On December 11th, 1994, a security guard at the Wonderland shopping mall in Livonia, Michigan called the local police to alert them that they had a missing child. Four-year-old D’Wan Sims was reported missing by his mother, who said he was walking behind her, and when she looked back, he was gone. The immediate search did not find the little boy, however police did find that the mother’s story about what happened did not match up with video surveillance footage. Was D’Wan abducted by a stranger and snuck out of the mall without being seen on any surveillance footage, or was D’Wan even ever in the mall that day?
Who was D’Wan?
D’Wan Christian Sims was born on October 29th, 1990 to Dwanna Harris and Zachary Sims. He loved watching television, especially Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. His parents weren’t married, so he usually spent time with them separately. D’Wan and his mother lived in Livonia, Michigan, about two miles west of Detroit. He was known as a very sweet little boy, who loved playing basketball and being outside. Not much is known about D’Wan’s life, but from photos distributed after his disappearance, he had a big, bright smile and seemed like a child who had no problem making friends or having fun.
The Day of the Disappearance
On Sunday, December 11th, 1994, 25-year-old Dwanna Harris said that she woke up around 10AM. 4-year-old D’Wan and his mother gathered up their dirty clothes and headed to a nearby laundromat. D’Wan watched cartoons while she did the laundry. They left the laundromat, stopping at Dwanna’s mother’s home to pick up a vacuum cleaner, then headed home.
Dwanna later told police that she made a spontaneous decision to go to the mall. She wasn’t planning on it, but decided to do some Christmas shopping since the holiday was coming up. Initially, Dwanna had planned on leaving D’Wan at home with her boyfriend, but said that her boyfriend was taking a nap. At about 1:30PM, Dwanna and D’Wan left for Wonderland shopping mall, which took about thirty minutes to reach. Dwanna said that she parked her Ford Thunderbird in the parking lot and they walked into the mall through the connected Target store. Dwanna recalled that the store was very crowded that day. D’Wan wanted to get a VHS tape, but Dwanna said that she told him that the lines were too long.
As they walked out of Target’s inside entrance and into the mall itself, Dwanna said that her son was walking beside her. As they continued through the mall, D’Wan fell behind his mother. Dwanna said that she asked her son a question, but he didn’t respond. She turned around and D’Wan was gone. She was near the KayBee Toys store (man, those were the good ol’ days), and assumed he wandered into the store to look at a Power Rangers toy he wanted. She went through the store, aisle by aisle, but there was no sign of the little boy.
Dwanna went into the surrounding stores, searching for D’Wan for about 30 minutes to 2 hours (depending on the source). Unable to find him, she told a custodian at the mall that her child was missing. The custodian alerted mall security who immediately responded. Initially, the security staff wasn’t overly concerned. It wasn’t unusual for the mall to have a missing child, especially around the holiday season. Most were located nearby in less than 30 minutes, typically in the arcade, movie theatre, or toy store. Because of this, there was no real protocol of what to do if a child was unable to be located. The mall security was later criticized for waiting to call police.
Security and Dwanna continued to search the mall for an hour, but there was no sign of D’Wan. Now, extremely concerned that the four-year-old was still missing, mall security contacted the Livonia Police Department, who responded immediately.
Police, along with mall security, continued their search of the mall. They notified employees in every store to be on the lookout for a little boy matching D’Wan’s description. The search became more extensive. Police searched through every single store, dressing room, bathroom, and closet. There were even areas that weren’t accessible to the public that police accessed. Essentially, every single area that was large enough for a small child to fit in was scoured. D’Wan was nowhere to be found. Eventually, Dwanna told investigators that her mother, Beverly Harris, actually worked at the Wonderland Mall. She worked at the opposite end of the mall, at the Lady Foot Locker. Security and police didn’t understand why Dwanna hadn’t mentioned this earlier. A security guard later said that he was under the impression that Beverly was either a former or current Sheriff’s deputy in the county.
Dwanna told police that she and her son entered through Target, then exited into the mall area. Two officers took Dwanna to Target to retrace her steps. Employees at the store told officers that they had surveillance cameras at the entrance and the exit of the store. They were able to look through the video footage and asked Dwanna to point out her and D’Wan on the video. At about 1:44PM on the footage, she pointed to a woman and a small child and said, that’s us. In the tape, the pair walk towards the Target exit/inner entrance to the mall. The woman stopped and turned to talk to the little boy. Dwanna said that was when she was telling her son that they couldn’t get the VHS tape he wanted because she didn’t have enough money. (Recall that she initially said that she told D’Wan they couldn’t buy the VHS because the store was too busy) The footage showed the woman and child walk out into the mall area, and Dwanna said that that’s definitely them because she remembered leaving that way.
It was assumed that if D’Wan WAS abducted, the abductor would’ve likely snatched him and walked back towards the Target. If the abductor had taken him forward, it would’ve been in front of Dwanna and she would’ve seen him. They looked for anyone on the footage walking back towards the Target with D’Wan, but saw nobody. Police were able to enlarge the picture, zooming in on the pair that Dwanna said were her and her son. The woman was wearing a brown jacket with a white emblem on it and a hood. She also had a baseball cap on. Dwanna, sitting beside them, was wearing a black jacket with no emblem or hood and no baseball cap. Police told her that the woman clearly was not her. Dwanna argued, saying that it wasn’t a hood on the woman in the video, it was her collar and that the jacket in the video WAS black, like hers. Police were like, uhhh no girl, that ain’t you. Dwanna finally said that she guessed it wasn’t her after all. She continued to point out people on the footage, saying that it was either her or D’Wan, even pointing to a little girl once.
Investigators continued watching the video footage with her, from an hour before Dwanna said they arrived, to an hour after she’d reported D’Wan missing. They couldn’t find D’Wan on ANY of the footage. Several witnesses said that they saw Dwanna arrive at the mall alone, but nobody remembered seeing a little boy with her. Investigators had now grown VERY concerned that D’Wan was never even at the mall that day.
Investigation
Randy Pfeiffer, a security guard at Wonderland Mall on the day D’Wan went missing, said that he felt like Dwanna was acting exactly how he’d imagined a parent would act if their child went missing.
As soon as D’Wan’s father was notified that his son was missing, he showed up at the mall to aid in the search and answer any questions. Police had no suspicions of D’Wan’s father. He was very frantic and upset and was understandably angry with Dwanna. How could she have let this happen?? He cooperated with investigators and gave them as much information as he could. He just wanted to know where his son was. As it became more obvious that D’Wan and Dwanna were not on the video footage, police asked more questions about what she and D’Wan had been doing the night before and what they’d been doing before going to the mall.
The mall closed at 6PM that night, but officers and security continued searching until 7PM. Many of the stores remained open for police to thoroughly search through everything. Mall employees recalled them looking through every cabinet and small space, even opening the refrigerators and freezers for sale in one of the stores.
More and more suspicion was falling on Dwanna. Many speculated that something happened to D’Wan the night before or on the day of, before she went to Wonderland Mall. Her residence was searched, as well as the surrounding area. There was no sign of D’Wan or anything suspicious.
Though police made it clear that they didn’t buy Dwanna’s story, her family seemed to be standing by her. Her mother, Beverly, said that they were only focusing their investigation on her daughter because of another case that was still in the news. A South Carolina mother, Susan Smith, accused a black man of abducting her two kids, but police eventually found that Smith had actually murdered her own children. Beverly said that this was likely why officers weren’t exploring anything other than her daughter. (Which I don’t believe is true…)
Police brought Dwanna back to the mall the day after she reported her son missing to have her retrace her steps yet again, in hopes of her remembering something that might help. Wonderland Mall was previously an outdoor strip mall, so there were several doors and stairways that had been dry-walled over. Police knocked down dry-walled areas and looked through rooms and stairwells that hadn’t been opened for years, but they still couldn’t find the boy.
Investigators brought Dwanna in twice for polygraph tests. She failed the first test and during the second one she became so frustrated and angry that she was failing again, that she ripped the paper out of the machine. D’Wan’s father also took a polygraph test and passed. (I know they aren’t super reliable, but just extra info!)
Dwanna said that investigators weren’t very concerned with her son going missing. She said that this was because he was black, and that investigators were more concerned with missing white people. While this has happened before in cases, it seemed pretty clear that this wasn’t the case with D’Wan. The Livonia Police, the FBI, the Detroit Police Department, and the Michigan State Police were all assisting with the investigation. They were exhausting their resources, but they were no closer to finding D’Wan than they had been on the day he was reported missing.
Police were receiving several phone calls regarding possible sightings of the little boy, but none of them were ever substantiated. Hundreds of people were interviewed and police utilized dogs, horses, ATVs, and helicopters to search for D’Wan. There were reportedly about 50 investigators assigned to the missing persons case in the month after D’Wan disappeared.
Dwanna continued to insist, along with her family, that D’Wan had been abducted from the mall that day by a stranger. Police still felt strongly that the key to finding out what happened to D’Wan lay within the time period of noon to 3PM on the day he was reported missing. Dwanna said that they’d been at the laundromat and her son had watched cartoons while she did 5 loads of laundry. Police checked the laundromat television and said that there were only a few channels, and that none of them played cartoons after 11AM on a Sunday.
Case getting cold
With no new witnesses or leads, and Dwanna maintaining her story that her son was abducted, the case went cold. About three months after her son’s disappearance, Dwanna married her boyfriend. Some speculate that this was done so quickly so the two wouldn’t have to testify against each other, should the situation arise. She didn’t stay in Livonia very long. After moving away to North Carolina, she had two daughters with her new husband and began going by the name Dwanna Wiggins. Many found this odd, as it’s pretty unusual for a parent to move when their child is still missing. Most are concerned that their child will return to the home they knew. Several witnesses also said that they saw Dwanna in local night clubs just weeks after her son went missing.
In August of 1996, Dwanna was reportedly arrested for assault, with the accusation that she’d pulled a knife on her husband because he’d gone out for the day with his son and left her at home with their baby.
In 2019, a young man named Mike Cash began posting on Facebook that he believed himself to possibly be the missing boy. He said that his parents lied to him about parts of his childhood. He always believed that a photo of him when he was younger bore a strong resemblance to a photo taken of D’Wan shortly before his disappearance. Cash claimed that he’d reached out to Dwanna on Facebook, but that she’d blocked him. Ultimately, a DNA comparison was made, but Cash was found not to be D’Wan.
Friends of Dwanna on Facebook noticed that she never posted anything about D’Wan on her social media. On what would’ve been D’Wan’s 23rd birthday, his father posted:
“Hello friends and family. Today is D’wan’s 23rd birthday. Wow how time flies. I can’t believe it’s been so long since the last time I saw his face in person! Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers over the years. Please continue praying for his safe return! Happy Birthday son!”
Theories
Every prominent theory of what happened to D’Wan involves his mother. There is absolutely no proof or reason to believe that the four-year-old was ever in the mall that day, which begs the question…why would Dwanna lie about this?
The simplest conclusion is that Dwanna was responsible for her son’s disappearance, whether it was intentional or an accident. One theory suggests that Dwanna sold her son, possibly to someone who wanted a child, but couldn’t have one, or into a trafficking ring. Another theory suggests that Dwanna OR her boyfriend murdered D’Wan. Some believe that her boyfriend didn’t want a child at that time, so Dwanna got rid of her son.
There’s a rumor on the “Remembering D’Wan Sims” Facebook page that Dwanna became furious when her son urinated in the bed and she killed him, with her mother and boyfriend helping her cover the murder up and dispose of the body.
Another possibility is that D’Wan had some sort of accident and died as a result. Scared of the consequences, perhaps Dwanna and her boyfriend disposed of D’Wan’s body.
Some sources state that D’Wan’s grandmother, Beverly, took out a large “life insurance” policy on her grandson prior to his disappearance. It was referred to as “term-life insurance”, where a sum of money is either paid out in the event of the person’s death or at the end of a set time period (i.e. when they turn 18). Beverly said that Dwanna was not aware of the policy. (However, I’m not sure how they could claim the money if D’Wan wasn’t legally dead, which he’s still listed as “endangered missing”)
On December 10th, 2020 Dwanna died from unknown causes in her home in Durham, North Carolina. Her story about her son’s disappearance never changed. Though the case is still open, it is classified as a cold case. There have not been any cases prior to this or after in the Livonia area where a child was abducted and not located.
D’Wan was last seen wearing a blue winter jacket with a multicolored hood, a yellow, blue, and green windbreaker, dark blue sweatpants, and white FILA sneakers. He has black hair and brown eyes, and at the time of his disappearance, was 3 feet tall and 50 pounds. D’Wan would turn 32-years-old this October.
If you have any information regarding the suspicious disappearance of D’Wan Sims, please contact the FBI or the Livonia Police Department.
