Danice Day Went Missing In 2002
Wayne Harrison, Senior News Editor

POSTED: 4:49 am MST January 24, 2006
UPDATED: 7:55 am MST January 25, 2006

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MONTE VISTA, Colo. -- The discovery of a bone fragment has renewed the search for a waitress who has been missing for four years in the San Luis Valley.

Danice Lea Day was 19 at the time she vanished near Monte Vista on Jan. 9, 2002.

According to a statement made by former sheriff J. Desi Medina at a Rio Grande County Commissioners open meeting on Feb. 27, 2002, when Day arrived at the home she shared with Victor Braun, she told Braun she was leaving him and he struck her, killing her. Despite that statement, Braun was never arrested or charged in the case.

"It was just two old farts talking to each other," Medina said after the commisioners' meeting. He said he thought he was talking with the commissioners off-the-record. "I said it in confidence as to how I think he did it, not in the capacity of sheriff."

Medina told commissioners he had a relationship with Braun's father and turned the investigation over to other department officials, but the district attorney's office took over jurisdiction in the investigation and requested all files on the case.

Relatives believe Day was murdered, because she would have never left her two children behind.

The discovery of the bone in a grease line at the site of a former gas station has renewed the investigation. Braun's father reportedly owned the gas station.

Last week, investigators used ground-penetrating radar to see if anything was buried at the site just north of Monte Vista. Authorities erected a tent, and dug at the location around the clock for several days. A backhoe was brought in, and a large hole was excavated. Dogs from Necro-Search in Montrose were called in to aide in the investigation and the work was completed Monday.

Officials denied a published report that the bone found was a human joint bone. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is assisting the sheriff's office in the investigation.

"Several items found during the excavation were sent to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation labs for identification and testing," said Capt. John Gonzales, "and it could take up to six months" to get results.

Gonzales said it was too early to tell if the bone that was found was human. He told the Meander Magazine that "possibly other places, and possibly out of state" were also part of the investigation.

Day, a single mother of two children, worked at the Dos Rios restaurant in Monte Vista when she disappeared. A $10,000 reward has been offered for information in the case