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Background: The storage facility in Evansville, Indiana, where the child”s body was reportedly found (WEHT/WTVW/YouTube). Inset left: Chyanne Vanegas Porter (Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office). Inset right: Jose Gomez-Alvarez (Madison County Jail).
A woman faces accusations of abusing her boyfriend’s daughter, who allegedly died from starvation, with her remains subsequently concealed in a tote and stored in a Kentucky facility.
In December 2024, 30-year-old Chyanne Porter was found guilty of complicity in criminal abuse, tampering with evidence, and corpse abuse. Following her conviction, she was held in Daviess County, Kentucky, for over a year. On Tuesday, she was transferred to the custody of the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana.
Porter faces charges in Indiana, including neglect of a dependent, obstruction of justice, corpse abuse, and failing to report a dead body.
Alianna Maya Gomez-Alvarez, just 9 years old, was last seen in November 2021. Authorities noted that neither Porter nor the child’s father, Jose Gomez-Alvarez, filed a missing persons report.
It was not until September 2022 that a report was made to the Daviess County Sheriff’s Office concerning the girl’s absence. The sheriff’s office stated during the investigation that the informant mentioned Porter and Jose Gomez-Alvarez cared for several children, but one young girl had been missing for some time.
As Law&Crime previously reported, deputies’ investigation led them to a storage facility located on New Hartford Road in Owensboro, Kentucky, and once they searched its contents, they found a tote with the child’s remains wrapped in a blanket inside.
Investigators responded to the family’s home in Evansville, Indiana, and learned that Alianna was one of three children Jose Gomez-Alvarez had from a previous relationship, regional NBC affiliate WFIE reported. The couple also shared two of their own children.
According to an affidavit reviewed by the outlet, the parents took better care of their two shared children, including by feeding them properly, than they did the other three kids. The children apparently had a lot to say once investigators asked them about their sister and living situation.
Chyanne Porter and Jose Gomez-Alvarez (Madison County Jail)
“Can I tell you something?” one of them reportedly asked. “My mom killed Alianna and then put her in the basement.”
“My mom never fed her. She was very very skinny. She got skinny when my mom didn’t feed her,” the child added, per WFIE.
Another kid said Porter and Jose Gomez-Alvarez would hit, choke, and starve them, and they believed Alianna had starved to death. After the victim’s death and alleged placement in their basement, the parents put her body into the tote, checked into the Days Inn in Owensboro, Kentucky, and placed the bag into the storage unit — as the child put it — as if it were a box of toys.
Porter was sentenced to seven years after her conviction in Kentucky. Jose Gomez-Alvarez, who was 34 at the time, was sentenced to five years after pleading guilty to abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence, per The Owensboro Times. There are no indications he also faces charges in Indiana.
A trial for Porter in Indiana has not yet been announced. It does not appear that she has entered a plea.