Missing grad student identified weeks after body found in river

Authorities have identified the remains of an Illinois State University student who went missing in late August and whose body was found the following week, unbeknownst to his family.

Jelani Day, who is Black, was reported missing August 25 after he failed to show up to class at Illinois State University in Normal, just outside Bloomington, ABC 7 Chicago reports. His body was found floating in the Illinois River on September 4, but the 25-year-old remained unidentified until Thursday when the LaSalle County Coroner’s Office confirmed it was Day through DNA testing.

Day’s cause of death remains a mystery as authorities await the results of toxicology tests and continue to investigate what happened to him.

His family expressed dismay that his disappearance didn’t receive as much media attention as the case of Gabby Petito, who was reported missing Sept. 11 before her body was discovered this past Sunday at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Similar sentiments have emerged on social media, with many voices questioning the whirlwind of news coverage for a white victim while Day and other missing persons of color received little if any attention.

“He’s educated. He’s a productive citizen. And I can’t get nobody to look for my son, to provide us with those same resources, with that same help. And that’s all I’m asking for,” his mother Carmen Bolden Day told ABC 7 on Wednesday, a day before his body was identified.

Day’s family members told ABC7 they last talked to him on August 23 and that he vanished after being spotted on campus the next day. Two days later, on August 26, his car was found about 60 miles north in Peru, Illinois, but Day was nowhere in sight, according to police who searched for him.

Nine days later, a body was found near the south bank of the Illinois River, about a quarter-mile east of the Illinois Rte. 251 bridge, ABC 7 reports.

Day, a Danville native who wanted to become a doctor, was in his first semester of graduate school at ISU, where he was studying speech pathology, ABC7 reports.

Police said he was last seen at a cannabis dispensary in Bloomington, according to NBC News.

“Jelani just didn’t disappear. Somebody knows what happened. Somebody needs to report what happened,” Day’s brother, D’Andre Day, said, according to NBC News. “We need everybody involved, the same way they were involved with Gabby.”