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A man and his girlfriend have been arrested after his nine-year-old daughter’s corpse was found inside a tote bag in a storage unit.
Jose Gomez-Alvarez, 31, and Cheyanne Porter, 27, were charged with tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse on Tuesday, 4th October.
The arrest came after cops found the remains of Alianna Maya Gomez-Alvarez, 9, in a storage container rented by Porter in Owensboro, the state of Kentucky, USA.
She reportedly died of convulsions after being locked in the family’s basement for an extended period of time.
Deputies received a complaint that little Aliana had been missing after the witness claimed they had not seen the girl for quite a while on Friday, 30th September.
Daviess County Sheriff’s Office revealed in a statement: “The caller stated that Jose Gomez-Alvarez and Cheyanne Porter care for several children, however, one particular female child hadn’t been with them for some time.
“The caller stated that they had different excuses as to why this child was never with the other children and believed something may have happened to the child.”
Police soon discovered the two offenders had been constantly moving from one place to another, and had even rented multiple hotel rooms in various states throughout the whole year.
After they failed to respond to a Facebook post shared by the police to locate them and check the welfare of the children, the sheriff issued a missing person’s report on Alianna.
Shortly after detectives gathered information that led them to a depot facility located in the 3400 block of New Hartford Road in Owensboro on 4th October.
There they found a storage container rented by Porter for which they immediately obtained a search warrant.
The statement said: “Upon searching the contents, a tote was located with suspected human remains.
“The Daviess County Coroner’s Office was contacted and transported the human remains to the Medical Examiner’s Office in Madisonville, Kentucky for autopsy and future positive identification.”
Authorities issued arrest warrants against Gomez-Alvarez and Porter after which they were located and arrested in Berea, Kentucky.
An affidavit obtained by Evansville NBC affiliate WFIE provided additional information suggesting that Alianna had not been seen since November last year.
According to the document, one of the deceased girl’s siblings told the officers that “Alianna had died in their home in Evansville, and pointed them in the direction of the storage units.”
She also pointed out that her father and his girlfriend had neglected them.
Meanwhile, the suspects appeared in court on Wednesday, 5th October.
They are both held on USD 100,000 (GBP 88,900) bonds and are awaiting their preliminary hearing scheduled for Wednesday, 12th October.
The investigation continues.
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