Two years and no sign of Adji Desir, Collier deputies hope for new tip~ Adji Desir's parents, Antal Elant and Marie Neida, with their daughter Adjiani Elant, 19 months, center, at their home in Immokalee Florida on Dec. 7, 2010. It's been two years since the child's disappearance.
IMMOKALEE — It’s a plea Marie Neida has been making for two years.
“Please, I ask everyone … Please give me your help! Help me find Adji,” Neida said in soft voice. “I hope the police can find Adji. Please help me find my son.”
Two years after Adji Desir went missing from his grandmother’s Farm Workers Village home, investigators are no closer to finding out what happened to the autistic child.
However, Adji’s family, law enforcement officials and Immokalee residents all hold out hope that the now 8-year-old will come home soon.
On Monday, it will have been two years since Adji was last seen playing outside his grandmother’s house in Farm Workers Village in Immokalee on Jan. 10, 2009, while his mother was at work.
People from law enforcement and other agencies around Florida — including hundreds of Collier deputies — joined in an intensive week-long search with ATVs, bloodhounds and boats. No one found the developmentally challenged boy, or even a trace of him.
Collier County sheriff’s investigators fielded hundreds of tips in the weeks after Adji’s disappearance, but the number of tips dwindled by fall 2009.
“Any long-term investigation obviously has its ups and downs,” Collier County sheriff’s Sgt. Ken Becker said Friday.
National exposure of the case helped generate dozens of new leads after Adji was featured on the cover of the November 2009 issue of People magazine, which profiled the cases of six children who went missing that year.
Adji’s photo and information were featured on national direct mail advertising fliers distributed to 75 million homes across the United States in November and December 2009, and his disappearance also was profiled on CNN’s “Nancy Grace” show and on “America’s Most Wanted.”
On a recent morning, life at Farm Workers Village seemed to have returned to normal. A mix of older kids, some escorting younger siblings, headed to Village Oaks Elementary without parental supervision.
Some parents also made the trek by car or foot, which was the case for Maria Rios on Thursday morning as she pushed her 3-year-old son, Alex, in a stroller and walked 5-year-old Noe to school.
A seven-year resident of Farm Workers Village, Rios said she remembered all the activity after Adji went missing, including that law enforcement searched homes multiple times hoping to find the boy.
“I felt fear, because I live near the park where he (Adji) used to play,” said Rios, 32. “I used to take care of my kids, but now I take care of them more.”
Just north of Farm Workers Village, Ce Bien Haitian Bakery owner Edrick Paul recalled how his customers reacted to the disappearance.
“They never saw something like that ever happen in this neighborhood,” said the Immokalee businessman, adding that a child going missing was something people considered a big-city problem. “But not here. Not in Immokalee, never ever in Immokalee.”
What troubles him most, Paul said, is that Adji hasn’t turned up.
“The funny thing about it is that no one knows anything about it. That’s what bothers me,” he said. “I’m surprised that no one saw the kid. Why does everybody say they don’t know?”
Paul said he believes that someone in the community must know what happened to Adji, but that they may be afraid to talk to authorities.
If you saw the kid, say something,” he said.
Getting community members, who may have hesitated to come forward, to talk is what Collier sheriff’s officials are hoping to accomplish this week.
To bring attention to the anniversary of Adji’s disappearance, detectives, along with agents from the FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement, will be going door-to-door in Farm Workers Village and handing out fliers Tuesday. They’ll also deliver the fliers to businesses in Immokalee.
The new fliers feature Adji’s picture and urge anyone who may have information about his disappearance to be a part of the Triangle of Trust, a partnership between law enforcement, the community and Adji’s family.
Sheriff’s officials said the fliers are just another way the agency is trying to get the word out to the Immokalee community that their assistance in the ongoing investigation might help bring Adji home.
“Obviously if someone is afraid to come forward it may be because they might have information to find Adji,” Becker said.
Another tool to help will come later this year from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
“At that two-year threshold is when we start working on an age progression,” center CEO Ernie Allen said. “So fairly soon we will have hopefully a new image of what Adji looks like today.”
Missing part of your heart
“It’s too hard to describe that pain,” said Neida, 38, while sitting in the family’s living room Friday.
That ache and an 8 ½- by-11 portrait of Adji is one of the many constant reminders Neida has of her missing son.
“My family is always sad. My mother is always sad,” she said.
Neida and her husband, Antal Elant, 43, continue to care for 19-month-old Adjiani, who was named in honor of her missing brother. The couple said their daughter helps bring joy to their lives, but it doesn’t take away from the pain that their son isn’t home.
“Every two to three weeks he (Sgt. Becker) passes to visit us, talk with us, which gives us the feeling that they are still working on the case,” Elant said.
Elant still has faith that, after two years, investigators will find Adji and he will finally come home.
.■ The Collier County Sheriff’s Office has produced a video about the case and the agency is asking that everyone post it to their blogs, Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites and e-mail the link to everyone in their address book. The video titled “Help us Find Adji” can be found at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tltX9-Vykco Anyone with information on Adji’s whereabouts is asked to call the Collier County Sheriff’s Office at (239) 252-9300, or if you wish to remain anonymous call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780- TIPS (8477).
For more information on the Adji Desir case visit the Collier Sheriff’s website
www.colliersheriff.org.
■ To learn more of the history behind Adji’s disapperance visit The Naples Daily News’ page dedicated to the search
www.naplesnews.com/news/adji-desir/■ To learn more about the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children visit
www.missingkids.com.
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2011/jan/07/immokalee-adji-desir-missing-child-two-years-tips/
Tue Dec 14, 2010 6:46 pm
