For more than a week, family members had been desperately searching for a missing Riverside County Native woman who they said was fleeing an abusive relationship, and Sunday morning they made a devastating discovery.
The family’s search party found the body of Amy Porter, 43, in a desert area near the side of Interstate 10 in Yucaipa, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department reported. Porter was a member of Morongo Band of Mission Indians and the subject of one Feather Alert over the weekend.
She was last seen in Lake Elisnore on Sept. 14, the department said.
Frustrated by a perceived lack of urgency from authorities, her family launched their own search Sunday morning after hearing reports that Porter had been involved in a car accident in Yucaipa.
The cause of death is currently unknown. The Sheriff’s Department is investigating the case and an autopsy will be performed on the body.
While family members said they were glad those steps were taken, they said her disappearance should have been investigated more thoroughly from the start.
“Unfortunately, the authorities have not been as helpful as we would like them to be,” Angelina Lyons, Porter’s cousin, told OnScene.TV Sunday morning. “We feel things were not taken seriously.”
For example, Lyons said, she discovered blood on the mattress and clothes in Porter’s bedroom, but she said authorities did not take a closer look.
“Now they want to do their jobs, they want to investigate, want to go to the house,” she said. “They finally want to take what we’ve seen. We knew better.”
Porter’s cousin Shannon Quesada and Lyons said they believed she was trying to flee danger when she was involved in a car accident.
No arrests have yet been made. Porter’s boyfriend, whose name was unavailable late Monday, has not been linked to the case. He was taken into custody by Pomona police on Friday on an unrelated parole violation, local news stations reported.
“She was seen running from a hotel they were both at, on foot, barefoot, running to her suburb,” Quesada said.
Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact Detective Daniel Berumen at (909) 890-4904. Anonymous tips can be left at (800) 782-7463 or the WeTip website.