Family desperate for answers two years after Cleveland teen Keshaun Williams vanished

The Ohio Missing Children Clearinghouse serves as the central source for data and information on missing children in the state.

In its 2023report, it states that 22,374 people were reported missing in Ohio that year. Of those reported missing, 17,405 were children.

According to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, by the end of the year, 98 percent of the children had been found safe.

Keshaun Williams was not one of them. The 15-year-old vanished on June 17, 2023.

Two years later, his family is still fighting to bring him home.

Keshaun was born and raised in Cleveland. “Funny, got a sense of humor,” his maternal grandmother, Alona Miles, told Dateline. “Great kid. Great kid.”

“Very caring, very kind, compassionate person,” his paternal grandmother, Mary Williams, added. “Loving, loving person.”

His grandmothers say Keshaun is his mother’s only child but he has several siblings on his father’s side — and shares a tight bond with all of them. “Oh, very close,” Mary told Dateline.

At the time of his disappearance, Keshaun was living with his mother.

On Saturday, June 17, Mary Williams texted with her grandson. “He asked me was we gonna do anything tomorrow after church,” she recalled. Keshaun would usually ask to be picked up for church on Sundays, and they’d spend time together afterward. But Sunday, June 18, was different. “He didn’t call up for church,” she said.

Alona Miles says Keshaun had asked his mother’s permission to go to a party that Saturday. She braided her son’s hair, “and she let him go to the party,” Alona said.

Alona says she was also supposed to see her grandson that Sunday. “I kept calling my daughter because I was supposed to pick them up,” she said. She didn’t get a response. “No answer on Monday, so Tuesday morning, I called my daughter and said, ‘I been calling you and Keshaun.’”

Alona says her calls to Keshaun had been going straight to voicemail. “That’s when my daughter was like, ‘He ain’t come home,’” she recalled. “He never came home from the party.”

Mary Williams told Dateline she believes Keshaun’s mom may have initially thought he was just upset and had run away. “But that’s not the case,” she said.

Alona Miles says it’s extremely unlike Keshaun to just take off and not be in touch with his grandmothers. “Keshaun calls us every day all day,” she said. “Especially, he knew I was picking him up — and he don’t ever turn that down.”

Keshaun was reported missing on Tuesday, June 20.

The U.S. Marshals Service is investigating the case alongside the Cleveland Police Department. Dateline spoke with Deputy United States Marshal Vinny Picolli, who took over the case in November 2023.

He says Keshaun was seen on the evening of Saturday, June 17, 2023, at a house party on the 6000 block of Gertrude Avenue in Cleveland. “We had multiple reports from people — from juveniles in the area that saw him the night of the party — or at the party,” he said.

Witnesses said Keshaun had been kicked out of that party and was spotted walking along Gertrude Avenue around 10 p.m.

He later stopped by another party on the 6900 block of Gertrude Avenue. “And that’s the last known sighting of him,” Picolli said.

Alona Miles told Dateline that while she was at work that Saturday night, she got a call from her youngest daughter — Keshaun’s aunt — who said Keshaun had phoned her crying. It’s unclear what upset him, but “she told him to go home — but he never made it home,” Alona said.

Keshaun’s phone later pinged near East 93rd and Harris Avenue in Cleveland’s Fourth District, about a 10-minute drive from the party location. “That’s kind of the last location we know,” Picolli said.

Picolli says that one of the challenges of the investigation has been the lack of security footage to work with. “There was nothing pulled early on and then that was gone after 30 days,” he said.

About six days after Keshaun went missing, there was a possible sighting at a gas station. “They had reported Keshaun was in the back seat of a black Jeep Cherokee. It was beaten up,” Picolli said. “They ended up pulling gas station video and surveillance video from the surrounding area but personally, in my opinion, I don’t think it was Keshaun.”

Picolli describes the search efforts as extensive. “All over Cuyahoga County and Cleveland — in the general area of his last known location and then even outside of that,” he said. “With canines, drones, helicopters, you name it — we’ve done it.”

Keshaun’s family has also been scouring the Cleveland area. “We searched and we’re still searching,” Mary Williams told Dateline.

Picolli says foul play is suspected in Keshaun’s disappearance. “We had information early on that he was kidnapped and there was some kind of retaliation,” he said. “Over the course of the investigation, I would absolutely say that foul play is involved.”

According to Picolli, authorities are currently following up on a recent lead. “We received a tip and information over the last month that we believe is pretty credible that aligns with all the information we have to date so far,” he told Dateline. “So there are persons of interest.”

Keshaun’s grandmothers believe that if he was alive, he would have contacted them. “If he was running away or doing anything like that, he would have came to us,” Mary said. “He would never just up and leave and disappear. That’s not him.”

Still, they have hope that they will bring him home. “We pray that somebody have a heart and do what’s right by reporting any small thing that they may have seen or heard,” Mary said.

“The not knowing what happened to your child, your grandchild, your loved one, it’s the not knowing that hurts,” Alona Miles added.

“We love our grandson, and we want people to support us in getting this solved,” Mary Williams said.

He’s 5’6”, 125 lbs., and was last seen wearing cream-colored jogging pants with white and blue lettering and red and gray Jordan tennis shoes. He would be 17 years old today.

The Cleveland Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Service are offering a $27,500 reward for any information leading to Keshaun’s whereabouts.

Anyone with information is asked to call U.S. Marshals at 1-866-4-WANTED (1-866-492-6833).