VA VA - Arieanna Renee Day, 3 months, Roanoke, 12 September 2018 *NamUs #MP61826* *Charges dropped 2019*

[YaYa_521]

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
NamUs #MP61826
Arieanna Renee Day
Circumstances of Disappearance - Arieanna was last seen on September 11, 2018. She was last seen wearing a pink onesie.

Circumstance Notes​

Arieanna Day was last seen at approximately 10:00 pm on September 11, 2018. Law Enforcement responded to the address at 11:00pm to investigate a reported abduction. Arieanna's mother, Jessica Day told Law Enforcement she put her daughter to bed at her home on the corner of Hanover Avenue and 11th St in Roanoke City. An hour later, Jessica Day says she went to check on Arieanna, and she was gone.

Arieanna's father, Andrew Terry, told Law Enforcement he went to Jessica Day's house on the night of Arieanna's disappearance, where she gave him the baby. Terry gave a very different account of the crucial hours around Arieanna's disappearance. He said he went back to Jessica's apartment after he finished work, and Jessica met him out front with Arieanna and told him to take her. He said Arieanna had a slight cut and general swelling on her face. He put the baby in his lap and drove towards Blacksburg, and twenty or thirty minutes into the drive, Arieanna simply stopped breathing.

He said he tried to revive her and failed, and he didn't seek medical attention for the baby because he was scared. Instead, Terry stated he took Exit 128 off Interstate 81 in Ironto, Virginia, and continued driving towards Blacksburg. Somewhere along the way, he stopped and dug a shallow grave for Arieanna with his hands, on a bank near the railroad tracks and the intersection of Cedar Run Road and Jennelle Road. He covered her body with leaves.

September 12, Terry took police to the location, but dogs turned up no sign of the baby or a grave site. As Terry had stated the grave was so shallow that the wind might have uncovered Arieanna's body, police asked if he'd fabricated his story. He said he was telling the truth and "I swear to you she's over there somewhere." Later that day, he said recanted, saying he had only brought police to the spot "to show she wasn't there."

When the police questioned him again on September 13, Terry returned to his story about Arieanna dying in his car and him burying her. Further searches turned up no evidence to support the story. Both parents have given Law Enforcement various stories.

Although police believe Arieanna is deceased, they are not sure of the circumstances of her death and both parents remain persons of interest. Her case remains unsolved, but foul play is suspected due to the circumstances involved.

Terry was tried for felony illegal disposal of a body in September 2019, a year after Arieanna's disappearance. Terry's defense attorney questioned whether the baby had actually died. After hours of deliberation, the jury was unable to reach a verdict.

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 25, 2023

Vigil held for three month old Arieanna Day almost five years later since she went missing

“We won’t give up. We’ll search, we will search, we’ll be detectives, we will pray, we will protest. We’ll do whatever we can to try to find what happened to this innocent baby who didn’t have a voice,”said Leah Ficklin.

www.wdbj7.com

The community held a candlelight vigil tonight to remember cold case victims. Those who attended focused on one victim from our area - Arieanna Day.

Day’s mother first reported her three-month-old missing on September 11th, 2018. She still has not been found almost five years later.

In 2018, Arieanna’s father was charged with concealing a body in Montgomery County in connection to the case. Those charges were dropped in 2020.

[...]

 

[imstilla.grandma]

 

[imstilla.grandma]

On the eve of her sixth birthday, the child's mom, Jessica Day, is pleading for answers.

"Arieanna vanished at 9:45, from 9:35 to 9:45 in between those times. I didn't have a baby monitor at the time but I was very consciously walking through the house listening for sounds and listening for her cries," Day said.

"I'm holding out hope that she's out there. I feel that she's out there. My heart feels that she's out there," Day said.

Mother of missing baby seeks answers 6 years later, on her daughter's birthday

The day before her daughter's birthday, a Roanoke mother is pleading for answers after her baby girl disappeared nearly six years ago.

wset.com

 

[Iknewit80]

From The Charley Project update: "[Father] was tried for felony illegal disposal of a body in September 2019, a year after Arieanna's disappearance. [Mother] testified for the defense; she admitted she'd given some false statements to police about her daughter's disappearance and that she suffered from memory lapses. At various times she said Arieanna had smothered after falling asleep during breastfeeding, or that she was kidnapped by an adoption agency, or that she had sold her. She admitted none of those statements were true.

[Mother] also admitted she had called [Father's] defense attorney in 2019 to say Arieanna was alive and well, and that she had called [Father] and asked, "Should I wait until court to say I gave her to your cousin?" She suggested Arieanna may have been injured by falling from her carrier, and that the true story was that Terry had taken her away."