A multijurisdictional task force is expanding its search for information tied to the death of Illinois State University graduate student Jelani Day and offering a $10,000 reward for any leads in the case, officials announced Monday.

       The Jelani Day Joint Task Force, which includes the FBI and several law enforcement agencies across Illinois, has been investigating the death of Jelani Jesse Javonte Day, whose body was found in the Illinois River in Peru Sept. 4, 11 days after he was last seen in Bloomington.

       A student walks past a poster seeking the whereabouts of Jelani Day at the campus of Illinois State University in Normal on Sept. 23, 2021. (David Proeber / AP)

       In a news release Monday, the task force announced a national social media campaign as it works to get new information on the case “to supplement forensic, analytical and technological investigative techniques already in use.”

       Day’s mother reported him missing Aug. 25. His body was identified in late September, and the LaSalle County coroner’s office in October said he died by drowning.

       Unsatisfied with the local investigation, his mother, Carmen Bolden Day, enlisted civil rights attorney Ben Crump in December to help urge authorities to continue looking for answers into her son’s disappearance and death.

       At a news conference earlier this month, with Crump by her side, Bolden Day said while authorities have not explicitly called Day’s death a suicide, investigators told her things “that says to me without saying to me that Jelani did this to himself, and Jelani did not do this to himself.”

       Carmen Bolden Day, mother of Jelani Day, left, listens as her lawyer Ben Crump speaks during a news conference calling for further investigation and accountability into the death of Jelani Day at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition headquarters on Dec. 3, 2021, in Chicago. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)

       Crump, who represented the family of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old who was killed by George Zimmerman in 2012, said, “We are very clear in our declaration that this was not suicide.” Crump said that position was based on the fact that Day’s car, clothes, wallet and cellphone were not found where his body was found. Day’s car was found Aug. 26, hidden in a wooded area in Peru, in LaSalle County.

       Day ran track at Alabama A&M and was a member of the fraternity Omega Psi Phi. He was in graduate school at Illinois State University studying speech pathology and working to become a doctor, “so that his mom would never have to work again,” Bolden Day told the Chicago Tribune when Day was still considered missing.

       Investigators are asking for help from the public and from Day’s close contacts who they say “may be key in understanding the facts and circumstances surrounding Day’s death.”

       Tips can be submitted anonymously at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

       scasanova@chicagotribune.com

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