Day was the original Disney Mousketeer who was found dead in his Phoenix home, months after he disappeared.
The suspect in the case, Daniel Burda, appeared before the court of appeals yesterday.
The Jackson County District Attorney’s Office is now waiting for the case to be back in their jurisdiction.
Jackson County Deputy DA Virginia Grier said, “the evidence that was suppressed by the court, the majority of it we got back through this opinion.”
Prosecutors said handyman Daniel Burda, who was living with Phoenix man Dennis Day at the time he went missing, shoved the elderly man to the ground in 2018 and let Day die by not taking other actions to prevent it.
He’s pleaded not guilty.
But the criminal case stalled, when much of the evidence in the case was deemed inadmissible.
Now, prosecutors said they have recovered most of it through an appeal.
Grier said, “we got an opinion on September 8th that dealt with the issues that we had appealed and we are waiting for that process to end before we have jurisdiction again in the case.”
The confrontation between Day and Burda started when Day allegedly kicked Burda out of his home.
Neighbor Ally Jensen said, “they would always be arguing, you know, loud enough to where we could hear.”
NBC 5 interviewed Day’s neighbor back in 2019.
She told us she had a hard time getting over how police missed day’s body.
“That bothered me so much, that, you know, he was right here in our backyard. We had been searching everywhere else,” Jensen said.
Day’s badly decomposed body was found by police in his own home, months after he was reported missing.
The Day Family’s Attorney Erin Gould said, “neighbors were calling the police station complaining about smells that were clearly smells of death, of a rotting corpse.”
When OSP finally took over the case, a dog quickly found what was left of day’s body, under a large mound of clothes.
OSP’s Sergeant Proulx said, “it was difficult to determine who the person was that we found in that house.”
Burda was charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, abuse of a corpse, and identity theft.
Jensen said, “I hope that the family finds peace with knowing.”
As they await the result of the criminal process, Day’s family has filed a $2.2 million civil suit against Phoenix Police and Lieutenant Jeffrey Price.
That lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial next year.
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