DETROIT – Twenty-five years after 4-year-old D’Wan Sims disappeared, a man is working with authorities and the boy’s mother to determine whether he is the missing child.

Livonia Police Capt. Ronald Taig confirmed that “an individual came in on Dec. 11, which just happened to be the 25th anniversary of D’Wan being missing. He came in and provided a DNA sample.”

Taig said D’Wan’s mother, Dewanna Harris, is cooperating with the investigation and told police that she had spoken to the man claiming to be her son.

“She did contact and talk to this person and ask him about some personal information that only her and D’Wan Sims would know, like birthmarks,” Taig stated. “He wasn’t able to answer those questions, along with the date of birth.”

The police department still has DNA samples from D’Wan’s father and mother and the new sample has been submitted for analysis.

Taig was at the department in 1994 when Sims was reported missing from a mall in Livonia by his mother, who later became a suspect because her son was never seen on security footage. The mall footage showed that Harris “was here but she was by herself,” Taig stated.

Harris maintained her innocence and claimed that she was being treated unfairly during a news conference in 1994 because of the Susan Smith case at the time, in which a woman reported that her children were kidnapped in a carjacking but nine days later admitted to drowning them.

Follow Bisma Parvez on Twitter @bismapar