Wisconsin case gives hope to Immokalee parents of missing child

The safe return of Wisconsin teen Jayme Closs has given hope to a family in Collier County whose son disappeared 10 years ago.

Adji Desir vanished from Immokalee in 2009. He was 6 years old.

Desir went missing while playing outside his grandma’s home in Farm Workers Village. 10 years later, Desir’s parents still live down the road and say they are never going to give up.

“Sometimes I think it’s, ‘Why me; why it’s me?’” said Marie Neida, Desir’s mother.

Neida is the mother of three young children in Immokalee, including her missing son.

“It’s still terrible for me, with this Christmas past, when you have holiday,” Neida said.

All that’s left of Desir are posters, pictures and memories of him in his family’s home.

“We still have never forgotten,” Neida said. “Never in my life.”

Investigators think he either wandered away or was abducted.

Neida and her husband and Desir’s father, Antal Elant, have numerous unanswered questions.

“People can say, ‘Don’t cry; don’t cry,’ but you still cry because you still feel it,” Elant said. “People can help you, but they don’t have the feeling you have.”

But, both Neida and Elant followed the story and heard the news of Closs in Wisconsin, which has has given the parents hope for their own child to return home alive.

“I think he’s still alive because I don’t want to think something can happen,” Elant said. “I want to think he’s still there.”

If you have any information on the whereabouts of Desir, call Collier County Sheriff’s Office.