This is where Nziah was last seen at Cornwall Street and 3M. She tells me that the school bus dropped her off right here on January 9th. What happened next is unknown. Niah’s life may be in danger and you don’t even know it because you’re keeping information or trying to keep her hidden because of what you think.
Naziah needs to be home with her family and we love her. So that at that point I say this is too much. I’m calling CPS. I tried not just once but multiple times for them to take us serious, take me serious in what I was saying. I believe my daughter was pregnant. It was a normal winter morning in Detroit. Cold, quiet, ordinary.
13-year-old Naziah Harris woke up. She got ready for school like any other day. She put her jacket on, her hair, and two braided puff balls and headed out to the school bus. Niah didn’t walk through her front door that night. Her grandmother, who was also her adoptive mother, became worried when the hours passed and the bus ride ended without Naziah showing up.
She waited until the next morning and then reported her missing. Nza’s grandmother tells me that this is where Naziah was last seen at Cornwall Street and 3M. She tells me that the school bus dropped her off right here on January 9th. What happened next is unknown. For her to be late, she has never been late coming home.
She’s always got permission to do things. Annette Harris is 13-year-old Naziah Harris’s grandmother and legal guardian. When was the last time that you heard from your granddaughter? When I dropped her off at school, which was on um January the 9th. Naziah is an eighth grader at Clark Elementary School in Detroit.
Described as being incredibly sweet and a rule follower, Annette tells me when Nza didn’t come home from school on January 9th, she knew immediately something was wrong. and reported her missing the next day. Detroit Public Schools Community District’s Police Department has been handling the investigation.
That’s until Wednesday when after a month of fruitless searching for the teen, Detroit Police Department announced that they’re taking over. We’re very, very concerned. Niah is a very sweet child. She really is, you know, and my biggest fear is somebody hurting her. We don’t believe that initially there was an abduction.
Police say they don’t believe Naziah was abducted initially, but when pressed, wouldn’t answer if they think she went off with someone willingly. Annette tells me that Nza’s school looked at the bus video from January 9th and can see Nia getting off at her regular stop here. She got off the bus with her schoolmate and walked up to the corner of Warren and 3M Drive and one of the school kids said that she turned right instead of turning left.
Investigators began what would become a long and intensive missing person search. Friends, family, social workers, and eventually the public watched as what should have been a normal school day become a nightmare that has now lasted several years. Like many missing person’s cases, police started their investigation, sifting through cell phone location data, witness testimony, physical items linked to Naziah’s last known movements, and digital footprints.
Now, the digital evidence would not only shape the case, it would transform it. Not because it led them to Nazisa, but because of consistent corroborating evidence that pointed to foul play. Niah was last seen back on January 9th at the intersection of Cornwall and ThreeMile Drive. Now, the primary suspect in her disappearance is a registered sex offender currently being held in the Wayne County Jail.
Well, 7 News Detroit reporter Ryan Marshall is live at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in downtown Detroit where the family will gather for a vigil later this morning. Well, guys, the family of that missing Detroit teen still seeking justice in this case that includes Naziah’s biological father who exclusively spoke with 7 News Detroit.
He is fighting for his own life, but is holding on to find his little girl. I know the family hopes and prays that she is still alive. Alive. Correct. But if you get that phone call, that’s why I’m I’m I’m that’s why I’m getting back into ministry. 48-year-old Mvin Jennings is Naziah Harris’s biological father.
He says he’s tried to reconnect with his daughter for the past 8 years. Jennings says he was only reconnected after two Detroit public schools police officers tracked him down. When the last time you been up to your daughter’s school? I said my daughter school. I said, “I don’t even know what school she go to.
” I said, “I’ve been looking for her.” And they looked at each other and I was like, “What’s going on?” They said, “Your daughter’s missing.” He’s dealt with serious medical issues in the 8 years away from Naziah. Jennings has congestive heart failure. He says in April, doctors gave him only 7 days to live.
While that prognosis has slightly improved, MVA needs a new heart. While dealing with those difficult health challenges, MVA says what really hurts his heart. I believe my daughter was pregnant. Yes. He says much of the family thinks Naziah was being sexually assaulted by a man who is a convicted sex offender. We’re not naming him because he hasn’t been officially charged in the case.
Oh my god. Like, oh my god. Oh my god. The evidence led police to Jarvis Raone Buts, a 42year-old Detroit man who soon became a central figure in Naziah’s disappearance. Jarvis is accused of a pattern of predatory behavior, a history that stretches years beyond the day Naziah disappeared.
He was known to Naziah through family connections. He had previously dated her biological aunt, and prosecutors alleged that his relationship with Naziah was inappropriate in nature. Good morning. Could you please uh state your name for the record? Shannon Harris. And Miss Harris, how old are you? 31. And um do you have any children? Yes.
How many kids do you have? Five. And do all your kids have the same dad? Yes. Who’s their dad? Jarvis Buts. Um, do you know someone named Nia Harris? Yes. What’s your relationship to her? My relationship to her, uh, she is my niece. I’m her aunt. [snorts] Um, and can you kind of describe the relationship between Desiah and Darvis? Um, she’ll be just the uncle and the niece relationship. No more than that.
To your knowledge, would I ever text Jarvis? Um, from my knowledge, um, no, unless I will have her to text. [snorts] Okay. But to your knowledge, you didn’t know of any kind of separate outside relationship? No. Jarvis had allegedly been in contact with Naziah before her disappearance, including text messages of a sexual nature beginning as early as September 2022.
According to evidence, Jarvis learned in late 2023 that Naziah might be pregnant, and phone records show he searched online for terms like abortion, abortion pills, and even red antifreeze, which is a substance reported in internet searches as a harmful method for terminating pregnancies. Police pieced together a timeline of January 9th that linked Naziah and Jarvis.
She left school at the end of the day and sent a message from her Detroit public school tablet connected to a device associated with Jarvis. Then surveillance footage showed her getting off the school bus. And later in the day, she was in a vehicle with Jarvis and one of his co-workers. Phone location data placed Jarvis within Naziah’s belongings in multiple locations, including near an auto repair shop on Connor Street.
Clothing believed to have been worn by Naziah was later recovered near Rue River in Detroit, consistent with digital location data from Jarvis’s phone. Police also recovered items, including her school ID found by a neighbor weeks after she vanished, which helped corroborate the timeline and confirm her route for investigators.
Well, an expert in phone records, forensics, and cell tower mapping delivered a compelling timeline of where they tracked Buts’s phone the day Naziah disappeared, as well as the following 36 hours. A little after 400 p.m. on January 9th, 2024, Buts’s phone was tracked to his shop on Connor Street. According to the experts analysis, between that time and a little before 7:30 p.m.
, the data shows his phone’s location heading towards Ipsellani, consistent with what one witness said yesterday when she claims seeing Nia with Butts the day she went missing. Further analysis shows more activity from his cell phone near his shop. Once again, this time, it’s traced around 8:22 and 900 p.m. on January 9th. The witness then testified to Butts’s phone activity stemming from the area near the Park Crest Inn.
That’s what two witnesses described yesterday as a place Buts would take other women to have sex. The report shows that these calls occurred after 10:35 p.m. on the day Nazia disappeared. Another exhibit shows Butts’s phone activity more than 24 hours later. This time, they tracked activity between 11:40 p.m.
on January 10th to 1:30 a.m. on the 11th near the area of 7mile in Berg Road. In September 2024, eight months after Naziah disappeared, Jarvis was formally charged with multiple counts, including first-degree premeditated murder. The evidence shows overwhelmingly in this case that she is in fact deceased.
This is believed to be the last picture taken of 13-year-old Nziah Harris before she disappeared in Detroit on January 9th. Thursday, investigators announced homicide charges as well as criminal sexual conduct charges against 41-year-old Jarvis Buts, someone with a criminal record and someone known to Harris’s family.
We suspected him from the beginning um considering his background um and things like that that we’ve heard about him. Buts is being charged with homicide despite the fact that the teenager’s body was never found. During Thursday’s press conference, Wayne County Prosecutor Kim Worthy revealing shocking evidence.
You look at that face and you do not see the horrors that she had gone through in her short life, the exploitation, de molestations, the sexual abuse, and the pregnancy that she was concealing. A multi-day preliminary hearing in early 2025 heard testimony from DNA experts, digital forensic technicians, family members, and police who helped uncover the evidence that moved the case forward. your name.
Could you please state your name for the record? TR Butts. All right. And how old are you, Miss Butts? 46. And do you um do this someone named Jarvis Buts? Yes. And how is it that you know him? He’s my brother. Miss Butts, do you remember talking to Detroit police back on February 26th of 2024? Yes. Okay.
And what’s the reason that you went and talked to Detroit police? I had reason to believe that [snorts] um I saw Nia the day she went missing. What makes you believe that you saw Nia on the day she went missing? Where did Norman started? So from the very beginning, where where is it that you think you saw Nia? [snorts] At the shop on Harbor.
Okay. And whose shop is that? My brother Jarvis Buts and um his partner. So I was sitting outside of the shop in my car because [clears throat] they were working on another car on the inside. Um, as I sat there for the time that I was there, I kept seeing a little girl get in and out of his truck, going to the gas station, and going back to his car.
Beyond the homicide charge, prosecutors have brought additional sexual assault charges against Jarvis involving other children. In 2025, he was charged in connection with the alleged sexual assault of an 8-year-old relative, as well as alleged assaults on other minors dating back years, including a 12-year-old in 2013.
Wayne County officials described these additional cases as part of an ongoing pattern that began long before Naziah’s disappearance, casting a wider lens on the allegations and how authorities view his conduct. Years before Naziah disappeared, there were warning signs raised to authorities about Jarvis.
After listening to days of testimony last month, a judge called Buts a monster and said that opportunities to protect the 13-year-old girl were missed. Tonight, the seven investigators are revealing years of warnings that preceded Butt’s alleged crimes. Warnings that family members say were made to children’s protective services that could have saved Naziah’s life.
Years before Jarvis Buts would be charged by Wayne County’s prosecutor, accused of killing and sexually abusing 13-year-old Naziah Harris, Harris’s own relatives say they saw the warning signs and told anyone who would listen. So that at that point, I said, “This is too much. I’m calling CPS.” I tried not just once, but multiple times for them to take us serious, take me serious and what I was saying.
Kiwana Morton and her cousin Janelle are both relatives of Nazis Harris. In February of 2022, Janelle says she learned of allegations of improper touching involving Butts and other small children. She says she was told about the claims while talking to her niece, Jarvis But’s girlfriend, and that the alleged victims were Naziah Harris, and two other children.
I was just like, “Oh my god, I was not crazy. This needs to be looked into.” She says she took the claim seriously in part because Buts was on the sex offender registry, having spent more than 8 years in prison for thirdderee criminal sexual conduct. She didn’t alert authorities at first because she believed her niece would notify police, but weeks later, Janelle did notify child protective services.
Her complaint came in on April 13th, 2022. There was an incident at a birthday party. The complaint reads, “One of the children that attended the party accused Jarvis of sexual abuse. Naziah and name withheld reported that Jarvis touched both of them inappropriately as well. Jarvis touched name withheld in her private area and it hurt.
” Janelle made the complaint over the phone. They basically told me if they needed me for anything else, they would reach out. The next day, Janelle would receive a text from her niece, Butt’s girlfriend, confirming that CPS had contacted her. CPS called me. The text reads, “They called about the well-being of my kids.
Then they called back to get Jarvis info. And it wasn’t easy for me to call protective services just because of the horror stories that you hear.” Kuana Morton said she heard about the same allegations against Buts from a conversation with his girlfriend. 2 months after her cousin’s called to CPS, she would file her own complaint.
I told them that there’s a problem and they need to be aware of it. I am 90% sure that there’s sexual abuse going on within the home. Did you specifically mentioned Jarvis by name? Yes, absolutely. This early warning and lack of thorough action on it would become part of the broader conversation about missed opportunities to protect Naziah.
And while the public is holding officials accountable, there’s also a lot of people who are looking at her family. Now, I won’t get into a lot of the allegations, but there is a Facebook group where they’re piecing things together. Thank you. Could you say your name for the record? And Ned Harris. And Miss Harris, um, do you know someone or did you know someone by the name of Naziah Harris? Yes.
And who is Naziah to you? My granddaughter. Now, I want to talk about um, well, let me ask it this way. Did you know someone by the name of Jarvis Buts? Yes. And do you see Mr. Butts in the courtroom today? If you need to stand up and look around. Do I have my glasses on? I don’t see. Do you need glasses? Yeah, my daughter My daughter has my glasses.
Okay. Judge, may I take a moment to go get her glasses? Yes. May first. Yes. Thank you. And if you could just stand up and take another look around. Okay. Yes. Do you see Mr. Watson important today? Could you point to him and identify a piece of clothing that he’s wearing? Blue uniform with a blue mask.
For the record, the witness has identified juror response to the defendant in this matter. As of December 2025, a final pre-trial conference has been scheduled for January 23rd, 2026. With the jury trial set to begin February 23rd, 2026, more than 2 years after Naziah went missing.
Prosecutors say they may call up to 40 witnesses while the defense has its own strategy for challenging evidence. Detroit podcaster Mark DeAndre, even in March, um, when I was doing the podcast, I felt like I had this thing pretty much solved as far as, you know, what came out today. I said this months ago as far as what the end result was.
Investigators say they have no plans to charge anyone else in this case. I’m upset about that and I would like to see charges being brought against those that knew that were affiliated with him and knowing and that allowed him to be around the children knowing he wasn’t supposed to be. In a sad turn of events, Naziah Harris’s father, Mvin Jennings, passed away this summer.
This upcoming trial will be the first time a jury examines the full breath of evidence, digital forensic testimonial in a case where no body has ever been recovered. As the February 2026 trial approaches, the world will be watching. If you enjoy the stories we cover on the channel, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and check out the videos on the screen.
I’m your host, Park Jones, and I’ll catch you on the next one.
