Twins Reported Missing A Decade After Anyone Can Remember Seeing Them

On October 23, 1998, Patricia Fowler gave birth to fraternal twins. Ivon D. Fowler was born at 8:35 AM, while Inisha V. Fowler arrived later at 9:03 PM. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the African-American newborns had black hair and brown eyes.

Their father, Datwon Lyons, has spent most of his life in prison. His convictions range from petty infractions to fatally shooting a childhood acquaintance in a bar fight. He was in a relationship with Patricia for over 20 years, and they had eight children (Patricia had nine, the oldest was from a previous relationship). Nevertheless, Datwon had a relationship on the side during which he fathered two other children.

According to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, he describes himself “as a bipolar alcoholic who never had a real job that lasted more than a couple of weeks, who made his money as a low-level drug peddler.”

Datwon described Patricia as a “good woman” and “good mother.” She didn’t have a job, hobbies, or friends but was very close to her mother and sister.

When Ivon was just two-years-old, he suffered second and third-degree burns to over 40% of his body. According to Patricia, Ivon had been in the bathtub with his older brother Datwon when she went to answer the phone. Datwon tried to get out of the tub by grabbing the faucet, and by doing so, accidentally turned it on.

Patricia did not call an ambulance until the next day. Her children were taken away but only for a couple of days. Ivon spent over a month in the hospital. Caseworkers for Allegheny County Children, Youth and Families (CYF) did not notify police of the incident.

CYF would continue to have contact with the Fowler family over the years, mainly due to Patricia’s failure to ensure her children were attending school.

On June 20, 2016, authorities went to the Fowlers’ home with orders from CYF to remove all children from Patricia’s care. The mother was under investigation for the medical neglect of four of her children.

Two of her sons have muscular dystrophy and autism. Both are nonverbal, and one is in a wheelchair. She also has two daughters with eye conditions that can lead to blindness if untreated. Together, these four children had missed “some six dozen” medical appointments.

The caseworker who had brought the issue to authorities was Deborah R. McAllister-Johnson. While the boys were at a care facility, Deborah wasn’t sure about letting the girls go back home.

She had found paperwork from previous interactions between CYF and the Fowler family in which twins were mentioned. There were no twins when Deborah had visited the family’s home and wanted to know where they were before returning the young girls to their mother’s care.

Ivon and Inisha would have been 17 years old at this point.

Patricia gave authorities multiple names and locations when asked who was caring for the twins and where. First, they were with an aunt in South Carolina, then North Carolina. At one point, she told authorities they were in Georgia, in a town that didn’t exist. Patricia also provided police with an address (which ended up being an empty storefront) and a phone number (of a random man).

After a while, Patricia confessed to selling the twins several years earlier. She told authorities she had met a guy named Mike at a bar who offered her $2,000 for each twin. When an officer informed her it was a crime to sell children, she retracted her admission.

Patricia was charged with concealing the whereabouts of her children, making false statements to authorities, and endangering the welfare of children.

18-year-old Datwon was arrested shortly after his mother. He had sent police a Facebook message and a text message pretending to be Ivon, claiming he and his twin sister were safe in Atlanta, Georgia. According to Datwon, he did so because he wanted authorities to stop bothering his mother.

Patricia insists they are alive and well, but no one is sure when Ivon and Inisha were last seen. There are no records of them registering in a school, and their Social Security numbers are a dead end. Their official date of disappearance is September 11, 2006, when they were 7-years-old.

It is important to note that the CYF caseworker who reported seeing them that September admits they may have been wrong. The boy they had been told was Ivon didn’t seem to have any scarring.

The twins’ father last remembers seeing them at different times. Ivon was 2-years-old, but he saw Inisha at a family cookout when she was 3-years-old.

Only a year older than his twin siblings, Datwon told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that “one day Ivon just wasn’t there.” Shortly after, the same thing happened with Inisha. The family’s oldest child recalls the same thing happening.

Their paternal grandmother last saw them when they were toddlers. She did try to visit them over the years, but every time Patricia would tell her they were with someone else, usually her mother or sister.

Authorities also spoke to two landlords who had rented to Patricia between 2006 and 2015.

The first one required Patricia to fill out a housing application in which she was asked to list all her children — she did not include the twins. The second landlord’s wife had many interactions with Patricia. She knew all the children by name but never met Ivon or Inisha.

Most charges against Patricia were dropped. The judge claimed there was not enough evidence of obstruction, concealment, or endangerment. They reasoned that she couldn’t have obstructed a child abuse case because there was no evidence the twins had been harmed.

After pleading guilty to two misdemeanors, Patricia was sentenced to four years probation and ordered to repay $57,000 — she had been collecting public assistance payments for the twins all along. As part of the plea deal, the charges against her son Datwon were dropped.

In 2018, WPXI failed to locate Patricia but spoke to her mother. Martha Fullenwider told the reporter,

“I sure do want to know the truth, but if she don’t want to tell it, that’s up to her. I turned it over to God, so it’s in God’s hands.”

Both Datwon Lyons and the authorities believe she might be the key to solving the case.

Datwon told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette he just “wants to know, one way or another. … It’s the not knowing that’s ripping me up.”

Ivon and Inisha have been missing for well over a decade. If alive, they are now 23 years old.