YUCAIPA, Calif. (KABC) — Human remains found in Yucaipa on Sunday have been positively identified as belonging to a missing indigenous woman from Lake Elsinore.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Coroner Division has confirmed that the remains found Sunday morning near the 10 Freeway and Wildwood Canyon Road in Yucaipa belong to 43-year-old Amy Porter.
Porter had been missing since Sept. 14 and the CHP had issued a Feather Alert, designed to ask the public’s help in searching for missing indigenous people. Porter was affiliated with the Morongo tribe.
Updated video: Remains identified
Frustrated with the pace of the official investigation, her friends and family organized their own search party and found the remains in a ravine Sunday morning in the same area where she was apparently involved in a freeway crash days earlier.
They suspect foul play.
Porter’s cousin Shannon Quezada suspects her ex-boyfriend may have been involved.
Two days after she was last seen, it appears Porter was involved in a multivehicle crash on the 10 Freeway in Yucaipa. Quezada says the ex-boyfriend was also involved in the crash and may have intentionally caused it, running into her with another vehicle that also belonged to Porter.
“He talked to her. She was fine. The accident was done to slow her down,” Quezada said. “He intentionally hit her with her other vehicle. He was driving one of her vehicles.”
Multiple law enforcement agencies are involved in the investigation because of the different jurisdictions involved. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department is handling the missing person aspect and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is handling the death investigation.
Authorities have not officially identified the ex-boyfriend as a suspect. But days after she went missing, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department issued a warrant for him on a parole violation, according to Pomona police.
“I know in my heart that he was out here and he was the reason she was fleeing,” Quezada said.