Former Grundy County resident Daniel Porter was sentenced on Friday to 38 years in prison on charges related to the kidnapping of his two children, who left with their father nearly two years ago and have not been seen since.
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Former Grundy County resident Daniel Porter was sentenced on Friday to 38 years in prison on charges related to the kidnapping of his two children, who left with their father nearly two years ago and have not been seen since.
Porter received 15 years in prison on each of two counts of kidnapping to terrorize his former wife as well as four years on each of two counts of parental kidnapping. The sentences are to run consecutively and result in the 38-year prison term, which was the maximum available in the case. Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Michael W. Manners has also ruled that Porter must serve an additional three years for violating an early probation on charges of unlawful weapons possession and domestic assault.
Porter was charged in connection with the kidnapping and disappearance of his children, Lindsey and Sam, whom Porter picked up from their mother’s Independence home in June 2004. The children were never returned to their home and Porter was later arrested in Grundy County. He has told authorities various accounts as to what might have happened to the children, but officials have yet to determine what the actual fate of the two might be.
According to a report in the Kansas City Star, Porter would not verbally state what might have happened to the children. However, as he left the courtroom, Porter held up a legal pad to block his face and on the back of that legal pad was the word “Chloe.” The Star reported that there is a Chloe Lowry Marsh Natural Area about two miles northwest of Princeton and that Porter had talked about Princeton in a telephone call with one of his relatives. He said that he wanted his ex-wife, Tina Porter, to think that the children were dead.
“That way, they can look for dead bodies in the woods by my house in Trenton and down where I hunted in Princeton,” he allegedly told the relative.
Law enforcement authorities were quoted in the Star as saying they weren’t aware of the area, but planned to check it out. Mercer County Sheriff Duane Hobbs said this morning that he had yet to be contacted by anyone from the Independence Police Department since the sentencing on Friday. However, he did say the sheriff’s department had checked out some leads for Independence authorities a little over a year ago.