By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published October 9, 2008 at 11:24 a.m.
A bone found below a shed in Monte Vista appears not to be from a human, so may not be the hoped-for clue to solve the disappearance of a young mother in 2002.
Rio Grande County Sheriff Brian Norton said today that three doctors that looked at the bone said it looks like an animal bone to them. The final decision will be made after a radiologist looks at it at the El Paso County forensics lab, Norton said.
Rio Grande County investigators are still hoping the accidental discovery of a trapdoor -- below which not only the bone, but an old missing-person poster and old newspapers were found -- could help solve a 6-year-old missing-person case.
Danice Day was just 19, and the mother of two, when she disappeared in January of 2002.
Her boyfriend, Victor Braun, now 32, was a suspect and remains a "person of interest" in the case, Undersheriff Charles Chick said today.
Braun had lived with his parents in a house in Monte Vista at the time of Day's disappearance.
Recently, the new owners of that home decided to build a cedar fence and to move a shed or out-building from the yard, Chick said.
"They found a trapdoor in the bottom of the shed, and a place where it was dug out underneath."
When investigators took a look they found a hole 41/2 feet deep, five feet wide and eight feet long — what looked like a trash pit.
They carefully dug, shovel by shovel, and found empty alcohol containers, an old chair, Christmas lights, a poster on Day's disappearance and some old newspapers from that era, Chick said.
And then. "Sifting through, each shovelful, we actually found a bone," he said.
The Rio Grande Coroner couldn't tell if it was a human or an animal bone, so he brought it to the forensics pathologist in El Paso County.
They were hoping that if it was a human bone, further DNA analysis could help identify it.
Chick said the bone is three inches long and two inches wide, with an unusual curvature.
He said he is pursuing every lead in the Day disappearance.
"This is a care where we've got a family that is missing a daughter," he said.
Factors that could point to a homicide rather than a voluntary disappearance include the fact that when Day disappeared she left her two children behind, left her purse, her cell phone and her car.
This is not the first time an excavation provided hope of solving the case. In January, 2006, authorities dug at the site of a former gas station in Monte Vista and turned up a bone thought to be human, but it proved to be a false lead.
Since Day's disappearance, Victor Braun spent at least a year in jail and now is out on bond on numerous charges of burglary, theft and possession of cocaine. His list of charges goes back to 1994, when he was 18, and numbers in the dozens.
His father, Vern, is out on bond on numerous charges, including auto theft, Chick said.
Father and son live in a house in Monte Vista.
Day's two children were of two different fathers. The child she had with Braun is being raised by Braun, with help, Chick said.
Braun did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
Sheriff Norton said he is hoping the other things found in the pit can be helpful in the case. "We've been investigating since 2002. We're dedicated to getting some answers and locating her."
Rio Grande County often goes years between homicides, Chick noted.
"We're not going to give up on this," he said. "We're hard set on uniting this girl, one way or another, back with her family," whom he described as "wonderful people."
Chick urges anyone with information to call him at 719-657-4000.
