Police confirm remains are missing children

SUGAR CREEK, Mo. -- Human remains found in a shallow grave near the Missouri River are those of two missing children last seen when their father picked them up for a weekend visit in 2004, authorities confirmed Tuesday. Dental records were used to confirm that the remains, found Sunday, were those of Sam and Lindsey Porter, said Tom Gentry, spokesman for the Independence police department.

The children were 7 and 8 years old when their father, Dan Porter, picked them up from his estranged wife for a weekend visit starting June 5, 2004.

Their whereabouts had been a mystery, as Dan Porter told several different stories about what happened to them, including that he had cut them up and that he had strangled them. He was convicted in 2006 of parental kidnapping with the intent to terrorize his ex-wife and sentenced to 38 years in prison.

"Once the bones were identified, there was relief to at least know there is an end to it, but it also touched our heartstrings and made us all very sad," Gentry said.

Gentry would not comment on what led police to the site or whether Dan Porter was involved in helping to find it.

"It's been part of an ongoing investigation," Gentry said. "Even though it has been more than three years, we have never stopped our investigation of this. Any thoughts about exactly how we got here, I cannot answer."

Additional charges have not been filed against him since the bones were found, and Gentry said police plan to present their case to prosecutors soon.

On Monday, police took the children's mother, Tina Porter, to the scene in a wooded, industrial area about 8 miles from Kansas City and near Sugar Creek. Calls to her home in Independence were unanswered Tuesday.

During a tour of the site with reporters, Maj. Gregg Wilkinson said he could not disclose how the children died or whether they died where they had been buried.

"I know, but I can't say," Wilkinson said.

The grave had been covered over and was no longer apparent. It was concealed "not as a deception, but out of respect" to the children, Wilkinson said.

Investigators looking for the children had searched there before, and Gentry has said Porter knew the area because he had hunted there.

It also is where Dan Porter and Tina Porter met on the day he took the children. Police said he asked Tina Porter to meet him near the area to exchange vehicles with him.

"We have had bloodhounds down there. We've had experienced trackers down there," Sugar Creek Police Chief Herb Soule said Tuesday. "We've tried everything known to mankind. It's such a dense area. There's no way you could find anything in there, and there have been other bodies recovered down there over the years."