Minister of Police on Danka's murder: Father stopped the killers and asked them if they had seen his daughter

Minister Gašić announced the latest information on whether special teams of the Ministry of Internal Affairs managed to find the body of a two-year-old girl from Bor.

It is suspected that she was buried in a landfill near Banjsko Polje, from where all traces of her were lost on March 26.

Minister Gašić said that today is a very sad day for Serbia.

"The crime that was committed against little Danka deeply shook the whole of Serbia. I express my deepest condolences to the family of little Danka. After a ten-day search, members of the MIA arrested S.J. and D.D, who were suspected of killing Danka with a car and throwing her body in a landfill", said Gasic.

Gašić points out that both confessed and described the crime in detail.

"According to all the information we have, I will give you a retrospective. Ivana Ilić, the mother of little Danka, came with the children from Bor at 1:10 p.m. She played with the children and took pictures of them. She sent the pictures to her husband at 1:22 p.m. Her son asked her for water, and in a few minutes, she realized that Danka was not there. She called her husband at 1:51 p.m., and the police arrived at 1:59 p.m.," said Minister Gašić.

''At 6:57 p.m., the Find Me system was activated, reminds Minister Gašić.

"We followed the movement of the mother in detail, and all possible persons who passed by the same route. We also checked when the photo was taken. These were important factors for us to obtain information on how long the child was out of sight of the mother. The way the Find Me system works was explained several times, and why it wasn't activated immediately. We had over 600 reports of disappearances last year, and mostly children are found within a few hours," Gašić pointed out.

He added that Danka left the yard and was walking on the asphalt.

"Around 1:50 p.m., the mother saw a white car and a man next to the Fiat Panda vehicle, in which the suspects were. They said that they were on a work assignment in Banjsko polje, to check the shaft. Their movements were recorded on the camera. Later it was recorded that the vehicle stopped at the gate around 1:50 p.m. The vehicle with S.J. and D.D. was in front of the gate for about 2 and a half minutes, they stopped because they needed the toilet. Then they started, and hit the girl about 30-40 meters from the stopping place. The car was driven by D.D., and S.J. transferred the girl's body to the back seat. They agreed to throw the girl's body away. At 1:57 p.m., the girl's father stopped them and asked if they had seen the girl, to which they answered negatively," Minister Gasic said.

''Then they drove to the landfill and threw the girl's body into the landfill. The monstrosity is evidenced by the fact that, at the invitation of the director D.D. went to look for a girl in Banjsko polje, aware that he had killed her. On that day, 17 vehicles entered the territory of Banjsko polje, and only two left Banjsko polje, until the arrival of the police and prior to blocking the roads. This is important because it was symptomatic that 150 meters from the place where they stopped in the yard of the Ilić family, those 150 meters were crossed for five and a half minutes. Just as we know that they were at the landfill for one minute and 41 seconds", said Gasic.

The Minister of Police said that the entire area was searched several times by all possible services and means.

"Our operatives visited every house in Banjsko polje, looked at every basement, manhole and freezer. The investigation went in three directions. We could not rule out abduction, that the child was with someone, then, we suspected she was hit by a car, and a third possibility that the child is alive. We talked with the mother several times. Was it strange to us that after three years, she came to the yard where there was a lot of glass and iron, yes it was. But we had to get all the information for the purposes of the investigation," he said.

Gašić especially thanked all members of the police, and says that they were all in Bor last night and went through everything.

"Over 40 UKP members were in the field for days, technical people and polygraphists slept for two hours each to fulfill everything that was asked of them. It is about 46,000 logs, so-called, telephone numbers. There were so many changes at the base stations, to see if someone followed the mother in those moments, or if she communicated with someone," explained the minister.

Gašić said that the police had done everything that was foreseen in the investigation, and that several hundred members of all police services were on the ground.

"All technical means were used in the search. Drones and helicopters, search dogs... Hundreds of vehicles and houses were searched, on the same day that Danka Ilić disappeared, we did 15 polygraph tests. You asked why we went to the field again and talked with the inhabitants of Banjsko polje. So that they could turn off all the phone numbers and see if anyone was moving towards Lake Bor," said Bratislav Gašić.

He also thanked the Austrian police and Interpol, as well as other police services in Europe.

"When the Find Me system was activated, we received hundreds of calls and reports. And we checked each one, from the frivolous ones to those that we solved in less than two hours. Like those who demanded a ransom of 25,000 euros on TikTok. Together with the BiH police, we arrested the perpetrators. I also thank the Slovak police, we had a tip that a child was seen at a gas station not far from Bratislava, so we checked it with our colleagues from Slovakia," Gašić added.

About the search for the body

Gasic said that after hitting Danka, the suspects were moving at 20 kilometers per hour.

"The first witness, a neighbor, saw her here, but unfortunately she didn't look at her watch. The child went down. They turned here, the child came out of the bushes. This also shows the place of standing. We have two more witnesses who saw the child before of the arrival of the car going uphill. Its back was turned. And the exact time matched with that. The child was walking down the road, lost. Is that seven or nine minutes, we are not sure. Two minutes after that, the father comes, meets the suspects, and asks if they saw the girl. They deny it, and the father continued the search with his colleagues," said the minister.

Gašić said that the suspects were brought in and polygraph tested the next day.

"The driver had a delayed reaction to the polygraph. And the passenger had a reaction. On the same day, all three cars were confiscated. That is, their vehicles, and the official car. We took all the data from the bumper and from the interior. The two of them took us to the landfill to show where they dumped the body. But we have information that one of them returned to the place where they dumped the body on the 28th of March, and transferred it to another place. We can't believe their statements because they are shifting the blame to each other," said the minister of police.