With Brian Laundrie’s remains being found in such bad condition (only a partial skull was found, authorities say, and it as DNA tested and confirmed to be his) brings to mind another case that hasn’t gotten nearly enough press lately, and that is the case of Jelani Day.
Jelani Day was a medical student who went missing on August 24th. His Mother, Carmen Day speaks glowingly of her son and says that he was everything that any Mother could have ever wanted in a child.
Wildlife or murder? The case of Jelani Day
He was a track star in high school, went onto graduate college with honors, and was now in medical school to become a doctor. In fact, both of her children were in medical school to become doctors.
Jelani’s Dad was suffering from cancer and Jelani had recently found out that he was a perfect match to be a bone marrow match for his Dad. He would often go and pray with his Dad in the hospital, which makes this case all the more heartbreaking because now Jelani won’t get to be that life-saving bone marrow donor for his Father, because he was murdered under mysterious circumstances.
August 23rd, was the last time Carmen Day heard from her son, she said he often called her 3-4 times a day, just to hear her voice.
On the morning of August 24th, his school had him clocked in around 7AM when he would be taking clinicals, which he must have finished because at around 9:30AM that morning he was spotted in Peru, Illinois in a dispensary on their camera – and that was the last time that Jelani was seen alive.
After not hearing from her son for awhile, Jelani’s Mom tried to call him but got no answer, and it just wasn’t like him not to pick up a phone. Eventually, police were notified and went to do a welfare check, but since Jelani hadn’t updated his home address with the school, they went to his brother’s address instead, a place where he was no longer living.
Jelani’s Mom got a call from his brother, saying the police were looking for him, Jelani’s Mom texted him with, “Call me ASAP.” but the text went unanswered. Initially the police seemed reluctant to look for Jelani, and just told her that he was probably off with a girl somewhere and wasn’t calling his Mom back, but Carmen Day knew her son – that was not him.
On Sept 4th, a body was discovered in the Illinois River, when the Day family heard about it, his Mother was the first to volunteer to offer DNA evidence so that the Police could test the body to see if it were her son.
However the body was in such bad condition, according to them you couldn’t tell whether it was male or female, there was no hue to the skin anymore, there were no eyes, and according to Jelani’s brother, he saw nothing of his brother in this body. He said that it looked like it had been submerged for years, keep in mind that at this point Jelani had only been gone for a week.
This is where it gets confusing, at first authorities said that it looked like Jelani’s organs had been removed, which they attributed the wildlife, but wildlife doesn’t surgically remove organs.
Later, they amended the statement to say that Jelani’s organs had been ‘liquefied’, which is even more disturbing because that definitely can’t be attributed to wildlife, although the coroner did say that being submerged in water can alter a corpse in extreme ways.
Even more suspicious is that Jelani had no reason to be in Peru, Illinois, and his car was found in an out of the way area and one would really have to be a native of Peru to know where it was. According to family and those closest to him, he knew no one in Peru, so why was he there exactly?
Peru, Illinois is also known as a former sundown town. Sundown towns are places that people of color fear to tread, they crop up all over the United States but are particularly common in more rural areas.
Sundown towns are where racial crimes are prone to happen, because if you’re a person of color and you’re caught there walking after sundown, then you could very well wind up a statistic. While it is said that Peru is a former sundown town, this crime begs the question, is former really the right word?
Was Jelani’s death racially motivated? Jelani’s family suspects a cover up, but who is responsible, and why? We at DSD will keep an eye on this case. Stay tuned!!!
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