just so happened to be with that evening there's several
00:35:41
stories that went around as that uh uh from the neighborhoods about the guy that she was with didn't want any kids
00:35:48
so she got rid of them I mean obviously all speculation and just just rumors from around that part of town but uh
00:35:55
yeah nothing nothing else there's nobody there's been no Ransom no there's been no phone calls nothing it's just been
00:36:02
complete radio silence since the day it's happened locally what are rumors and what's some suspicions that you have
00:36:09
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
00:36:17
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
00:36:24
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
00:36:30
outcome could be the truth at the moment any strange leads that you have come across through the website what's really
00:36:36
strange is we did have um last year two years ago we had somebody reach out to us and think that
00:36:42
um they were Dewan and that they didn't know who their parents were and they felt like their parents were lying to
00:36:47
them they felt like they were the son they were Dawsons and they felt like they uh looked very similar to him and
00:36:53
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
00:37:00
the information that we have and I forwarded over to the Livonia Police Department what happened with it at that
00:37:04
point um I don't know but uh that's the only time anyone's actually come forward
00:37:08
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
00:37:15
it was anything of substance Randy was there ever any other child abductions in that area during that time period so
00:37:23
when it comes to other abductions in the area at the time or even in the past zero none there was there was absolutely
00:37:29
nothing on on the radar if anyone ever being abducted in that City uh on that scale let alone a child
00:37:36
um and anything up until this point I mean uh never there's never been anything that I
00:37:42
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
00:37:49
definitely her house was searched I know that there were people who live right by
00:37:53
her who who had recounted that you know the days that the the police were there going through the house and even after
00:37:59
she moved out they went back through the house I don't know what time period that
00:38:03
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
00:38:09
Candlelight vigil where we have dewana Harris going on record and complaining that because of the Susan Smith case now
00:38:18
this took place just months before Dewan went missing she's claiming because Susan Smith was in the news
00:38:25
that her son is not they're not searching for Dewan the way that they should be yeah correct so yeah I
00:38:31
definitely I'm glad you brought that up because yeah the Susan Smith case was taken uh was brought up uh right around
00:38:38
that time was when if I'm not mistaken that was the case where um Susan Smith had said that her child
00:38:44
was abducted by an African-American gentleman and uh it really wasn't the case she actually I believe drowned them
00:38:49
or something of that sort but um yeah she I believe she went on record saying that if this was the only reason
00:38:58
that um nobody's looking for her son or this doesn't have um you know larger larger outpouring of
00:39:06
support was that it was a young black child and nobody was looking for him in a White City
00:39:11
it was something along that line so I'm definitely paraphrasing though you have firsthand knowledge that law enforcement
00:39:16
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
00:39:22
mean they were out for us at Livonia Police Department immediately you know uh was working with the Detroit Police
00:39:28
Department I found out mistaken that Detroit Police Department also that also then brought in the FBI so you had like
00:39:33
three different um forms of law enforcement or districts or whatever it would be working on this
00:39:40
case um I know that areas of Detroit I even went on a couple we were walking down I
00:39:45
didn't even have to do this but volunteer just go walk the railroad tracks looking around her area of her
00:39:51
house looking for her son um you know at that point obviously the police were thinking that maybe somebody
00:39:55
dumped him or she had possibly done something with him but uh you know weeks had passed people were still out looking
00:40:02
for him um one of the I remember one night I was working in the mall and some lady I
00:40:08
believe it was probably maybe like a week or two after this had taken place some somebody had heard some gossip or
00:40:13
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
00:40:19
started running towards the back of the mall and codified there was nobody out there it was just a movie theater
00:40:25
garbage car trash compactor that was back there and there was nobody out there they didn't
00:40:30
find anything but somebody started almost like a little bit hysteria in the mall like probably 10 to 20 people were
00:40:36
running through the mall trying to trying to go see if they they had found him in the back of a dumpster Randy what
00:40:41
if anything could have law enforcement done differently in this case you know I'm a firm believer they had that uh
00:40:48
some of the technology that we have today I I the only thing I can say and and this is
00:40:55
not uh I guess any of the police department is that I don't think that they were equipped for something like
00:41:00
this happening no one would have expected something like this to happen in a city like that and I think that's
00:41:05
maybe where any if any misstep was was taken it was just that fact like nobody would have thought that would have
00:41:12
happened there well Randy thanks for taking the time out to talk with us today and thanks for your continued work
00:41:17
on this case yes thank you Randy for all of your insights regarding The Disappearance of DeJuan Sims you have a
00:41:24
wonderful and happy turkey day my friend you too thank you foreign [Music] this is one of those cases captain that
00:41:36
once you when you really start diving into the details you really hope to fight hold on once
00:41:43
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
00:41:50
kind of fictitious stories fake news everywhere well you really hope that you can find somewhere in there that the
00:41:57
mother is right that what she's complaining about to the security and to the police department what she's
00:42:02
reporting to them that holds some truth the fact of the matter is there's nothing there there's no evidence that
00:42:09
she was telling the truth at all that day we have we have eyewitness testimony that states that that she didn't arrive
00:42:16
at the mall when she said she arrived right and that she was seen in the parking lot pulling in and getting out
00:42:21
of her vehicle without anybody with her without a boy a girl or anybody with her
00:42:26
at all yeah and I believe that there was more than two eyewitnesses but there's at least two credible eyewitnesses that
00:42:33
saw her get out of her car with nobody with her and we also have a situation where we have her changing her story
00:42:42
throughout the time that she's with the police officers we have the police report that was taken that evening now
00:42:49
what we might have some people that have reviewed that police report and they'll
00:42:51
say well uh Randy says that the security department was the one that notified the
00:42:56
police the police report I believe states that dewan's mother I'm sorry dewana's mother Beverly Harris called
00:43:04
the police right it's very likely that both of them did the fact of the matter is that no report
00:43:10
states that dewana Harris was the one that called police or states that the police should be called yeah and I don't
00:43:17
know if that matters but I think what matters here is the times that she is possibly lying you know or like people
00:43:25
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
00:43:33
know lost contact with her son somewhere in the mall again this there's no footage of this there's no footage of
00:43:40
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
00:43:48
her entering the the mall or the Target store in the entrance that she said on more than one occasion that she used and
00:43:54
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
00:44:01
stick to one story until there's no video footage to corroborate that then once once that's pointed out to her her
00:44:07
story changes just a little bit mind you she failed two lie detector tests within
00:44:12
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
00:44:20
nerves but when you're pointing out people on surveillance cameras and claiming that's you and your son and
00:44:27
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
00:44:35
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
00:44:42
that something happened and this was her idea to cover it up you're exactly right
00:44:47
this this looks to me like a pivot Captain like something happened I don't know if it was something on
00:44:54
purpose or some type of accident but something happened and then she had to Pivot and she came up and presented this
00:45:00
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
00:45:05
missing he was walking with me through the stores through the mall and that's what happened to my son and to my little
00:45:12
boy yeah she wasn't truthful that day she wasn't truthful afterwards and when her story started to fall apart what she
00:45:19
ultimately did was she turned this around on the police and the community and both the police and the community
00:45:25
had her back from the beginning they wanted to believe her story well they wanted to look for an abductor yeah but
00:45:33
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
00:45:40
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
00:45:46
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
00:45:53
and but what I'm getting at here is when when she didn't tell the truth and when
00:45:57
things didn't go her way and once they didn't look Beyond her she basically said you know what they're
00:46:03
screwing up this investigation they're centering this thing around me they're not handling this thing the right way
00:46:08
they're not looking for my boy because he doesn't look like the rest of this city they're not doing everything that
00:46:14
they can to find him and we know that that's not the truth there are plenty of police of newspaper reports right third
00:46:21
party reports that the Detroit Police Department was extremely active in the search for this little boy and active in
00:46:30
the investigation into what could have happened with this little boy well and if they weren't told lie after lie after
00:46:36
lie they might know where to actually look we actually have uh one statement that came from the Livonia Police
00:46:42
Department to the media at the time that said this came out just before Christmas
00:46:46
where the police department announced that they had received over 700 tips by the Christmas time and since the boy had
00:46:55
gone missing that they had paid out over forty three thousand dollars in mandatory overtime because of all the
00:47:00
searches for the boy and just because the holidays were coming up the mandatory overtime would not end they
00:47:07
announced that their officers may have to see their families um may not get to see their families on
00:47:12
the holidays or spend time with their families that they would have to work that around this mandatory overtime
00:47:18
while this investigation was still hot I wonder if she picked them all as a cover-up story because her mother worked
00:47:24
there that's one thing that to me almost seems like a dumb move on her part and I
00:47:29
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
00:47:35
and gotten away with something because I think she outsmarted a lot of us even though we were suspicious of her
00:47:41
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
00:47:48
is that out of all the people in her life and her son's life that would probably be really up in arms
00:47:55
about this or be suspect of her it'd be the mother right her mother so by having him supposedly go on go
00:48:03
missing where you work and where there's surveillance cameras that you know you're not going to focus on me well
00:48:12
from everything that I read this is this is what makes it a little tough for the
00:48:17
investigators from everything that I read regarding this case was that Beverly the grandmother dewana's mother
00:48:25
she was in full support of her daughter during the course of this whole investigation right however I do want to
00:48:31
be very clear about this everything I read regarding Beverly the grandmother she was extremely Cooperative with the
00:48:39
police and she's the one that called the police right she's the one that called the police her home was searched after
00:48:45
uh during this investigation as well but where we remain to this day Captain basically the facts of this case are are
00:48:53
this DeJuan Sims was never seen on any of the surveillance footage from that day when he was reported missing there
00:49:00
is not one single person that has ever come forward stating that they saw Dewan at the reported location of his
00:49:07
disappearance there is currently no activity on this case the lavono the lavona police department
00:49:15
they still to this very day hold the belief that Dewan Sims was not at the mall that day that he was reported
00:49:21
missing well I think that's where all the evidence points and I think if you're going to say otherwise well then
00:49:25
you have to prove some evidence of that and we also have the mother who failed two lie detector tests just days
00:49:32
following him him having been reported missing there have never been any charges filed against anyone in this
00:49:39
case and dewan's mother dewana to this day maintains her innocence in this case but it also seems to me Captain like
00:49:47
this investigation um even though they left it open it looks to me that because of the
00:49:54
person that this should center around right when she up and left town I think she left her son her son's memory and
00:50:01
anything to do with him in the rear view that day and when she left I think every
00:50:06
lead in any potential of possibly solving this case left with her that day and I think we both agree for the most
00:50:13
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
00:50:22
it's not it doesn't seem to be typical Behavior now we do understand that sometimes people have to leave because
00:50:27
of their jobs because their families other things pull them away to other cities but nine times out of ten Captain
00:50:34
what we see is that a mother or a father parents of people that disappear of children that go
00:50:41
missing they don't up and move especially children that are of a young age because their thought is you know
00:50:48
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
00:50:57
come back to their home where they grew up where they remember living or most of
00:51:01
the time they don't even change their phone numbers yeah because for fear that one day if they get the chance to pick
00:51:07
up a phone and call and reach out for help I better have that same phone number I
00:51:12
better be there to answer the phone or answer the door when my child my missing child comes back for help and comes back
00:51:19
to me now if all this evidence is wrong if there's a logical explanation for all
00:51:24
this evidence then I do feel for and that would make some logical Sense on why she'd want to move away and maybe
00:51:31
why she doesn't have all these uh things on her Facebook about her missing son because
00:51:37
basically all the fingers Point towards her and I'd like to tell you that there's a little light at the end of
00:51:42
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
00:51:49
recovered any remains that turned out to have been Dewan to this point right I mean we're over 20 years later they have
00:51:57
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
00:52:05
see this one getting solved without any help from his mother without any help from dewana or the the close family
00:52:14
members there's a good chance that if anybody knows what happened it's the mother but there's also the potential
00:52:20
that somebody else in that family might know something right that maybe she told
00:52:24
somebody and without that information I just don't see getting the break in the case that this thing needs how about a
00:52:30
little recommended reading Captain all right hit me okay here we go this one is this one has been long awaited for and
00:52:37
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
00:52:43
is the youngest member of the Manson family and Charles Manson just uh died in late 1967 at the young age of 14
00:52:53
Diane Lake became one of Charlie's girls fully recruited and fully accepted into
00:52:58
the Manson family she was with she was in the family for about two years and she described the mixture of sexual
00:53:05
manipulation psychological control and physical abuse that came with being a member of the family she also talks
00:53:12
about Charles Manson's true nature Diane did not participate in the gruesome murders committed by the members of the
00:53:19
family but some of the members confessed to her following her arrest she was able
00:53:25
to transform trauma into Triumph finding the courage to face Manson and testify against him in court do yourself a favor
00:53:32
and check out member of the family by Diane Lake and for holiday gifts if you want to check out our website truecrime
00:53:40
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
00:53:47
known shirts and another round with different colors of the douche canoe shirts so check those out all right
00:53:53
here's the moment where we give thanks we want to thank everybody for listening we want to thank everybody for telling a
00:53:59
friend and for subscribing to the show everybody have a very safe and Happy Thanksgiving until next week we will see
00:54:07
you back here in the garage until then be good be kind and don't litter thank you
00:54:21
[Music] [Applause] [Music]