THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2007
NEWS
7A
MISSING CHILDREN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Roads into a remote area remained blocked by police Monday in Sugar Creek, Mo. Police looking for Sam and Lindsey Porter, two children missing since 2004, found a shallow grave in the area Sunday containing human bones. The children's mother, Tina Porter, said she had been told by police they were likely the remains of her two younge children.
Bones may be Porter children
Experts try to identify remains found in shallow grave
BY MARIA SUDEKUM FISHER ASSOCIATED PRESS
SUGAR CREEK, Mo. — Anthropologists on Monday were examining bones that the mother of two missing children said police claimed were likely those of her young children, last seen when her estranged husband picked them up for a weekend visit in 2004.
Tom Gentry, spokesman for the Independence police department, said the remains, believed to be human, were found Sunday in a shallow grave near the Missouri River after crews were called in to work on the case of the two missing children, Sam and Lindsey Porter. He said anthropologists had been called in to examine the remains, but Gentry would not identify the anthropologists or say what agencies they were associated with.
"The anthropologists are out there. They'll need some time for packaging and mapping the remains, and they're photographing the site to make a document of the excavation," Gentry said.
The children were 7 and 8 years old when their father, Dan Porter, picked them up from his estranged wife, Tina Porter, on June 5, 2004. The children's whereabouts have remained a mystery, and Dan Porter has told several different stories about what happened to them.
Porter, 44, was convicted in
February 2006 of parental kidnapping with the intent to terrorize his ex-wife and sentenced to 38 years in prison.
"We're cautiously optimistic of bringing some sort of resolution to this case," Gentry said during a news conference Monday.
The land where the bones were found Sunday is in a wooded, industrial area near Sugar Creek, a small Jackson County town east of Kansas City. Investigators looking for the children had searched the area before, and Gentry said Porter knew the area.
"Mr. Porter used that area as one of his hunting grounds, so he was very familiar with that area," Gentry said, although he declined to say exactly why investigators were called back to the area.
After his arrest on the kidnapping charges, Porter told authorities several stories about what he had done with his children, including that he had cut them up and that he had strangled them.
On Sunday, The Kansas City Star reported that Tina Porter said police told her the remains were likely those of the children.
On Monday, however, Tina Porter's sister, Tami Gochenour, told The Associated Press the family wanted to be completely certain of what was found before making a public statement.
"We need to know; we need verification before we say anything," Gochenour said from Tina Porter's home in Independence.
Gentry also said police had not identified the remains and were not saying they were those of the Porter children.
"We want to be very cautious before we make any definitive statements," Gentry said. "Whatever we have to say, we're going to be sure that it's right."
Gentry did not know if teeth were found at the site, but he said that if they are found, it's possible authorities could use dental records to identify the remains.
"If it's determined that those remains are the Porter children, and this is just speculation, and if it's determined that's where they died, any charges would be filed in Sugar Creek," he said.
The remains were found on land owned by La Farge North America, where Dan Porter used to poach deer. It also is in an area where Dan and Tina Porter met on the day he took the children. Police said he asked Tina Porter to meet him near the area so they could exchange vehicles.
Tina Porter said that when she met Dan Porter, the children weren't with him. She said Dan Porter tried to get her to drive her pickup into the woods by telling her that he had stashed $50,000 there and wanted to get it. She refused.
CRIME
Mob secrets exposed in trial
Frank Calabrese's own son helped the FBI tape conversations with his father while both were serving time for a loan-sharking conviction. In court, the son translated for jurors: When his father tells him to "keep 10 boxes of Spam ham," He's telling me to keep $1,000 a month for myself" he said.
BY MIKE ROBINSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
"He would shoot you in the head over cold ravioli," Lopez declared.
CHICAGO — A federal jury found five men guilty Monday in a racketeering conspiracy that involved decades of extortion, loan sharking and murder aimed at rubbing out anyone who dared stand in the way of the ruthless Chicago mob.
In Spilotro's case, witnesses testified that mob higher-ups were enraged at him for making side deals with the potential to attract federal investigators. It seemed he was also having a love affair with another mobster's wife.
The verdicts capped an extraordinary 10-week trial that laid bare some of the inner workings of The Outfit.
Witnesses described former friends being blindly lured to their deaths, the relentless squeezing of a mob bookie and a pizza restaurant operator for thousands of dollars in "street tax," and clandestine rituals where the newly initiated "made guys" had their fingers cut and were required to take an oath while holding burning religious pictures.
The prosecution's star witness was an admitted hit man who took the stand against his own brother to spell out the allegations. The jury heard about 18 unsolved killings, including the beating death and cornfield burial of Tony "The Ant" Spliotro, the mob's man in Las Vegas and the inspiration for Joe Pescis' character in the 1995 movie "Casino."
Lombardo also took the stand and admitted running what his attorney, Rick Halprin, called "the oldest and most reliable floating crap game on Grand Avenue". But he denied committing murder or being part of mob.
The jury deliberated for fewer than 20 hours. The defendants, all but one of whom already have spent years behind bars, simply looked on, pokerfaced, as the clerk read the verdicts.
Frank Calebrese's attorney, Joseph Lopez, had urged jurors not to trust his client's brother.
The government's star witness was Nicholas Calabrese, an admitted hit man who cooperated with the government in hopes of avoiding a death sentence. He said his brother, Frank Calabrese, ran a loan sharking business and specialized in strangling victims with a rope, then cutting their throats to make certain that they were dead.
It was a sweeping victory for prosecutors. The five men were found guilty on all counts, including racketeering conspiracy, bribery, illegal gambling and tax fraud.
Yet his brother described a 1983 killing in which the two blasted away on a Cicero street, killing two.
Alleged mobboss James Marcello, 65; alleged capo capo Joseph "Joey the clobm" Lombardio, 78; convicted loan shark Frank Calabrese Sr.,
"In my mind, I knew I had to do this because if I didn't, my brother would have flattened me," Nicholas Calabrese testified. "I would have been left there."
court that he associated with mofsters, but he denied being one himself.
70; and convicted jewel thief Paul Schiro, 70, could now face up to life in prison. The fifth man, retired Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle, 62, was the only one among the five not accused of taking part in at least one killing.
The trial focused on the killings, ordinarily among the deepest and most closely held secrets of the mob, whose members have sworn an oath of silence. The jurors' next task is to determine which men were responsible for each of the 18 deaths.
From the start, prosecutors asked the jurors to forget what they learned from "The Godfather" movies, but the testimony that followed was fit for a Hollywood script.
Frank Calabrese admitted in
ODD NEWS
Lifetime synagogue seats on eBay start at $1.8 million
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Just in time for the Jewish high holidays, two lifetime front-row seats to services at a synagogue are being auctioned off on eBay. The bidding starts at $1.8 million.
The lucky winner's family name will be engraved on Seats 1 and 2 of the first row at Temple Emanuel. The winner also will receive free
"It's a gift that goes from one generation to another," said Rabbi Kliel Rose.
parking, two custom-made prayer shawls and yarmulkes, and a hefty tax write-off. Plus, the winning bidder can pass the seats down to his or her children.
As of Saturday evening, no one had made a wager. Rose said he wasn't surprised. He said the auction was more about gaining the attention of Jews who are disconnected from their faith.
"It has very little to do with the money," Rose said. "If the money comes, it would be great, but the idea was really just to be edgy."
Temple Emanu-El is a 1,400-seat conservative congregation that was founded in the 1940s on South Beach. It had thousands of members in its heyday, but the temple shrunk to a little more than 200 families by the time Rose arrived two years ago.
Associated Press