Teen's Family Searches For Answers, Remains Of Missing Girl

WESTMINSTER, Colo. (CBS4)- The body of Lea Porter has never been found after she went missing in June 2014. Her family believes she is dead and wants help to try and get the man who has been arrested in connection with her death convicted.

Porter's family promises to use donations to their GoFundMe page for cadaver dogs to search for the 19-year-old's remains.

Christopher Waide, 23, has been charged with first-degree murder even though Porter's body has never been found.

Porter was visiting Waide at his apartment in Westminster when she disappeared last year. Her family says she rejected his romantic advances.

Waide originally denied any involvement in Porter's death but apparently admitted to killing her a short time later.

Porter's mother posted a video on the Help Find Lea Porter Facebook page where she said they had hoped to find her daughter's body by now.

"Lea's body is not where Lea is right now," said her mother Renee Porter.

Porter's family has continued to search for her even after police stopped. They've been searching in landfills after Waide is said to have confessed to putting her body in a dumpster.

With the GoFundMe page, 32 people have donated more than $1,200 in just 13 days.

"You go through a lot of different emotions and degrees of pain," said Richard Berrellez, a man who knows what the Porter family is going through.

Berrellez's 5-year-old granddaughter was kidnapped and killed in the early 90s. Now he trains and runs a nonprofit that connects bloodhounds to police departments and cases.

He said cadaver dogs need a specific area to search.

"They have to have a good idea because cadaver dogs don't trail or track... they search," said Berrellez. "The dog doesn't take you to a cadaver, you take the dog to the cadaver to where the area is."

Porter's family has hired a private investigator who says they've pinpointed four search locations, all bodies of water, based on the pings from Porter's cellphone.

They plan to take the cadaver dog team to those area with the hope of finding Lea.

"Say a prayer for her, ask God to help us find her and that will help me," said Renee.

Porter's family said all remaining funds, above their needs for the cadaver dogs, will be contributed to other families searching for their loved ones.