Jelani Day went missing on Aug. 24. His body has been identified, but police are still investigating how and why he died.
The Coroner’s office in LaSalle County, Illinois identified a body found in a river as Day’s. The Illinois State University graduate student had been missing since Aug. 24; the cause and circumstances of his death are being investigated.
Jelani had been living in Bloomington, where he aspired to be a doctor. Two days after his disappearance, his car was found in Peru, a small city an hour north of Bloomington. The white Chrysler 300 was spotted in “a wooded area south of the Illinois Valley YMCA,” police said. Inside the car were the clothes Day had been wearing when he was last seen.
Nine days after Day’s car was found, authorities discovered his body in the Illinois River, after a search that was triggered by a tip, member station WGLT reports.
The coroner used dental records and DNA analysis to identify his body, Bloomington Police said. Day’s relatives had previously submitted DNA samples to aid the search.
“There are no words to clearly communicate our devastation,” Day’s family said in a statement. “Our hearts are broken.”
Jelani Day’s case recently gained new prominence as his mother, Carmen Day, called for authorities to show the same attention and urgency in her son’s case as they have for Gabby Petito, the 22-year-old white woman who went missing and was later found dead.
