Family of missing Colo. woman hopes for quick answers

MONTE VISTE - For seven and a half years, there was the pain of not knowing. Ever since Danice Day disappeared her family has been left to wonder and hope, but may now be close to some answers, after a discovery in another state.

All along, hope was hard to come by because there were early indications that the 19 year old mother of two small children had met with foul play. The Rio Grande Sheriff's office quickly identified Day's boyfriend, Victor Braun as a person of interest in the case.
Braun could provide investigators with little information about her disappearance.

"We knew something bad had happened," says Jacqui Flint, Day's sister.

But still they held out hope. Flint created a website in her sister's name to provide updates to friends and relatives. The site also became a place for family and friends to speak directly to Danice. There were regular postings of birthday wishes and frequent words from her father to a daughter he hoped was still out there somewhere. They would begin, "Dearest Daughter Danice, sorry it's been so long since I last wrote."

They were words written with hope. "Down in your heart, just maybe she'll come back," says Flint. "Maybe this didn't really happen and I think that is just kind of the surrealism of what happened."

Earlier this week, on Wednesday, hope met reality with word of the possible discovery of Day's body. The Rio Grande Sheriff's office, along with a dive team from Utah located the remains of what they believe to be Day's body in Lyman Lake State Park. The park is located in extreme eastern Arizona near St. Johns, some 400 miles from where she disappeared.

The Rio Grande Sheriff's office would not explain what led them to search for the body in Lyman Lake State Park. The remains were taken to Colorado Springs where the El Paso County Forensic Pathologist will use DNA to try to make a positive identification.

"I think we're kind of experiencing a lot of different emotions right now and don't think we're sure how to feel," says Flint. "I mean this is the first part of it really, I mean if we do find out that it is definitely her, which we're 99.9% sure it is, then there's going to be the now we just want to find out about how it happened.

Victor Braun, who is the father of one of Day's two children, remains a person of interest in the case. Braun has a lengthy criminal record in Colorado and Kansas on charges ranging from burglary, forgery, drug possession and assault. The family believes he is currently being held in Colorado on charges unrelated to Day's disappearance.