[Transcript: Over the last day or so I've been seeing a lot, a lot of comments with the name Jelani Day, and I came across a video of Jelani's mother essentially begging for the media and for police to continue searching for her son. So this is Jelani Day, he also goes by JJ, 25 years old, 6'2", Black male, short black hair, he has a little bit of facial hair, and he weighs about 180 pounds.
Jelani was last seen on August 24th entering a dispensary called Beyond/Hello in Bloomington, Illinois. He was wearing a black shirt that has the Jimi Hendrix logo on it, white or silver basketball shorts, black shoes that have a silver or white bottom, and a blue Detroit Lions baseball cap.
Two days later on August 26th, Jelani's car was found in the woods almost an hour away in Peru, Illinois. In the car, they found that shirt that Jelani was wearing, the one with Jimi Hendrix, as well as his baseball cap. The license plate had also been removed from his car.
On September 4th, an unidentified body was also found in the same area in Peru, but police are still working on identifying the body and they have said to not speculate that it is Jelani. However, Jelani's mother has said that she feels like all investigations have ceased on her son's case after they found this unidentified body.
Jelani's mother describes her son as energetic and full of life, with so much ambition. She says he was just a normal guy who loved to live life and spend time with his friends and travel. He always kept in contact with his family and he would call her just to say he wanted to hear her voice. He was a first semester graduate student at Illinois State University. He was an incredible student with a high GPA, and he wanted to go on and get his doctorate and become a speech pathologist.
The Gabby Petito case has shown us that collective voice, people spreading accurate information, can help in cases like this. Jelani's mother is begging for help to help bring home her son, and she really feels that someone out there has to have some information on what is going on. Anyone with information, please contact the Bloomington police, and Jelani's mother has also hired a private investigator and she stated that if people feel uncomfortable talking to the police that they can speak to her directly, they can speak to the investigator, that anyone is available to speak at any time with details about her son. No detail is too small.
Peru Police Detective Commander Dennis Hocking:
Family's Private Investigator:
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