In the summer of 1982, a heart-wrenching story began to unfold with the disappearance of 10-month-old Olisa Williams from Ann Arbor, Michigan. The infant girl was last seen around June 1st of that year. Olisa's life took a devastating turn when her legal father, Isiah Williams, took her from her mother, Denise, in Cincinnati, Ohio, following a physical altercation. He then brought the child to Michigan.
This act was the beginning of decades of uncertainty and pain for Olisa's mother, as the initial report to the police was viewed as a custody dispute rather than an abduction. At the time of her disappearance, Olisa was described as being about two feet tall and weighing 35 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.
Olisa Susan Williams was an eight-month-old female infant whose missing-person record lists June 1, 1982, as her last-contact date in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She had brown eyes, black hair, and a small scar on or beneath her chin. At approximately two feet tall and weighing about 35 pounds, Olisa was entirely dependent upon the adults responsible for protecting her. Her disappearance began not with a child wandering away, but with a violent confrontation between her parents and a journey that carried her away from her mother, out of Ohio, and into Michigan. Although her body has never been recovered, the case eventually moved beyond an unresolved disappearance: a court declared Olisa deceased, and her legal father was later convicted of murdering her.
Olisa had been living with her mother, Denise Frazier-Daniel, in Cincinnati, Ohio. On April 29, 1982, Denise’s estranged husband, Isiah Verna “Bobo” Williams, confronted her during a physical altercation. Prosecutors later established that Williams struck Denise, took the infant from her mother’s arms, and fled with her. Although Isiah was legally recognized as Olisa’s father, public accounts report that he was not her biological father; Olisa had been conceived while he was incarcerated, and the couple had resumed their relationship after his release. Denise reported that her child had been taken, but authorities initially treated the matter as a domestic custody disagreement rather than an urgent child-abduction case. That response allowed precious time to pass while Olisa remained in Williams’s custody.
Williams took Olisa from Ohio to Michigan, where witnesses reportedly saw the baby alive in his care during the weeks that followed. The precise date and circumstances of the final independent sighting have remained vague in public accounts, although national records identify Ann Arbor and list June 1, 1982, as the date of last contact. Williams ultimately offered investigators a story in which he had driven to Island Park in Ann Arbor, parked his car and fallen asleep with Olisa inside. He claimed that when he awakened, a car door was open and the baby had disappeared. According to that account, an unknown person had somehow approached the vehicle in the park and removed Olisa without waking him. No witness publicly confirmed such an abduction, no credible evidence established that a stranger had been present, and no trace of the infant was found in or around the park.
The claim that Olisa had been taken by an unidentified person became the central mystery surrounding the case, but investigators eventually concluded that the explanation was not believable. An infant of her age could not have left the vehicle on her own, and the only person known to have custody of her at the time she vanished was Williams. There was no publicly documented ransom demand, confirmed stranger sighting, discarded clothing, medical admission, or later communication suggesting that Olisa had survived with another family. Her mother continued searching and pressing for answers, carrying the anguish of knowing that her baby had been forcibly taken from her and that the opportunity for an immediate, intensive investigation had been lost when authorities viewed the abduction primarily as a family dispute.
Olisa was entered into national missing-child and unidentified-person databases, and an age-progression image was produced to show how she might have appeared as an adult in the event that she had somehow survived. Her mother provided a DNA reference sample containing mitochondrial and nuclear DNA information so that investigators could compare Olisa’s family profile against unidentified remains. The Ann Arbor Police Department maintained responsibility for the case, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children assigned it case number 601939. Yet for decades, the available physical evidence remained painfully limited. There were no remains to examine, no known crime scene where forensic evidence could be gathered, and no confirmed account of what Williams had done with Olisa after bringing her to Michigan.
The case received renewed attention when Ann Arbor investigators completed additional interviews and referred their work to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office in early 2021. Prosecutors reviewed the history of domestic violence, the circumstances under which Olisa had been taken, Williams’s exclusive custody of her in Michigan, the implausibility of his stranger-abduction account, and the fact that the baby had never been seen again. In October 2021, authorities charged Williams with open murder in connection with Olisa’s presumed death. He was living in Chicago at the time, and a lengthy extradition process followed before he was returned to Michigan to face the accusation. In 2023, after a preliminary examination, a judge ruled that sufficient evidence existed for the case to proceed to trial.
Because Olisa’s remains had never been found, prosecutors faced the difficult task of proving a murder without a body. They relied on circumstantial evidence demonstrating that Williams violently took the baby, transported her across state lines, maintained control over her, and then offered an account unsupported by witnesses or physical evidence. The prosecution also presented evidence concerning his conduct toward Denise and the inconsistencies surrounding Olisa’s supposed disappearance. In 2023, the Washtenaw County Probate Court legally declared Olisa deceased, formally recognizing what investigators and her family had long feared. The absence of her remains did not prevent the criminal case from moving forward, because Michigan law allowed the jury to consider the entire chain of circumstances and determine whether Williams had caused her death.
On May 10, 2024, a Washtenaw County Circuit Court jury found Isiah Williams guilty of both first-degree premeditated murder and felony murder in the disappearance and presumed death of Olisa. The verdict came nearly 42 years after the infant had vanished. It represented a profound change in the case: Williams was no longer merely a person whose account investigators doubted, but a convicted murderer whom jurors had found responsible beyond a reasonable doubt. The conviction also reflected decades of persistence by Olisa’s mother, who had never stopped seeking accountability for the child taken from her arms.
On July 10, 2024, Williams was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Michigan Attorney General’s Office stated that the conviction encompassed theories of premeditated and felony murder and described the prosecution as a long-awaited resolution of a cold-case homicide. Although the sentence ensured that Williams would remain imprisoned, it could not answer every question left behind by the crime. He did not lead authorities to Olisa’s remains, and the publicly known record still does not reveal exactly where, when, or how he killed her or what he did with her afterward. The legal case reached a conclusion, but her family was denied the ability to recover and lay the child to rest.
Olisa’s story remains heartbreaking because she was too young to speak for herself, protect herself, or leave behind memories that investigators could follow. Her mother spent decades confronting both the loss of her baby and the knowledge that her first report had not received the urgent response it deserved. The later investigation, prosecution and conviction brought a measure of justice, but justice arrived after more than four decades and without Olisa being physically found. In overview, Olisa Susan Williams was forcibly taken from her mother in Cincinnati in April 1982, transported by Isiah Williams to the Ann Arbor area, and last known to be alive while in his custody; his claim that an unknown person abducted her from a car at Island Park was rejected, Olisa was legally declared deceased, and Williams was convicted in 2024 of her premeditated and felony murder before receiving a sentence of life in prison without parole, while the location of Olisa’s remains remains unknown.Last Seen: Jun 1, 1982
