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 is accused of abusing her boyfriend’s daughter, who is believed to have died from starvation and whose body was then stuffed into a tote and left inside a storage facility in Kentucky.
Chyanne Porter, 30, was convicted in December 2024 on charges of complicity in criminal abuse, tampering with physical evidence, and abuse of a corpse. She remained jailed in Daviess County, Kentucky, for more than a year after her conviction, until, on Tuesday, she was transferred to the custody of the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana.
The defendant stands charged in The Hoosier State with nine counts, including neglect of a dependent, obstruction of justice, abuse of a corpse, and failure to report a dead body.
Alianna Maya Gomez-Alvarez was 9 years old when she was last seen in November 2021. However, neither Porter nor the child’s father — Jose Gomez-Alvarez — filed a missing persons report, authorities said.
It wasn’t until September 2022 that someone contacted the Daviess County Sheriff’s Office about the girl’s apparent absence from the family. The law enforcement agency said at the time of its investigation that “the caller stated” that Porter and Jose Gomez-Alvarez “care for several children, however, one particular female child hadn’t been with them 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.
