PERU, Illinois — It was, in a sense, a premature autopsy on an opaque, near faceless and scalp-less body that not even a mother might recognize. The waterlogged corpse lay in the possession of the LaSalle County Coroner’s Office for 24 days.
Even after the authorities finally made positive identification, reportedly through dental records and DNA, Carmen Bolden Day still had not been allowed to see the body that the authorities eventually said was her son Jelani Day, 25.
But how could she know if it was her Jelani, unless she had a chance to finally lay eyes on the body — even as a decomposed refrigerated shell?
How could she know? How could she rest, know for certain in her heart that it was her son, or ever have some semblance of peace and acceptance, unless, or until, she had perhaps had the chance to scan the body from head to toe? A little while to search for signs, no matter how seemingly insignificant, that the autopsied body was indeed her baby boy?
Some things a mother knows. Some things are unimaginable. Some things just don’t add up. Some things about this case just ain’t right because they just ain’t right.
Some things make absolutely no sense. Some things only God knows. Some things — even a puzzling mystery — can, in time, come to the light.
But some things no mother should have to endure. Among them: Having to wait nearly a month for the chance to view a body that might be her dead son. Among them: Sensing a lack of urgency by police to initially search for her son, even after his car was found in a wooded area in Peru a day after he had been reported missing.
Also among them: An unnerving, painstaking wait of more than two weeks for the authorities to at last identify the body; and the perceived lack of empathy shown to a grieving Black mother of a dead or possibly still missing Black son, which in itself begs the question:
Would Jelani Day’s case have been handled differently if he were not Black and male but a woman who was white and blonde?
This much is clear as black and white: That someone knows what or who brought this handsome, promising young Black male graduate student to this town, population 0.4% African American, and 60 miles north of his college campus, where he was studying to be a doctor.
Clear is that someone knows how Jelani ended up floating dead in the Illinois River. And that even as the authorities continue to call the case of Jelani’s demise a “death investigation,” there is something foul about this case that stinks to high heaven and that cries out for answers, and for justice for Jelani.
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Heartbreaking, for sure’
The corpse had no eyeballs, only sockets. The river’s water had run her course, soaking the body through and through.
The body was missing its front top and bottom teeth, Day and Bezner said, citing a second autopsy performed by a private forensic pathologist at the request of the family. His jawbone had been “sawed out.”
The family’s private forensic pathologist could find no brain, according to Day and her attorney. No organs. Neither liver. Nor spleen.
Bezner said the LaSalle County coroner had explained that, according to their pathology report, the organs were “completely liquefied.”
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Some things no mother should have to endure
They are trying to rule this as a suicide instead of as a murder. They still don’t know who did this to him or why. It’s been a trash investigation. There are no leads. What happened to him remains a mystery.
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