Father of missing Chicago boy ‘not going to give up’

CHICAGO (NewsNation Now) — It’s been nearly four months since 14-year-old Keshun Collins vanished from Chicago’s South Side. His father has been working with private investigators and the police to determine the whereabouts of his son.

Keshun was last seen around 9 p.m. Sept. 2 in the 8000 block of South Marshfield Avenue, located on the city’s south side. Keshun’s father, Steven Collins, said he dropped off his son at his great aunt’s home to visit. Hours later, he received a phone call that Keshun had disappeared.

“I’m broke inside as a parent and as a father,” Collins told NewsNation’s Keleigh Beeson. “I wouldn’t leave my son around anybody that I felt uncomfortable with or had to second guess with this.”

Collins said Keshun regularly visited his great aunt’s home. He was supposed to move to Texas with his father the following day. Collins said one of the reasons he wanted to leave Chicago was because of the pervasive violence.

“The Chicago crime rate — there is a lot of Black young men dying,” he said. “So if you have a way to make a change for your child, that’s what you should do.”

Police have been investigating the case since Keshun went missing in September. Members of his family did report that they saw activity on his Instagram page Sept. 5.

“Basically, I was saying, like, Keshun are you OK?” said his cousin Romesia Lowery. “He was saying yes, that he was OK — but we don’t know exactly if that was Keshun for sure.”

Keshun’s cellphone has been off since that time.

“I feel like that is my son,” Collins siad. “And if it’s not him, it’s (someone) close to him. I feel like they are keeping him from calling and keeping him from certain things.”

Keshun’s mother passed away he was 2 years old. Since that time, he has been living with his father. Collins describes his son as a jokester, who loves video games and is close with his family.

“He likes to laugh. He’s into girls right now so, you know, the typical teenager.”

As time goes on, Steven grows more and more concerned about Keshun missing schoolwork, his medical appointments and his overall safety. He says he will not stop searching until he finds his son.

“Daddy loves you and I am looking for you day and night. I didn’t give up looking for him. I’m not going to give up looking for him.”

Derrica Wilson, the co-founder of Black and Missing Foundation Inc., says there should be more of a public demand to find out what happened to Keshun.

“This is a baby that’s missing,” she said. “He is 14 years old and as his father stated, that side of Chicago is not the bad side. But there needs to be an outcry, not just from the community, but for law enforcement (and) for the media to find this missing child.”

Wilson, whose nonprofit focuses on bringing awareness to missing people of color, is helping in the search for Keshaun. Wilson said that the unequal media coverage of missing Black men, women and children is disheartening, but she’s working hard to push past those racial barriers.

“We have to elevate these cases to mainstream media, we have to elevate these cases to the 5 and 10 o’clock news cycle, and we need our community to share these flyers,” she said. “We need our community to be the digital milk carton because one share could end this nightmare for this family who’s searching for Keshun.”

Watch the rest of Wilson’s interview in the player below.

Keshun was last seen wearing blue sweatpants with the word “trap” in front with no shirt and black Nike flip flops. He is described as 5 feet, 1 inch tall, weighing 90 pounds with a keloid scar on his armpit.

Anyone with any information on Keshun’s whereabouts is urged to call the Chicago Police Department at 312-747-8274.