Illinois coroner identifies body as missing graduate student Jelani Day

"Officer John Fermon with the Bloomington Police Department said Thursday that while the case recently received national attention, locally he believes it received a good amount of attention from the beginning and sympathizes with the cases that don't get that exposure.
"We're lucky the story actually exploded as well as it did, which may or may not have led to the tips that came in," Fermon said during a news conference. "We've had people going out of their way, drive a few hours, just to walk around."
Day was last seen on August 24, and his vehicle was located in Peru, Illinois, a couple of days later on August 26.
An initial search took place on August 26. Fermon said there were extensive K-9 searches conducted by Illinois State Police, drone aerial searches by local jurisdictions, and ground searches. Nothing was found then or in subsequent searches, he said.
Authorities returned on September 4 and found the body that would later be identified as Day's floating in the Illinois River."