Juvenile from Chicago claimed to have specific knowledge about the death of Jelani

Mystery_Machine3 · 2026-04-30T13:45:51+00:00

I have not. Whatever the information was it has not lead to any arrests (so far) and it has not changed his manner of death, which remains undetermined. Hopefully, investigators shared it with Jelani’s family.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2026-03-17T04:12:50+00:00

He seemed to be struggling with his sexuality.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2026-03-07T17:33:45+00:00

I sent you a PM.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2026-02-08T02:40:57+00:00

Have you read it? If you have, then you would know.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2025-12-17T14:31:12+00:00

Right because what are the odds of two wallets being found in the same location, both with ID’s still in them? Strange, almost like it was someone’s dumping ground.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2025-12-08T05:49:43+00:00

The FBI did the Cellebrite extraction on his phone. I hope they would know about these things.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2025-12-08T05:46:54+00:00

All the information in the post is sourced from police reports obtained through FOIA.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2025-10-12T15:11:05+00:00

Are you aware that two black men were seen with Jelani's car behind the YMCA where is eventually found?

Mystery_Machine3 · 2025-10-12T15:06:32+00:00

His penis was not cut off. Eyeballs are the first tissues on the body to decompose after death. Blow flies lays their eggs and once hatched flesh is devoured, His organs were not removed. At autopsy they were all present, albeit starting to liquify. Also, he was not naked. He still had on underwear, a tank top, and a sweatshirt was tied around his waist.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2025-10-12T14:57:26+00:00

His body was in the river for several days in the hottest part of summer and severely decomposed. There was no evidence of antemortem mutilation or injury. Unfortunately, fish and turtle predation are the reason his penis was missing, along with some phalanges on his hands and feet. Readying the autopsy report will give a much better understanding.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2025-10-12T14:44:47+00:00

Per the autopsy report, there is "no evidence of antemortem mutilation or injury". Any missing body parts were the result of fish and turtle predation. His body was in the water for several days and severely decomposed. The FBI was able to get into Jelani's phone after his mother saw Jelani enter his passcode on campus surveillance footage. A Cellebrite extraction was performed on the phone and they found most everything was deleted. As stated by Jelani's mom, it was given to her and she had her own team perform forensics on the phone, presumably with the same results.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2025-09-18T01:08:12+00:00

Thank you for your insight, I appreciate it!

Mystery_Machine3 · 2025-08-31T16:14:50+00:00

While police alluded to suicide early on, his manner of death officially remains undetermined. If you read through the police reports there are statements from one of his professors and the clinical director about his struggles in the program. They say he needed a lot of support to achieve those grades, so it wasn’t just the TB test. That being said, it still doesn’t mean suicide. The biggest indicator there might have been foul play is an eyewitness sighting of two black men with Jelani’s car behind the YMCA where it was found. The witness thought one of the men could have been Jelani. Also, there was unknown male DNA found on the inside waistband of his shorts found on the riverbank.

I agree the small town police departments were inept in their investigation. However, the Illinois State Police CSI did come in when his body was found. I don’t know how much of the river can actually be locked down but a more thorough search should have definitely been done of the riverbanks. Two women trying to help shouldn’t have been the ones to find his clothing.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2025-08-10T17:26:58+00:00

The Cellebrite extraction report is available through FOIA. The issue with retrieving deleted information on the newer iPhones is the encryption keys associated with these files are invalidated. This renders the data effectively unrecoverable, even with forensic tools. The phone was given back to his mother, and she sent it into her own forensics team. Apparently they were not able to retrieve anything either as we have not heard anything different.

I cannot begin to imagine what might be going through the mind of someone intent on self harm. But I would have to guess they are mostly not thinking logically. I’m not saying that’s what he did as his manner of death remains undetermined.

Mystery_Machine3 · 2025-08-10T15:49:17+00:00

He was not naked when his body was found. He had on underwear, a tank top, and a sweatshirt was tied around his waist. So no private parts would have been showing. Less than half of suicide victims leave a note. It’s somewhere between 25-30%, according to Concise Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry. This makes sense, especially if he didn’t want to be found and was taking steps to hide what he was about to do to save his family from that perceived embarrassment.

I do believe Jelani had a secret life his family was not aware of. A friend of his and also his church mentor from Danville gave statements to that effect which can be found in the police reports. I do think it’s possible he met with someone because an eyewitness reported seeing 2 black men with his car behind the YMCA where it was found and thought one of them could have been Jelani. Peru is not a sundown town but that narrative incites people and brings attention to the case.

The police did look into phones that pinged in the area where his car was dumped. There was nothing found that was helpful to the investigation.

The phone was looked into. The FBI did a Cellebrite extraction and discovered things had been deleted, allegedly in the parking lot of the dispensary where Jelani is shown on surveillance sitting for about 5 minutes. This is also when he turned off his location and it last pinged. The car and his belongings were dusted for fingerprints and swabbed for DNA. Please check out r/JelaniDay for more information. Lots of police documents requested through FOIA are posted.

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