Grad Student Jelani Day: Mysteriously Found in Illinois River? What Really Happened?
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Hi guys and welcome back to my channel. Happy to have you here for another video. If you are new, welcome. Today we are going to be talking about a case that is definitely still developing and that makes covering it a lot harder. Today I'm going to be covering Jelani Day and this case has been very challenging to pull together. It was one of the videos that I held in October because there was incorrect information being reported and

I only want to help in these situations. I don't have direct contact with Jelani's family, so I can only use what's being put out there by the media. Luckily, the media coverage around this case has really kind of picked up in the last couple

month and a half or so. But at first when Jelani was missing, it was very, very minimal and it was hard to figure out what was going on. Since then, his mom has had a lot more interviews and I've been able to clarify some of the questions that I had. And I just want to put this out there, you know, to anyone in Jelani's family, if they happen to see this video that I am here to help you guys in any way that I can, whether that's fundraising or being a platform for you. I have a link to a victim's advocate, Google form below. And if you fill that out,

I'll be able to get in touch with you and we can talk about ways that I can help. I'm so happy to see Jelani's case getting more coverage. But like I said, at first it was extremely minimal, which was very unfortunate at that time because that's when Jelani was missing and they needed the coverage the most. So yes, unfortunately today we are not talking about a missing person. We are talking about someone

a potential homicide. So let's start by talking about who Jelani Day was. His full name is Jelani Jesse Javonte Day, and he was born on June 15th, 1996 in Danville, Illinois. Jelani was born into a very large and very loving family. He was actually the second youngest of five siblings. His parents, Carmen Bolden Day and Save Day also have two other sons named DeAndre and Save and two daughters, DeCara

and Zena. Growing up, Jelani's family was very religious and he was very active in his church. They went to St. Synagogue Church of God and Christ. And like I said, Jelani was extremely active in his church from a very young age. He was part of the church choir. He participated in purity class. He joined the church's drill team, sat in on Bible studies and a lot more.

And Jelani was also just an amazing human being. When he learned that he was a bone marrow match for his father who had cancer, he stepped up to the plate. He would take time to make those donations for his father and to visit him in the hospital whenever he could. That's just the kind of guy that he was.

He was known for being very friendly, very loving. He was smart, driven, a very outspoken person, and he really just had so much potential for his future. In addition to being incredibly smart, he was also extremely athletic. He went to undergrad at the University of Alabama A&M in Huntsville, Alabama to study speech pathology.

and also ran for the school's track and field team. Also, and this is important, Jelani was an avid swimmer. Jelani was also part of Greek life at Alabama, and that was a big part of his life. Jelani was in the new Epsilon chapter of Omega Psi Phi, and he made a lot of great friends there. But Jelani's true dream in life was to be a doctor.

help other people. He was incredibly smart and he was well on his way to achieving this goal. He graduated at the top of all of his classes and then he went on to grad school and he went to grad school at Illinois State University to continue his education in speech pathology. Now if you aren't familiar with this field, it's actually really competitive and very, very difficult.

So the fact that he graduated at the top of his class and then was accepted right into grad school was very impressive. But for his friends and family, it was no surprise. They knew that Jelani was set out to do anything that he wanted to in life and that he was capable of really achieving any goal that he had.

Plus Jelani had actually become interested in speech pathology from a really young age. Growing up, one of his friends, one of his very close friends, Paul had some speech issues and he was bullied and Jelani really felt for him and wanted to help him and others. He would stand up

for him, he would defend him and communicate for him with other kids so that he wouldn't get bullied as much. And again, this is just the kind of guy that Jelani was known for being. There are a lot of stories of him being just an upstanding, incredibly kind individual who always looked out for others. So this year, 2021 was actually Jelani's first year of grad school. This was actually his first semester fall of 2021.

and he should be there right now. As a reminder, he was attending Illinois State University and he was actually living in an off-campus apartment in Bloomington at the time. He was 25 years old when he went missing. And as I said, Jelani was very close with his family, but he was especially close with his mother, Carmen. They had an incredible bond. He was through and through a mama's boy and he wanted to come home and see them as much as he could.

So even though he was living in Bloomington, he would often visit his family down in Danville. And Jelani would talk to his mother on the phone every single day. They would never miss a day. Sometimes they would talk multiple times throughout the day. She would even joke and call Jelani her bill collector because of how often he would call her. Talking on the phone constantly and texting back and forth

on a continual basis, was just their thing. If one of them happened to miss a call or a text from the other, they would get back to them as soon as possible. And up until the last week of August, everything was normal for them. Everything was going well, and they were speaking continually like they always had been. At this time, Jelani was going to classes, talking to his family daily, and nothing was out of the ordinary. But that

All changed on August 24th, 2021, when Jelani did not show up for class. Now, if any of you have been in grad school or even just university or college, you know that missing class is normally very frowned upon, especially in grad school.

For one, you're paying a lot of money to be there. Second of all, a lot of professors have different policies around it and it can really affect your grade. Plus, so much is covered in just one class that missing a class can really put you behind. And this was not like Jelani. I mean, he was on top of his academics.

there's no way that he would just skip a class for no reason. And if he were going to miss a class and needed to for some reason, he would let somebody know. Also on that day, he was supposed to meet with Kara Boaster, who is the director of clinical education at ISU. The day before, August 23rd, the two of them had been communicating regarding some of his coursework.

And Kara said that they were texting that night, the 23rd, and the next day he was supposed to come in and meet with her before class, but he never showed up. Kara texted him, asked him why he didn't come, but she never got a response, so she figured she would just connect with him later that day when she knew he had class at 1. But as soon as he didn't show up for class, she immediately knew something happened.

was wrong. So Cara ended up contacting the university police that day, the 24th, because she was certain that no grad student would just miss class, especially Jelani. She just knew his character and she knew something had to be really wrong here. Jelani was officially reported missing on August 25th by his family when they couldn't get a hold of him.

Now, obviously, with some families, especially with older children, it's normal for you not to keep in contact every day. But that really was not normal for Jelani's family. They were in contact constantly. So they just knew that Jelani was in trouble. I didn't get any...

Text makes it back because usually that's our thing. He'll call me right back. That's the moment when I said something is wrong. When she started looking back through her phone, Carmen realized that the last time she had heard from Jelani was on the 23rd, which was now 2nd.

two days prior, you know, when they're reporting him missing on the 25th. And she knew there is no world where he would not contact her for two days straight. And even though he didn't get in touch with her on the 24th, she was so busy planning a trip that she had coming up

that she didn't even notice, you know, it didn't even really occur to her until the next day. She said that she assumed that maybe one of her other four children had heard from him, but no one had heard from Jelani. Jelani's oldest brother actually went with the police to search his apartment, and when they went there, they didn't find anything out of the ordinary. The only thing missing was his 2010 white Chrysler 300.

And investigators are asking the public if they have seen this vehicle in the area between Tuesday, 8:24 at 9:15 a.m. and Thursday, 8:26 at 4:20 p.m. So on August 25th, the police launched their investigation into the disappearance of Jelani Day. You know, his case was just unusual.

You know, we have a lot of missing persons cases. The fact that he hadn't communicated with his family, he didn't show up to class. It kind of just, it was pretty obvious that we needed to look into it. Jelani's last known whereabouts luckily are known because of some security footage. This was taken on August 24th. There's actually two separate sightings of Jelani on the 24th. The first was at 7.20 a.m. when Jelani was spotted on camera at the

Bone Student Center on campus. He was last seen wearing a blue button-up collared shirt, black pants, black belt, black dress shoes, and a blue mask. And the second sighting of Jelani occurred at 9:12 a.m. when security cameras picked him up entering the Beyond Hello dispensary on Veterans Parkway in Bloomington, Illinois.

But this time, Jelani was wearing a completely different outfit. He's wearing a blue Detroit Lions baseball cap, a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt, some light colored shorts and black shoes with white soles. And in this photo of him walking towards the dispensary, you can actually see his car, the 2010 white Chrysler 300 that had gone missing alongside of him. Now in this photo of him inside the dispensary, he's clearly looking up directly into the camera.

So there's been a lot of talk on Reddit and other online blogs theorizing why he would be looking directly into the camera. Some people have suggested that maybe he felt like he was in trouble. Maybe he wanted the camera to clearly see his face. Like maybe he wanted a record of him being there, but...

This is all just speculation. People do look into security cameras all the time. And actually some dispensaries will have you look into the camera so that they have record of who you are. But what really seems to be throwing people off, and there's a lot of discussion around this, is the fact that he was wearing a different outfit. And obviously people do change out of their clothes after they leave work.

campus. However, Jelani did know that he had another class coming up at 1 p.m. So a lot of people have questioned, you know, why did he make that change if he was going to be going back to school so soon? There's been a lot of speculation, you know, wondering if maybe Jelani knew that he wasn't going to be going back to campus. But

You know, I totally understand also just changing your clothes because it's more comfortable in between classes. I mean, I could totally see myself doing that. So I'm not sure if there's really any...

significance there. But I did want to note this change of clothing because it is something that comes up later on. It's also important to note that at this time when police first started their investigation, they had no reason or evidence to suspect foul play. On August 25th, he was just considered a missing person. And when police met with their family, they actually suggested that maybe Jelani was just under a lot of stress lately and

Took some time to get away from it all. Just left. And Carmen said from the beginning, their family felt like there was a major lack of urgency that the Bloomington police were just not taking her son's disappearance seriously enough. So two days after Jelani went missing, his car was found in Peru, Illinois.

which is a small city about an hour north of Bloomington. And his car was reported to be located by the Peru police in a wooded area south of Illinois Valley YMCA. And in the car, they found the outfit that Jelani was seen wearing to the dispensary, the more casual outfit he was wearing that day. But what they didn't find in the car was his cell phone, his wallet,

and shockingly, his license plates had been removed from the vehicle. A BPD public information officer named John Furman has said publicly that in his 10 years of police work, he found it incredibly unusual and suspicious for his car to be found where it was. The car itself, I guess, was found abandoned kind of near a parking lot, but not actually in the parking lot, just a side of it. And it was just left on this wooded path

that seems to be kind of a dead end. And Carmen has made it clear that there is no reason that she knows of or can even think of for why Jelani would be in Peru. My kids didn't come to Peru for nothing. Never was raised anywhere near here. Don't know anyone here. And Jelani would not have known

to come and park his car in this wooded area. So Friday, August 27th, they announced to the public that they had found Jelani's vehicle. So there was a search there that was done, a smaller scale search, but a professionally coordinated search

um you know there was canines um you know they had drones and bpd also stated to the public that jelani went missing under unexplained suspicious circumstances and asked if anyone in the peru area has seen jelani or his vehicle any time from the 24th to the 26th of august particularly again between 7 00 a.m and 4 20 p.m and there was actually something that

came up as a result of that someone living in a house in lasalle had security cameras on their home and they turned in their footage from august 25th and in it there is a young black male knocking at their door and when no one answers he just walks away it actually took some time for police to release this footage to the public and share it with jelani's family

which is frustrating. But once they saw it, they were able to confirm that it was not Jelani. So that weekend, the case started to get more attention on campus. People started putting up flyers and there was a lot of discussion around his disappearance. Even though police were investigating the case, it was pretty evident

to his family very early on that they were not taking the case as seriously as they should be. Carmen actually received a phone call on the Friday after Jelani went missing, just days, two days after he had been reported missing. And this detective told her that unless he heard anything, he would connect with her the following week and would be headed home for the weekend. And she just couldn't believe that. I mean, her son was missing. Time is of the essence and she

They're just taking the weekend off? The detective from Bloomington called me that first week. Jelani was reported missing on that Wednesday. That Friday, he said to me on the phone, "Carmen, it was 4:30. I'm getting off of work, and if I don't get anything over the weekend, I won't be back in.

I'll contact you on Monday. I'm supposed to stop because you got to go home. Who else is working? Why do I have to do this by myself? So I sat there and I listened to him and I instantly, I can't sit here and wait till Monday to hear from you. So at this point, Carmen felt like she really had to take matters into her own hands. And boy, did she. Carmen ended up having to start her own

own search. And she has done an incredible job. The case would not be where it is today without her just fighting back so hard and putting everything she has into finding Jelani initially and now finding out what happened to him. I had to do what I, the first thing I knew how to do was like, I got to form my own search. So that's what I did.

I put out a post on social media and said, I don't know what I'm doing, but I need y'all to help me. Me and my kids and my family, we're going to Peru, and this is what we're going to do. And I need whoever can to join us because I got to find Jelani. And I knew Jelani would want me to look for him.

He knew I would be looking for him. - At the end of August, Carmen got on social media and started just posting about Jelani. She said she had really no idea what she was doing and didn't know how she was gonna get people to see it, but she knew she just had to make people aware. Also at this point, they decided to create a GoFundMe so that they could get more resources for their search.

And that is actually still active. If you would like to make a donation, I encourage you to do so. Any amount, you know, large or small, makes a huge difference. I'll be making a donation as well. And like I said, all the funds that are raised will be used for the investigation. Carmen also announced that there was a $25,000 reward for anyone who could give them information that could lead to finding Jelani. At this point, Carmen was adamant that her son was

was still alive. On August 31st, their family created a Facebook page that they have been very active on. I will have that linked below if you are on Facebook and would like to follow all of their updates and support them. Call me. You can call his dad. You can call his siblings. I don't care if you call. You can call anybody if you just drop him off. Tell me to come pick him up. I just want my baby back.

That's all I want. I just want my baby back. If you go to the Facebook page, you can just see how many people are so devastated and broken over Jelani's case and how much they want answers. They want awareness. They are begging for help. And it's just heart-wrenching to see. Around this time, the Bloomington police

made another announcement to the public, and they told everyone about Jelani's last known whereabouts. In this address, they asked again for anyone who has any information or may have seen him or his vehicle on that day to please come forward. Then on Wednesday, September 1st, Carmen and her family conducted their own search, and they went to all the places that they knew he had been,

looking for something, I mean anything, that would point them any closer to finding Jelani. Carmen made sure to post this to Facebook and invite strangers to come help them search because they were desperate for any help that they could get. To them, it just did not make sense why he was gone. I mean,

None of it added up. Jelani just wasn't the type that would just walk away without telling someone or give any explanation. He had been looking forward to his grad program. He was doing great. He was on track to get all A's and B's that semester and had a really bright future ahead of him. It was incredibly obvious to his family that

He was not gone by choice. So then on September 2nd, Jelani's wallet was found and there's been kind of some contradicting information about how the wallet was found or who it was found by. It has been reported that it was found in some bushes in LaSalle. However, there has been a lot of discussion about

about another version, which this is not confirmed. This has been mostly on Reddit, but a lot of people have said that a younger girl saw a tall black man wearing red, dropped the wallet, and then she walked over and picked it up and then turned it in. But obviously that's unconfirmed.

I don't know how the wallet was actually found. There have been some other reports saying that the police actually found the wallet. So who knows? Also near the wallet, there was a ISU lanyard just lying on the ground. And there has been a lot of discussion back and forth about whether this belonged to Jelani or not. There have been reports claiming it does belong to Jelani. There have been other reports saying that it belonged to another student. So that's another question mark at this point. And then on September 3rd,

Over a hundred people from the Bloomington community came together at the Bones Student Center at ISU in support of the search effort. And this meant the world to Cameron. And with her children by her side, she stood in front of everyone and talked about the kind of guy that Jelani was and squashed any rumors that Jelani was depressed. And the way that Carmen thanks everyone for their support is just so sincere. You can tell that she truly does appreciate it.

and care for all the people that are supporting her family, you know, even people that are just supporting online from afar. Jelani is a fighter. He's not just going to let you take something from him. He knows how to defend himself. He knows how to take care of himself. That's what Jelani did. Jelani would protect all of us because Jelani thought he was the strongest one. He got all the airmen. He's the best cook. He knows all the music. We don't know nothing. Jelani knows everything.

Jelani, Jelani, well, he had the best arguments for everybody. He got all the answers to everything. I want y'all to know I have a strong son. So I need y'all to keep praying for his strength. That wherever he is, that God continues to strengthen his mind.

mentally, constricting his body physically because Durrani needs to get away from where he is. He needs to understand that his mom and his brothers, his family and all of you which are his new family that I have adopted because you all have shown us so much love. Durrani comes back and I give him back and after I spend some time with him and we get the love of him, I will share him with you all. Thank you all for the free

I thank everybody for the generosity that you have shown us. I know going forward, if you hear something, if you send in here and you know something, if you've seen something, it's not too late to tell you, "I need to know because I need to have my son back home."

The family also planned a search for September 4th. They posted on Facebook about it. It started at 10 a.m. in the parking lot of the Peru YMCA. So that same day that their family was going door to door on September 4th, the police also set up their own search efforts in LaSalle where his car was found and

and they made a huge discovery that day. On the morning of September 4th at 9:47 a.m., their search team found an unidentified body floating off the south bank of the Illinois River near the 251 Bridge. And this is only a mile away from where Jelani's car was found. There was no identifying information found

on the body, so the police did not comment on whether or not they believed it was Jelani that day. In fact, they said it would take them days, if not weeks, to identify who this body belonged to because it was so severely decomposed. I guess this river has some particularly warmer areas and that's what they believed caused the body to decompose much quicker.

The average temperature around that time had been about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, very warm for this time of year. But they said that an investigative autopsy would be taking place that Sunday and would be done by the LaSalle County Coroner's Office. And as soon as Carmen found out that a body was found, she immediately jumped in, provided dental records, anything that she could. She just was hoping that the police could make this identification

as quickly as possible. So then almost three weeks went by without anything, just three agonizing weeks of waiting for the identification of this body. It wasn't until September 20th that the police even made an announcement that they were still investigating and they had not yet identified the body. And around this time, Carmen was feeling very frustrated and really started to be vocal about how she felt that the media just was not

giving her son's case enough attention. You know, she saw Gabby Petito's case getting a lot of coverage. I mean, we all saw it. Everyone was covering it. It was wild. I've never seen anything like it. There were so many resources used.

And she felt like her son was just not getting that. And it's clear that he wasn't. She was frustrated that at this point, Jelani had been missing for three weeks and there was barely any coverage, but there was tons for Gabby. And, you know, she's talked about how she doesn't blame Gabby's family for that at all. And she knows their pain, but obviously there's something incredibly wrong with the way that certain cases get coverage and others do not. Their family is seeing things

millions of people following the Gabby Petito case, you know, thousands of people supporting and following every single thing that happens. And they're wondering, where is that for Jelani? And Carmen, again, has made it clear that it's not that she's upset that Gabby got the coverage that she did. It's the lack of coverage for others, which is a huge problem. I need to be afforded the same opportunity that it just gave

Like I told you last week, this young white girl and her family, they found their daughter within three days and now it's been 29 days and I have no answers about my son. I asked, what does it take?

for the FBI to become involved in Jelani's case, I was told that it's being discussed. I don't know how long you need to have a discussion about finding a missing Black male. At this point, when I asked that question, I think it was like day 24, 25,

at that point what is there needing to be discussed and it's so incredibly frustrating like with Gabby's case there was endless resources for me to pull information from and put together videos but with this case it was extremely difficult because there was pretty much nothing at first and like I said in the beginning of the video there was incorrect information being reported at times that was hurting the case and hurting the family so

It's very frustrating and it's a very real issue that Carmen's family experienced firsthand. And it's just completely shocking that it took them three weeks to even contact Carmen again with any type of update on the case or about the body that they found.

I mean, just nothing. Carmen even called the Peru Police Department twice during this time asking for updates and she was never called back. Also, the coroner was extremely disrespectful to Carmen on September 22nd when she called them just to ask some basic questions about the status and progress of their investigation. - The coroner today was so disrespectful to me because I asked questions. He even told me he was angry

with me and that did I want to find out if this was my son or not? This is how I've been treated. I'm not going to be quiet and sit back and accept this treatment. My son is important. You just cannot come up with clues now and think that I don't have questions behind these clues. You don't have questions behind this evidence that you're finding.

that you waited 18 days to get back in touch that now all of a sudden that popped up 18 days because the last time I heard from Peru was September 4th when I sat in a room with them and they told me they found this unidentified body since then I've made two calls to them and left messages I did not get a call back I have not gotten a follow-up

to find out what they found out, if they've spoken to anybody, if they had any tips or leads. - So at this point, Carmen just decided to hire a private investigator. She just felt like the officials assigned to the case were not doing enough, and it was her best chance of getting answers

about what happened to Jelani. And having the PI involved was great because Carmen was able to announce to the public that if anyone was worried about speaking to the police for whatever reason, they could contact the PI and give an anonymous tip. Finally, though, on September 23rd,

police did come out and say that the body had been identified. Unfortunately, it was Jelani Day. His family made an incredibly emotional post on their Facebook page to share their thoughts. One part of it says, "At this moment, there are more questions than answers surrounding Jelani's disappearance and death, and that is where we will focus our energy. As of this moment, we do not know what happened to Jelani, and we will not stop.

until we do the bloomington peru and lasalle police departments all issued a press release stating that the body found in the illinois river was in fact that of jelani day they were able to identify the body using dental identification dna and comparison but his body and his teeth were in such bad condition that it actually took four dental practices to confirm and their family had to endure even more

waiting while the coroner's office finished up their investigation. But in the meantime, a commemoration of life ceremony was organized by Jelani's family and they brought the community together in his memory and to celebrate his life. It was October 9th and his friends and family and just members of the community gathered together at Danville High School Auditorium where Jelani had graduated from

just a few years prior. It was a beautiful four-hour service, truly a celebration of Jelani's life, and the crowd heard from dozens of people who knew and loved Jelani. People shared stories of Jelani, from how thoughtful and caring he was to how strong-headed and determined he could be. They shared laughs, remembering how fun it was to be around him. And his sister, Dakara, even remembered that no matter where she would hide her diary, Jelani would always be able to find it and read it.

His younger sister, Zaina, shared how thankful she was to have Jelani as her protector when she was growing up. And she said that he made her laugh harder than anyone else. The great, mighty, and powerful Jelani.

I'm going to always remember his legacy. His parents going to remember his legacy. They're going to keep fighting until we get the answers that we need so that we can find out what happened to our brother and finally be at peace and finally put it to rest. I think today was well needed for a lot of us. It has been a very drawn out process. I know we wanted to keep believing that we was going to get a positive outcome, and I still believe we're going to get a positive outcome despite what may happen. Jelani was always the light of the room, the smiling.

So the month of October had a lot going on in the case, a lot of moving pieces. They were planning the ceremony. And so I know it can get a little confusing. So just bear with me as I get through this next section and just keep in mind that kind of putting this together

as it's so recent is sometimes really difficult. But the official report from the LaSalle County Coroner's Office was released on October 25th, 2021. But before it was announced, there were two separate autopsies performed.

The first autopsy was performed by forensic pathologist Scott Denton on September 5th, and this was just one day after his body was discovered. And in his analysis, he concluded that Jelani's cause of death was drowning. He said that there was no evidence to support the idea that there was any damage or trauma to the body prior to going into the river. He also stated that there was severe decomposition and that turtles and fish in the river had

further the decomposition. And they also noted that the soft tissue around his eyes was missing. And then the second autopsy was performed by an independent pathologist, Sergio Serratella. He was hired by Catholic priest and social activist Father Michael Flager, and he got involved after learning about how ignored the case had been up until this point, and he was very angry. - The more I started to read,

And listen, I got angry because it seemed to me from what I've read and what I've learned and then speaking with his mother that this boy was killed. Here's this African-American woman feeling she hasn't got the help of the local government or law enforcement who are responding to her as if

her son's life wasn't valuable. - Father Michael also donated $10,000 towards a private investigation into the case. So when Sergio was performing his independent autopsy, he had not read the report from the LaSalle County coroner. He did that because he wanted an objective look at the body. He didn't want to be impacted by their findings. - Saratella says he has not reviewed the LaSalle County coroner's autopsy, and he prefers it that way so that he can have an objective review of the case

However, just like the LaSalle County Coroner's Office, Sergio also did not find any signs of pre-death. But he says even if the cause of death is drowning, that doesn't tell us how they drowned or if someone was responsible. The other thing that I did was obtain DNA samples that's used to confirm the identification of the remains. The fact is Mother Nature dealt us a very difficult hand. The remains were in water for 11 days.

and the river washed away a great deal of forensic evidence. The heat, the water which accelerated decomposition, and the environment really made forensic investigation very difficult in this case. First thing we did when we examined the body was look for external signs of trauma. So I'm looking for lacerations, incisions, broken bones, gunshot wounds.

Serratella says while his team did not find any obvious signs of external trauma to the body, he says it's impossible to say there was no harm done at this point. However, their independent autopsy did have some discrepancies from the initial autopsy. First of all, they had a completely different description of the condition of his body.

Now, this claim has not been confirmed, so I want to be careful with this, but one report did say that Carmen was told by the independent pathologist that he was shocked by the protocol used by the first pathologist. According to this report, he was baffled by the first exam and that the standard protocol was not followed. And when the LaSalle County coroner was made aware of this independent autopsy's findings, they decided to make no comment.

because they said that it served no professional purpose. Then on October 8th, the case really got a lot of attention because there was a horrible report put out by the Chicago Sun Times that had so much misinformation and just information out of context that it created a

a ton of rumors online and just mass spread of misinformation. The article says heartbreaking for sure. I don't even know what kind of headline that is. It says the corpse had no eyeballs, only sockets. The river's water had run her course, soaking the body through and through. They also said that the body was missing its front legs.

top and bottom teeth, and they also said that a second autopsy was performed by a private forensic pathologist at the request of the family, and that they had found out his jawbone had been sawed out. They also said that their family's private forensic pathologist could find no brain, no organs, neither liver nor spleen. And they also said that according to the pathology report, the organs were completely liquefied.

Now, when you're reading this and it's so out of context, a lot of people became very confused and thought that Jelani was not found with his organs. And that's not true. The truth is when the second autopsy was performed, there were no organs, but that's because they were removed during the first autopsy and never put back. This article was proven to not be factual. However, it started a chain of misinformation and rumours

rumors, tons of people reporting on Twitter or Reddit, you know, Facebook that this was a case of organ harvesting. And it's definitely not, but it's really unfortunate because that information has been spread. The damage has been done. And there are a lot of people out there with misinformation about the condition of Jelani's body.

So his mom ended up having to post on October 11th, making a statement to clarify the truth about the rumors that were circulating around. And this is when I decided to wait to make my video and make sure that I could really stick to the facts and get the right information here. In this post, she was saying that there were contradicting facts going around between the two autopsies, but no organs were missing, nor was this a case of organ harvesting.

That same day, October 11th, their family attorney, Hallie Besner, went on Fox 32 News to clear up the confusion as well. We do not believe that this is any sort of organ harvesting or trafficking situation. My understanding is that essentially the body was just in very bad condition after having been in warm water in the Illinois River for probably 11 days.

So there were things like eyes were missing, but that is consistent with what you would expect with a body that's found in a warm body of water for that period of time. So it ended up taking the LaSalle County Coroner's Office a month to determine cause of death for Jelani and put out an official report. On October 25th, Coroner Richard Plotch announced that Jelani's cause of death was

He also stated that the body showed no evidence of pre-death, such as strangulation, assault, altercation, sharp or blunt force trauma, gunshot, infection, tumor, natural disease, drug intoxication. So what this means is he wasn't able to determine any other cause, so that really just left us with no evidence.

He also said that there isn't a specific way to test for drowning during an autopsy, and it's done more in a process of elimination. So basically, because he couldn't find a cause of pre-death that left drowning. A toxicology report was also prepared by NMS Labs in Horsham, Pennsylvania, and they stated that Jelani's body tested positive for caffeine and evidence of nicotine and cannabis use. Which, of course, really isn't

anything unusual but Jelani's family was very unhappy with the findings of the LaSalle County coroner they felt like they were basically saying that this was Jelani's fault somehow that he just got in there and drowned they were pushing that he possibly took his own life and they just knew that this was not a suicide plus they made the point that Jelani was an avid swimmer they just cannot wrap their minds around the idea of him drowning why would he go to a place that he's never been before miles away from where he lives

on a school day to go swimming. Doesn't make any sense. Their entire family knows this doesn't make sense and they are begging police to look into it further. I mean, why would he drive to Peru, this random area, take off his clothes, take off his license plate, and then jump into the water? What? All of this made the Day family and

the community that had really formed around Jelani's case, very angry. They couldn't believe that they were claiming that Jelani, who had no known mental health issues and was a great swimmer, had killed himself by drowning. So alongside Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Push Coalition, the Day family organized a march

in an effort to demand justice for Jelani and pressure law enforcement to continue investigating. And this march took place on October 26th. During the march, they loudly rejected the theories presented by police. They said that this was not a suicide and demanded that his case be further investigated by the FBI. And more than 200 people showed up in support of the march. People chanted as they walked down the street to "Keep Hope Alive."

And at this point, Carmen said that she just did not trust the local police with this case and she wanted the FBI to take over fully. A second march was held on November 5th with the same goal, to get attention of the police and get this case to the FBI. Jelani's mother, Carmen Bolden Day, says she's gone too long without answers. Today, she wanted people to see these places with their own eyes, like the spot in the woods where his car was found. There's no way that my son would have known.

would have known about this. He wouldn't have put his car here. He wouldn't have taken his license plates off. He wouldn't have got out of his car and walked three miles to the river. It's been over 59 days. It's been a week since we've heard back from the Illinois Attorney General. And we're here demanding answers. Now, the Peru police did announce that they handed over all of their files to the FBI on October 28th. But this does not mean that they are taking over the case.

In fact, they released a statement that said they would not be taking a lead on this case despite the request to do so. So in the last like two weeks, there has been a couple of updates. Most recently, the biggest thing has been the discovery of Jelani's phone, which has been a big question Carmen's been asking during all of this. Where is his phone? Because obviously that is going to contain a lot of information.

of information. And it's amazing that they have found his phone because it will likely help answer a lot of questions or at least hopefully like what was he doing the week before he disappeared? Who had he spoken with? Was he fighting with anyone? Finding that phone was absolutely crucial. On November 10th, the Justice for Jelani Facebook page made a post stating that they had a potential lead on Jelani's phone

A Facebook user named Brian Du actually posted this to his page, stating that his worker was driving along the interstate and lost something. His Facebook post didn't specify what was lost, but we later learned that he had been driving with a mattress in his truck and it had fallen out.

But when he got out of the car to retrieve it, he found an abandoned phone and took it to a kiosk at Walmart for money. Then a few days after he had brought it into Walmart, private investigators contacted him. And that's when he found out that the phone belonged to Jelani Day.

Apparently he did not know whose phone it was when he brought it to Walmart. That post was made on November 10th. However, at that point, it was not confirmed whether or not this phone was actually his. The phone was found off the interstate near East Main Street. On November 11th, his family posted that they still had not confirmed if the phone actually belonged to him and they were just hoping that it did. This was the first sign of hope for their family. You know, obviously the phone isn't going to change anything or bring Jelani back, but it could probably

really lead them in the right direction. So later that day on November 11th, Carmen actually did an interview with Newsy and she was able to clarify a lot of the information about the phone. For starters, the phone was actually retrieved on October 17th and it was completely shattered. And to make matters worse, Carmen wasn't told anything about the phone for two to three weeks after they initially found it.

The police have said that the reason for this was they were waiting to determine if it was Jelani's phone before telling her. And then they told her that if she didn't want them going through it and would rather have the FBI do it, that she could make that decision. So she absolutely did. She told them to hand it over to the FBI and have them look through it. I found out.

about the phone that the phone had been found and that had been identified as Jelani's phone on last on early this morning maybe about one or two o'clock this morning um however um the young man had let me know that he got questioned two days ago so the police have been aware of this they've known about the phone um they've not made me aware um according to Peru and Bloomington the um

FBI is assisting and providing resources. When I contacted them today, they told me that they didn't tell me about the phone because they wanted to be sure. They then told me that they were going to look into Jelani's phone to see what was on there. I questioned why they would go through the phone, and they instructed, and she said to me,

Carmen, if you don't want us to go through the phone, let me know now and we'll turn it over to the FBI. And I told her that's what I prefer for her to do. So if they can turn it over to the FBI and not

mess with it because at this point, I need the FBI involved. I need them to not provide oversight, not to be engaged, but to take over this case because I don't trust them at this point. If you look at how the evidence has been found, the car is found in one place,

i'm told about the different people that found the car then there's the wallet that is found and they say it's the jelani that walk but there's a man and his son that found the wallet then two board young ladies from isu go looking for jelani and they find his clothing by a riverbank and now the phone is found on the interstate

Nothing as a thing would just fall into the laps of the police. So no, I don't want, I don't trust the Peru police. I don't trust the Bloomington police. I don't trust the LaSalle police.

I need the FBI to come in and take over. As of just days ago, November 14th, it has been confirmed that the phone does in fact belong to Jelani. Then a series of emails actually came out that kind of shed light on what the county has been doing since the start of Jelani's investigation. It was actually through the Freedom of Information Act that the

pantograph which is an online news outlet was able to request all of the emails that include Jelani's name that were sent by county officials between August and October and they were actually able to get

290 pages and it revealed a lot of information. First of all, more than 20 agencies played a role in this case, including four police departments, four fire departments, four emergency management agencies, three specialized search and rescue agencies, Illinois state police, and two FBI offices and the FBI BAU. There were more than two dozen media inquiries that were sent to the county

mainly trying to get clarification about the state of Jelani's body. Three tips also came in with possible sightings of Jelani's car and five pieces of evidence were collected from Jelani's car

and sent to a lab for further testing. Most of the evidence were swabs, swab of the steering wheel, of the driver's side door handle, also passenger side door handle. They also collected a plastic blue straw from a styrofoam cup. And the last thing they found was a partially smoked cigar blunt. But as of right now, that is the most up-to-date information as of November 17th when I am recording this. New information could come out by the time that this goes up. It does take...

some time to edit these videos, as you can imagine. If there are any new major developments or updates, I will leave that in the pinned comment and in the description box of this video. Also, be sure to follow their family's Facebook page for the latest information. But that's really all the information that's out there regarding Jelani's case. So unfortunately, that's where I will be stopping today's video.

However, I did again want to say to Jelani's family, if you happen to see this and I can help you in any way, please contact me via my Victim's Advocate form, which is linked below in the description box of this video. And I would love to help you guys in any way I can. I will be following all of the updates as hopefully we get answers and justice for Jelani Day.

I did want to mention there is a virtual town hall meeting that's being put on by friends and family of Jelani on Friday, November 19th, which is before I am filming. But by the time I have posted this video, it will have already happened. So if there's any type of link to it to rewatch, I will have that below as well. I definitely want to hear your thoughts on this case already.

What do you think happened? What stands out to you? I wanna know what you guys think of the lack of reporting initially in this case, the lack of help and support from police. I'm curious, what do you guys think the media can do differently? What can police do differently for all families of all missing people? Because the way that it's done now makes no sense and it has to change. We need to see equal coverage, urgency for all those that are missing.

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.