Where could 2-year-old Danka's body be: Forensic expert talks about distressing scenario for Telegraf

Photo: Nikola Tomić, Private archive, Printscreen: TV K1

2-year-old Danka Ilic was killed on March 26 in Banjsko Polje, near Bor, eastern Serbia, and the suspects in this crime, the like of which is unprecedented in Serbia, are public company Vodovod Bor workers Srdjan Jankovic (50) and Dejan Dragijevic (50).

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As Telegraf.rs previously reported, Dragijevic confessed to the crime before the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Zajecar, saying that he killed the child (after it was hit by the company car they were traveling in), that he threw the body at a garbage dump, to then two days later move it to another location, which he did not want to reveal. Srdjan chose to remain silent during the questioning, and he canceled the power of attorney previously granted to his lawyer, and requested to be represented by a public defender.

"My opinion is that the suspects did something with the girl's body. That they dismembered it or set it on fire, and took the parts maybe even 50, 60 kilometers away. They are mistaken if they think they will get a lesser sentence because there is no body. The child's DNA found in the suspect's vehicle is enough to sentence them to life in prison," retired forensic scientist Caslav Ristic told Telegraf.rs.

He believes that the police will have a hard time finding the body after all this time.

According to Ristic, the only chance to find the body of the little girl is for the suspects to say where it is.

"My many years of experience show that it sometimes happens that after spending some time in detention, a suspect realizes what they have done and asks to see the prosecutor to reveal what they did with the body. It is not uncommon for a suspect to develop a guilty conscience. However, I remember some cases where the suspect kept silent about the body for 40 years and took that secret to their grave," explains Ristic.

Radoslav, Dejan Dragijevic's father, is suspected of assisting in moving the body. He chose to remain silent at the prosecution. The police also arrested Dejan's brother for the same reason, but he died in custody in Bor a day later.

Since March 26, hundreds of members of the Interior Minister have been combing through every centimeter of Banjsko Polje and the villages around Bor. There is almost no place in Zlot, the home village of one of the suspects, that the police have not searched. However, the body of little Danka Ilic has not been found.

The questioning

Yesterday the parents of the murdered girl gave statements at the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Zajecar. Suspects Srdjan and Dejan were in the same room with them.

"Death penalty is not enough for them, they should be imprisoned for the rest of their lives. These are monsters, what we are experiencing all the time is indescribable. Only a parent can understand that. The police came to us several times, took Danka's things, we don't know anything, not even about the blood on the road, not in the car, not anything. It's not clear to us why they did not call an ambulance, why they didn't help, but did this.

What Ivana and I are putting up with all the time is terrible, various people call us, insult us, blame us. I had to ask to change the number, we can't take it anymore... When everything is over, we will go to the media and tell everything," Milos Ilic, the father of the brutally murdered girl Danka, told Telegraf.rs.

Danka's parents left the prosecutor's office in tears.

(Telegraf.rs)