Person of Interest in Teague Case Questioned in SC Disappearance
Published: Dec. 3, 2004 at 10:29 PM CST|Updated: Dec. 7, 2004 at 11:48 AM CST
Reporter: Shannon Samson
Web Producer: Amber Griswold
There is new information about a Henderson native being investigated in the case of Heather Teague.
Last month, Newswatch reporter Shannon Samson broke the story of Chris Below, currently serving time in Ohio for murder. The detective in that case also named Below as a person of interest in the abduction of Heather Teague in 1995.
Friday night we learned Below's now being looked at in another missing person's case. This time in South Carolina.
South Carolina resident Kristina Porco was only 16 when she disappeared on November 29th, 1986.
Lieutenant Bob Bromage of Beaufort County, South Carolina Sheriff's Department, inherited the cold case from fellow detectives in 1999.
Lt. Bromage explained, "Kristina Porco walked away from her residence in Hilton Head Island after having a domestic dispute with her parents. She had made a phone call at a public pay phone across the street at a supermarket and essentially was never heard from again."
But it wasn't until 2003 that he would get a significant lead, a call from Medina, Ohio Police Detective Scott Thomas.
He called to say he'd been going through some items seized from an apartment that belonged to Christopher Below. Among his things was a Kristina Porco missing persons flyer. It was a red flag for Detective Thomas, who was about to charge Below with the murder of his former lover Kathern Fetzer.
Lt. Bromage said, "When they were conducting the investigation into Kathern Fetzer, they came across these belongings and in these belongings was a missing persons flyer of Kristina Porco, so obviously it warranted further investigation on my part at that point."
Below is also a "person of interest" in the Heather Teague missing persons case. Below, a 1985 Union County High School graduate, was in western Kentucky on August 26th, 1995 when Heather disappeared. Within days, he moved out of state.
Plus, investigators believe the cases may be related because the three women bear a striking resemblance to one another. They got Below to confess to the murder of Fetzer, but he would not tell him where he put her body. Teague and Porco have never surfaced either, alive or dead.
Lt. Bromage said, "Kathern Fetzer, her body has not been found so there are similarities. And Kristina Porco, if she's alive there's been no contact with her so we have to investigate it as a homicide at this point, although there has been no body found or anything like that."
Last week, Lieutenant Bromage questioned Below about Porco's disappearance in an Ohio prison where he's serving 11-18 years for killing Fetzer. The investigator says he obtained details about Below's background and expects to either eliminate or name him as a suspect within the next few weeks.
Lieutenant Bromage says he's trying to find evidence that Below was in the Hilton Head, South Carolina area in the fall of 1986, when Kristina Porco went missing.
For more information on the case of Kristina Porco, click here.
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