A search is underway for 15-year-old Lawrence Dowl, who has been missing since Tuesday night.
Detroit police, detectives, and K-9 units have been combing a wooded area near 8 Mile and Southfield, close to O’Hair Park, while family members canvas neighborhoods, knock on doors, and hand out flyers in a desperate effort to find him.
Lawrence was last seen around 11 p.m. on August 12 after leaving with friends.
“It’s been too long,” his aunt Lamisha “Misha” said. “ There’s no way possible he’s somewhere where he can walk, crawl, talk. They know something. Ain’t called, ain’t nothing. My baby, me and my sister, we know too many people. If somebody seen my nephew walking at anybody’s house, in a store, I know these people will call us, message us, anything. I know this for a fact. So I feel like my baby is hurt somewhere.”
Misha says she last saw Lawrence around 7 p.m. that day, and his mother saw him later that night. He told family he was going to the store with friends but never returned.
“This is nothing like him,” she said. “We are a really close family. Every single person’s house that he would even go to, we’ve checked. We’re all out here. We’re looking for him. Police is out here. We are looking for him.”
Family members say a friend claimed to have dropped Lawrence and another boy off in the area, but he never made it to his grandmother’s, aunt’s, or mother’s home—all of which are nearby.
“If you see him, if you know anything, just say anything,” Misha pleaded. “You ain’t got to tell on nobody. We just want his body, at least. If he ain’t going to come home, at least just give us that. Please don’t do us like this. If you know anything, if you’ve seen my baby, please… send a message, drop a note in the door, hang it on something—just something. We just want to find him.”
Anyone with information is urged to call Detroit police at 313-596-5840 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP.
