Are You Harming Her: The Disappearance of Arieanna Day

Author

Benjamin Hayes

Publication Date

December 8, 2025

Arieanna Renee Day was three months old when she disappeared from her mother's home in the 1100 block of Hanover Avenue in Roanoke, Virginia, on the night of September 11, 2018. Her mother, Jessica Day, said she put the baby down to sleep around 9:30 p.m. and discovered her missing roughly an hour later. What happened during the gap between that discovery and the eventual call to police would become one of the most contested and troubling elements of a case that has produced a confession, a recantation, a second confession, a mistrial, and ultimately no one held responsible for whatever happened to a three month old girl.

An Hour Before Anyone Called for Help

Jessica Day did not call 911 immediately upon finding Arieanna missing. Instead, according to evidence later presented at trial, she spent close to an hour communicating by phone and through Facebook Messenger with Andrew Christopher Terry, the man believed to be Arieanna's biological father, with whom Jessica had reportedly been arguing over custody and paternity questions in the period before the baby vanished. The most striking message exchanged during this window, and the one that would come to define public understanding of the case, was Jessica's own question to Terry, asking him directly whether he was harming their daughter or attempting to set her up for murder. Only after this extended private exchange did Jessica finally contact police, at 11:00 p.m., roughly ninety minutes after she said she had first discovered Arieanna gone.

A Scene With No Clear Answers

When police arrived at the Hanover Avenue residence, they found no signs of forced entry, though the home itself had been left unlocked. Investigators also detected the smell of cigarette smoke inside Arieanna's bedroom, a detail that added to the sense that something about the household's account of that night did not fully add up. Arieanna was last seen wearing a pink onesie and pink socks, and beyond the traces left in her own bedroom, there was little physical evidence at the scene itself to explain how a sleeping infant had simply vanished from a locked household.

A Confession About a Shallow Grave

Suspicion quickly turned toward Andrew Terry, and investigators eventually obtained a confession from him describing what he said had happened. According to Terry's account, Arieanna appeared to be injured when he picked her up from her mother's apartment, and she died in his lap as he drove back toward his home in Blacksburg. He told investigators he had stopped just outside town, scooped out a shallow grave using only his hands near a set of railroad tracks close to the intersection of Cedar Run Road and Jennelle Road, covered her small body with leaves, and left her there. When investigators searched the location Terry described, they found nothing, and Terry subsequently recanted the entire confession. The following day, he confessed again, repeating largely the same account of burying Arieanna near the railroad tracks. He later recanted a second time, claiming he had only led police to that specific spot in order to demonstrate that Arieanna was not actually buried there.

Cell Phone Data and an Unexplained Pause

Prosecutors built much of their case around cell phone and GPS location data that placed Terry's movements on the night in question. That data showed his phone pausing for approximately six minutes at the intersection of Jennelle Road and Cedar Run Road, precisely the location he had separately described in his confession. Prosecutors argued this six minute stop represented the window during which Terry buried Arieanna's body. Search dogs and forensic teams who combed the wooded area around that intersection, however, never recovered any remains, any DNA, any blood, or even footprints connecting the specific site to Arieanna, leaving the cell phone data as largely the strongest piece of evidence prosecutors were able to present.

A Mother's Own Shifting Account

Jessica Day's own statements to investigators proved just as inconsistent as Terry's confessions, and arguably complicated the case even further. She initially told police that Arieanna had suffocated while breastfeeding, and that she had performed CPR in response, an account she later admitted was entirely false, attributing the false statement to what she described as a suppressed memory. She separately told police at another point that the baby had fallen from a carrier, another claim that did not hold up. At various points, she suggested someone had taken the baby from her, though she could not recall specifically asking Terry to bring Arieanna back, and she did not initially disclose to investigators that she had given the baby to Terry at all that night. She also told Terry's own defense attorney at one point that Arieanna was safe and well, despite claiming elsewhere that she had not actually seen the child, and she suggested at one point that Terry's cousin may have taken the baby, a claim she later retracted as well.

A Judge Calls It a Hot Mess

Terry's first trial took place in September 2019, and the presiding judge did not mince words in describing the proceedings, characterizing the case as a hot mess given the sheer number of inconsistent statements coming from Jessica Day, from police, from Terry himself, and from other witnesses involved. The judge went so far as to question openly how prosecutors could even establish that Arieanna was dead at all, given the complete absence of a body or any forensic confirmation of her fate. After approximately four hours of deliberation, the jury remained deadlocked and unable to reach a unanimous verdict. When the judge directed them to continue deliberating, they returned just fifteen minutes later still unable to agree. The judge declared a mistrial, and Terry was released from custody, with prosecutors indicating they would need time to evaluate whether to pursue a second trial.

A Retrial That Never Happened

Prosecutors did initially move to retry Terry, with a new trial date set for April 1, 2020. That retrial was delayed multiple times, and in November 2020, Montgomery County's commonwealth's attorney, Mary Pettitt, formally moved to drop the charge of concealing a dead body against Terry entirely. Prosecutors framed the decision as an opportunity for both Roanoke City and Montgomery County to continue building the strongest possible case going forward, emphasizing that the broader investigation into Arieanna's disappearance remained active even as the specific charge against Terry was dismissed.

A Mother From Another State Refuses to Let Go

The case might have faded from public attention entirely if not for the efforts of Mallory Thornton, a mother of three from North Carolina who discovered Arieanna's story on social media years after the initial investigation had stalled. Thornton transformed her interest in the case into active advocacy, raising more than 6,000 dollars through a GoFundMe campaign in February 2023 specifically to hire a private investigator to continue pursuing answers. She also commissioned an artist to produce an age progressed image depicting what Arieanna might look like if she were still alive today, and organized a candlelight vigil held at Melrose Park in Roanoke on March 25, 2023, honoring Arieanna alongside other unresolved cold cases in the area. Thornton has been direct about her commitment to the case, stating publicly that she intends to make sure it does not go cold, and that even if it takes another five years, she will keep pushing until Arieanna receives whatever justice can still be found.

A Department That Says the Case Remains Open

The Roanoke Police Department has confirmed that Arieanna's case remains formally active, even as officials have declined to share additional investigative details publicly. A department spokesperson stated only that they hope one day to be able to hold those responsible for her disappearance accountable, language that acknowledges both the department's continued belief that someone is responsible and the reality that, years later, no one actually has been.

Still Missing

More than seven years after Arieanna Renee Day disappeared from her own bedroom during a night that ended with her mother asking her father by text message whether he was harming their daughter, no one has been convicted of anything connected to her disappearance, and her body has never been found. Andrew Terry's own confession, repeated and then withdrawn twice over, remains the closest thing the case has produced to an actual account of what happened to her, an account that a jury ultimately could not agree was true beyond a reasonable doubt, and one that searches of the specific location he described have never been able to physically confirm.

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