A decade after a 15-year-old DeKalb County boy disappeared, a neighbor has been convicted of killing him.
Dion Renaldo Sims, 36, was found guilty Friday of killing Alan Watson, a McNair High School student who was never seen again by his family after he told his grandmother he was going to the movies.
In August 2001 Alan was shot and killed and his body was discarded in a wooded area in northwest Atlanta, according to the office of Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard.
When the boy didn't return to his DeKalb County home, his family reported him missing. The investigation went cold, but a chance discovery by a surveyor in July 2009 reignited it.
In the woods behind the Flipper Temple apartments on Abner Place, the surveyor found a skull with a bullet hole in the forehead.
Investigators found skeletal remains nearby. News reports noted the distinctive crown on a front tooth, which prompted calls to police by Alan's family. Subsequent DNA testing revealed that the remains were his.
After the positive match, the boy’s picture was shown on television, and anonymous tips poured in. Police identified Sims as the shooter and arrested him in May 2010.
Sims lived around the corner from Alan in the Gresham Park area of south DeKalb County -- several miles from the murder scene.
A Fulton County Superior Court jury found Sims, 36, guilty of murder, felony murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a handgun during a crime. Sims had a prior felony conviction, so the jury also convicted him of firearm possession by a felon.
Judge Henry Newkirk then sentenced Sims to to life plus ten years in prison. Prosecutors did not disclose a motive in the case.
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