This Teen Disappeared From Her Home, Then Her Friend Who Lived In The Apartment Below Her Vanished Too, And Her Mom Believes The Cases Are Connected
It has been over 25 years since Deniese Hiraman vanished from her Queens, New York, home at just 13 years old. Her mom, Seeta Beran, called it a “lifetime.”
“It’s a lifetime for a mother. I can still feel the pain every day. I go to church every day. Every day is a long day, and I pray she comes home,” Seeta said.
Deniese grew up in Richmond Hills, a neighborhood in Queens known for its robust cultural heritage and often called “Little Guyana.” With her parents and her two brothers, she lived on 109th Street.
August 27, 1999, started off as a typical day, too. Seeta headed out for work in the early morning, and Deniese was supposed to go to school.
She usually left at 8:15 a.m. before walking to her bus stop and traveling to school, located on the corner of Jamaica and Marco Avenues.
Yet, Seeta later received a call while she was at work and learned Deniese hadn’t shown up for school that day. She initially wasn’t very worried, as the teen occasionally played hooky. However, when Seeta got home from work and her daughter still wasn’t back, she became concerned.
“We called all her friends and drove around. We couldn’t find her, and no one was talking,” Seeta recalled.
This pushed Seeta to contact the police and file a missing person report. Deniese’s disappearance has now remained unsolved for over 25 years, but Seeta has not stopped searching.
Deniese reportedly hung out with a rough crowd. According to Seeta, her daughter wasn’t in a gang, but she was acquainted with some “shady” people.
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“There were a couple of suspicious men that hung around the neighborhood and the schools. You knew they were up to no good,” Seeta explained.
The 13-year-old also reportedly had a fake ID, which said she was 18, enjoyed dancing, and might’ve tried using her fake ID to get into dance clubs.
A year after she vanished, one of Deniese’s close female friends went missing as well. The friend, who lived in the apartment unit below, didn’t return home one day. Since she was older, it was theorized that the girl had left town on her own.
Seeta, on the other hand, didn’t buy that story and thought the two cases might’ve been connected. As for her own daughter’s disappearance, she suspects someone in Deniese’s circle has information that they aren’t sharing.
“I want answers. I just want to know what happened. I want my daughter back,” Seeta stated.
While Deniese’s case was first classified as a runaway, it was changed to endangered missing in 2005. She was five foot three, weighed 90 pounds, and had brown hair and brown eyes when she disappeared.
Deniese is of Guyanese descent and speaks fluent English and Guyanese. She may have dyed her hair, used colored contact lenses, and traveled to Minnesota, Florida, Georgia, Ontario, the island of Trinidad, or remained in New York.
Today, Deniese would be 39-years-old, and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children created an age-progressed photo to show what she might’ve looked like at 35-years-old.
Anyone with information regarding her case is urged to contact the New York City Police Department at (212) 473-2042.
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