MISSING - Danka Ilić

Script for Humble Mysteries, episode 6

Apr 04, 2024

Earlier this week I asked on my Instagram about what kind of case you would like to hear in today’s episode, and the votes were in favor of an open, developing case of a missing child.

And to be quite honest, I feel like I would have done an episode on this case even if the votes went the other way, because after posting the question I realized that it is actually very important that I talk about it.

My audience is very small, but I do believe that the role of content creators who focus on true crime is to keep the awareness on developing cases. We all love a solved case, we all love knowing that justice was served, and unfortunately, this case meets neither of those criteria.

This case also involves a very young child, which are honestly the most difficult cases for me to learn about, to research, and I have been avoiding creating content on this topic because I am a parent of a small child and those things hit me a lot harder than anything else.

However, I come back now to, what I at least feel is a certain duty of us who create this content, and that is raising awareness.

I am trying to always keep myself in check and make sure I am not sensationalizing these tragedies I am telling you about. I aim to keep the focus on the victims, but also, to make sure we learn from these stories.

And with that in mind, we all want our children to be safe, so let’s move on to the case and see what the story is and what we can do to prevent this in the future, and to help out in the present.

Before we start, I would just like to make it clear to anyone who reads this or listens to this, that all the information I bring forward in this episode is a compilation of media reports. If I am sharing my opinion, I will say so.

Danka Ilić was born May 6th 2022 in a mid-sized industrial town named Bor, in Serbia.

She is the youngest child to her parents Ivana and Miloš, and a younger sister to her brother Lazar.

On Tuesday, March 26th 2024, Danka’s mother Ivana took her two children and brought them to a family property, just outside of the town of Bor, in a smaller place called Banjsko Polje.

The property belongs to Ivana’s father who said that he and his wife used to live there until a few years ago when his wife passed away.

The area is not remote, but it is surrounded by nature and forests.

Danka’s mother claims that around 1:45pm, while the children were playing around the property, her oldest child, Lazar, asked her for some water. His water bottle was in the car so she walked a few meters to the car to get his water, and as soon as she was back, Danka was nowhere to be seen.

She started looking for her, and within a few minutes, when she couldn’t find her, called her husband Miloš. Her husband arrived in a few minutes, and after searching for Danka for about another hour, the parents called the police around 3pm.

After reporting her disappearance, the police issued a description of Danka - she is about 85cm in height, or about 2 feet, 9 inches. She has dark hair and dark eyes. At the time of her disappearance she was wearing an olive green jacket, purple pants and black sneakers and her hair was tied in a ponytail.

The police have, thankfully, taken this very seriously and search efforts were coordinated almost immediately. Just the initial search effort included 200 people, search dogs, helicopter and drone support.

Obviously, without any other information or leads, the initial search was focused on the immediate area around the family property where Danka was last seen.

As the day went on, the concerns grew as rain, wind and cold temperatures started to create difficult conditions. You can imagine, a child in those conditions, every minute is so important.

Towards the evening, the first ever Amber Alert type of alert in Serbia was activated, and the citizens received a text message informing them of Danka’s disappearance. The TV program was also interrupted with a video message regarding Danka’s disappearance and the details of her physical appearance as well as the information on where and when she was last seen.

This is a new service in Serbia, and it is named “Find Me”. It was modeled after the American Amber Alert system and it is specifically designed for informing the public about minors going missing.

Honestly, I can get behind that system 100%. I visited the US for the first time last year in September, we spent a month with my husband’s family in Indiana, and that was my first time experiencing receiving an alert on my phone about a missing child. It was both distressing a bit, but also comforting to know that such a system is in place. Truly, the most important thing you need when someone goes missing is eyes. Eyes on people, eyes on vehicles… And the more people you have who are aware that there is a child who went missing in the area, the better your chances are of someone spotting something out of the ordinary and informing the authorities.

So, the search and rescue efforts were initially focused on this small place Banjsko Polje. The police invited everyone who owns a home in the area, even if it’s a holiday home, to come out and make their property available for search so that every single inch of the village could be checked.

Search teams searched every available object in the area, buildings, barns, sheds, places where people store firewood… Just behind the family property, there is a forest which leads to a hill, and a creek. The creek and the surrounding forest were thoroughly searched.

Danka’s mother said that Danka doesn’t talk yet, and that she is not a very strong walker. This has become somewhat of a fixation point for a lot of people, how a child who is almost 2 isn’t good at walking. Well, her mother never clarified, but I think I can offer some insight into what she meant. I think she meant more that Danka isn’t good at walking longer distances, and she said it in the context of there being a forest surrounding the property, and a terrain that isn’t very accessible and friendly.

Any 2 year old would find that challenging and difficult to walk in.

Some people chose to focus on the information that Danka doesn’t talk. Again, not an incredibly wild thing to imagine. She will turn 2 in May, so she most likely says a few words, but her speech isn’t developed to the point where she could say sentences and hold a conversation. That’s not out of the ordinary for her age.

Danka’s parents were immediately taken in for questioning, as suspicions were rising on whether or not Danka was even there, as her mother claimed. There were questions on the accuracy of her mother’s statement, and how it is possible that a child vanishes into thin air during such a small amount of time. A lot of people thought that her mother was not telling the whole story. And quite frankly, that’s completely understandable.

As difficult as it is for the family, the people closest to Danka are the ones who have to be most thoroughly investigated. That’s the case with any missing child case, and as we mentioned in one of our previous episodes, the likelihood of something being done by a stranger is a lot lower than that of something being done by someone close to Danka.

Her mother’s phone was confiscated and searched, and some information came out that text messages and phone calls from the day of Danka’s disappearance were deleted from the phone.

Again, I wasn’t able to corroborate a lot of this. This is a developing case so there will be a lot of redundant information there in the beginning, but let’s just put it all out there, and I will make sure to keep you posted on the updates and make sure I clear out any misinformation if there will be any.

On Wednesday, March 27th, the police called off the search efforts in the area of Danka’s disappearance. The area had been searched for 27 hours continuously and it was apparent at that point that Danka was not in the area. If it is true that she disappeared just before 2pm, and the police were called at 3pm. Let’s say it took them another hour to coordinate a search party, that leaves Danka unattended for 2 hours. How far can a 2 year old get on foot in 2 hours? Probably not very far. And the area searched was several kilometers in diameter, so it was apparent that Danka was not there.

And again, we have the public outcry on this, and why the search was called off. Well, first of all, the search didn’t just stop. The area was still being searched, but in a much smaller capacity. And it is quite frankly a little silly to keep searching the same area when you’re not getting any results.

The efforts could be focused on a different area, but for that to happen, the police now had to regroup and look for leads which would hopefully allow them to establish new areas to focus on. The number of people searching the area went from the initial 200, to over 500 at one point. That’s a lot of resources being focused on a very small area. And the efforts were really commendable.

The wells in the area were emptied, every canal, creek and culvert was searched, but absolutely nothing was found. It is also important to note that the residents of the area were incredibly cooperative and opened their homes and properties to the searchers.

One of the biggest concerns was the proximity of the border crossings with Bulgaria and Romania, and the fact that the police efforts being focused on this one area meant that no one was really checking the vehicles crossing the borders until the “Find Me” alert was activated.

The focus then shifted from massive on site search efforts to pure investigative work, and that included questioning Danka’s parents, focusing on family relations, how often the family would come to this property, and why they chose that particular day to come. The questions of kidnapping have now also opened up, and the police have started to check the vehicles coming in and out of the area.

This automatically means that the police are now significantly restricting the information they’re releasing to the public.

Every time a kidnapping is suspected, the police are doing everything they can to keep their hand very close to the vest so that the potential kidnappers can’t predict their moves, or learn if they have any leads leading them in their direction.

With parents now in constant communication with the police, the option of the polygraph has been put on the table. Danka’s father was administered a polygraph examination and passed.

Her mother, however, cannot be administered a polygraph because she is 5 months pregnant, and the results would be considered inconclusive. And we also know some other relatives were administered a polygraph, but we don’t know those results.

One of the former investigators commenting on the case for the Croatian news portal said that the polygraph is a clear indication that there are holes in the parents’ stories, or that the police are suspecting they haven’t told them the truth. He said it is very interesting that Danka’s father was able to arrive at the family property where Danka was last seen in mere 10 minutes, even though the family lived farther away than that.

He said he also has a problem with the mother’s reasoning for bringing the children to this place, because there are a lot more appropriate places in the town of Bor, like parks and children’s playgrounds. He is also suspicious of the mother’s statement about the absolutely small window of time during which Danka disappeared.

And I have to say that this is something I have a difficult time reconciling as well. I saw the photos from the property, and it seemed that the car was right there. Walking to the car would have taken her maybe half a minute. The property is not big, and the children were in her line of vision seemingly at all times. So how was that possible? I have a feeling there is something there that didn’t happen exactly as she described it, maybe she wasn’t with the children for a bit longer than she said. I obviously don’t know any of this for sure, and this is purely speculation on my part, but I just hope the mother understands that the key to finding Danka is in her recalling every single second of that day, and in telling the truth.

An important detail about the property is the fact that an underground canal passes under it, and leads to an abandoned mine. It is everyone’s assumption that this entire canal was also searched, although I wasn’t able to find official confirmation of the fact.

So in days after Danka’s disappearance, a neighbor in the area where Danka was last seen came forward with a CCTV recording of the street right in front of her house. This is the same street Danka’s mother would drive on to get to her property, and in the footage you can see Danka’s mother’s car driving in the direction of the property around 1:10pm. I wasn’t able to confirm this time and I’ve read multiple different interpretations of when exactly it was that Danka’s mother drove past that camera.

In any case, the footage also shows a vehicle driving at a higher speed away from the Ilic family property at 1:47pm, which is only 2 minutes after Danka was last seen, according to her mother. The vehicle appears to have license plates that are Serbian, but not local to the area, which raised the suspicion of some people.

Apparently, the police found the owner of the vehicle, and could not connect him to Danka’s disappearance so it seems that him driving down that road at the same time when she allegedly disappeared has nothing to do with any kind of foul play.

Now, this footage is something that is very interesting to me, but I haven’t been able to find a lot of information about the timestamps.

The neighbor claims the mother is seen driving at 1:10pm, then a father is seen going in the same direction about 5 minutes later, and then about 10 minutes later, a police vehicle can be observed.

I am not sure how any of that is possible, if Danka was allegedly last seen at 1:45pm, then her father arrived about 10 minutes later and the police were not called until 3pm. Something is weird about that timeline, but I will leave that open to everyone’s individual interpretation, because the footage is actually not available to view in its entirety, rather, just a small portion of it - a vehicle driving past at 1:47pm is available. If her father arrived at 1:15pm as a direct response to Danka’s mother calling him to tell him she’s gone missing, then why did she tell the police she last saw Danka at 1:45pm?

And, as is expected, there will always be someone trying to exploit the tragedy. A few days after Danka went missing, three men started a live on TikTok and claimed they had information on where Danka was and were asking for about 25,000 euros to reveal the information that would eventually lead to her being brought home.

Thankfully, the police were prompt in this case as well, and located the three men in Hadzici, near the Bosnian capital city Sarajevo. Three brothers - Bashar, Zakuan and Muhamed Tufankiji were then arrested and detained. One of the brothers admitted to willingly spreading misinformation about the case, but claimed they were only joking.

Meanwhile, Danka’s mother’s phone was checked, and some very dubious google searches came to light. Among those were a google search for terms “border crossings between Serbia and Romania” and “criminal liability”.

Again, this doesn’t mean anything, but it also looks less than ideal.

While Danka was missing, some heavy machinery like excavators and bulldozers was brought to the area where she was last seen. In the area, heavy machinery was used to move larger objects like woods, piles of waste, piles of discarded appliances and other heavy stuff.

The parents’ apartment in Bor was also searched, and it is reported that Ivana and Milos’s older child has not been in contact with them since Danka’s disappearance.

This is also something I would be interested in learning more about - was the child questioned and what kind of information he was able to provide. I am not sure how much older he is than Danka, just by looking at the photos, I would estimate he is about a year, maybe a year and a half older. Which to me means that he is probably already talking and it would be quite interesting to know how much he was able to see from that day.

On March 31st, a Yellow Notice was issued by Interpol in the case of missing Danka Ilic. The additional information that came out with the Yellow Notice is in the category of distinguishing marks and characteristics which state that Danka has a hanging nipple (wart) on her left earlobe and a dark, irregularly shaped mole on her left upper back arm.

I was able to actually see this wart in some photos of Danka, it is like a big skin tag and it appears to actually be attached to the tragus of her ear, rather than an earlobe.

I will provide photos of everything I am talking about today on my substack, and on YouTube.

The latest big development in this case is the video recorded in Vienna, the capital of Austria. The video was recorded by a Serbian citizen who lives in Vienna. In the video, you can see a young child, a girl, in the company of two adult women. The child is doing typical kid stuff, walking around, sitting down. The two women were allegedly speaking Romanian, and used an unknown name to address the little girl. Although the video is over a minute long, and the child’s demeanor was well captured, it is unfortunately not the best quality, so the facial features of the child are not very distinguishable. We can’t see if the child has a wart on her ear, but the hairstyle appears to be exactly the same as little Danka’s, and the child seems to be wearing black sneakers in the same style as Danka wore on the day she went missing.

On top of that, the two women with the little girl appear to be traveling. They’re seen carrying a larger duffle bag. They were spotted in the city center at a tram stop, and this sighting apparently happened around 8pm, reportedly on Sunday.

Austrian police are in full cooperation with the Serbian authorities and are investigating the case. They have put out photos of the two women seen accompanying a young girl and are asking anyone who knows them to get in contact with the police as soon as possible.

It is now Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024. I am preparing and recording this today, and the latest information available is that the family property where Danka was last seen has now been completely cordoned off and no civilians or members of the media may approach it. The police activity is greater than the previous few days, and there are allegedly forensic teams assisting.

That’s all the information I can provide at this time. Anything else would be purely speculative at this point, and - believe me, it is a very, very deep rabbit hole.

It is a case that just grasps your attention, and you have to know more. I understand that everyone’s fingers right now are pointing at Danka’s mom, and I will say, rightfully so. She is the person who last saw her, she put herself in that area, at the time of Danka’s disappearance. And her actions have been a little bit questionable.

I am not in any way, shape or form, accusing her of anything, nor am I inviting anyone to see her as guilty. I am simply stating that the focus should absolutely be on her, and on getting as much information as possible out of her.

It is truly incredible to me that a child can just go missing to the point where 500 adults cannot find her in a relatively small area. Danka doesn’t seem to have walked away on her own, I think we can all agree on that. It seems that she was either removed from that area, or she never even arrived to the area on that day and all this was just a very well planned out red herring to keep the police away from the actual truth.

As a parent myself, this case has kept me up at night. Just two days after the news of Danka’s disappearance broke, I lost sight of my own son for about a minute and the sheer, immediate overpowering panic I felt was unlike anything I ever experienced. I had my phone ready to call the police, and he was out of my sight for barely a minute. We found him almost instantly, and it turns out the reason for his sudden disappearance was his newfound love of independence. He thought he could just walk out and go home on his own, which now opens a whole new chapter of parenting for my husband and me to figure out because up until now, he was perfectly happy sticking with us all the time.

I would also like to just sow a little seed of compassion into everyone’s hearts. Especially those of you who are absolutely certain that Danka’s mom is to blame. While the facts don’t really fare well for her, it is absolutely possible that she had nothing to do with little Danka’s disappearance. It is possible that her perceived coldness is just her coping mechanism. It is entirely possible that she is heavily medicated, and unable to show her real emotions.

It is entirely possible that she is blaming herself, and running scenarios in her head on what she could have done differently. So just in case that’s the truth, let’s give her the benefit of the doubt. And let’s give her some room to grieve and process this incredibly difficult situation on her own.

I would like to remind each and every one of you who are listening and who are judging Danka’s parents, that, had this been your child - you would also be the first and most important people the police would be looking into. Those closest are always the main suspects, and that’s exactly how it should be. The fact that the police have chosen to focus closely on Danka’s mom, to bring her in for questioning almost every single day since her disappearance, means that they took this investigation very seriously, and points to the fact that they are actually taking the right steps.

And finally, let’s repeat some facts of the matter.

Danka Ilić went missing on March 26th, 2024 in a Serbian town named Bor. At the time of her disappearance she was wearing an olive green jacket, purple pants and black sneakers, and her hair was tied in a ponytail. She has a skin tag on the left ear tragus.

If you are local to Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Bulgaria, Austria and the other surrounding countries, please, please, keep your eyes open for Danka.

If you notice anything suspicious, let the police know, call in a tip. You never know what little piece of information can steer the investigation in the right direction and provide that break that every case needs to be solved.

UPDATE: It was reported by an Austrian news portal that a woman has since come forward with photographic evidence that the child in the video taken by a concerned citizen is, in fact, her own daughter, and not Danka. The woman is indeed Romanian, and she was traveling with the child at the time when the video was taken. However, although similar in appearance, the child does not appear to be Danka. Nothing has been confirmed by the police as of yet.