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December 02, 2005
Remains May Be Missing Gehring Kids
Two bodies discovered in Ohio may be those of two New Hampshire children whose father confessed to killing them and burying them somewhere along a 700-mile stretch of the Midwest 2½ years ago, authorities said Friday.
Police and the FBI said a dog that bolted from its owner during a walk Thursday found two shallow graves with human remains wrapped in plastic near Interstate 80, also known as the Ohio Turnpike.
Scott Wilson, a spokesman with the FBI's Cleveland office, said he could not comment on the gender or age of the bodies, but added: "We're looking into the possibility the bodies might be linked to those missing kids."
If tests confirm the remains are those of Sarah and Philip Gehring of Concord, N.H., the discovery will end a long and frustrating search that ranged 700 miles across the Midwest.
Sarah, 14, and Philip, 11, were shot to death by their father, Manuel Gehring, as he fled across the country in July 2003. Gehring confessed to the slayings but strangled himself in prison before he could be tried.
He told police he buried the children somewhere along a stretch of interstate between Pennsylvania and Iowa, but he could not pinpoint the spot. He described the site as having tall grass, concrete pipes, a wire fence, an old water pump and a yellowish building.
Extensive searches turned up no evidence of the graves, and some officials despaired of ever finding the bodies.
"I'm numb," Gehring's ex-wife and the children's mother, Teri Knight, said from her home in Hillsboro, N.H., where she was watching news reports. "We've learned to take things sometimes week-to-week and month-to-month, and today it's minute-to-minute."
Gehring, an unemployed accountant, had been locked in a custody dispute with his ex-wife, who had remarried. Gehring's ex-wife and her husband said they searched within five miles of Hudson earlier this fall.
The children were last seen arguing with their father at a July Fourth fireworks display. Gehring said he pulled off the highway later that night and shot the children, then drove for hours with their bodies in his van.
He said he eventually wrapped his children in plastic and buried them with duct-tape crosses on their chests.
He was arrested in California a week after the children disappeared.
Posted by Nealus at December 2, 2005 07:04 PM
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