Police in Minnesota are losing hope for a woman who has been missing for eleven days, after her boyfriend was arrested with burn wounds to his face nearly 700 miles away in Arkansas.
Cristina Prodan, 27, was reported missing from the town of Edina on January 5. Five days later, her troubled boyfriend, Joseph Porter, was arrested in Jacksonville, Arkansas for theft.
Police spokesman Kaylin Eidsness told the Star Tribune on Monday that additional charges against Porter, in connection to his girlfriend’s disappearance, could come as early as Tuesday.
Cristina Prodan, 27 (left), was reported missing from Edina, Minnesota on January 5, a few days after taking her abusive boyfriend, Joseph Porter (right), back. Porter was arrested in Arkansas five days after she went missing, with burns on his face
Prodan’s mother Livia says her daughter invited Porter to move in with her in October after the two met online.
Soon after they started living together, Porter allegedly became abusive, and Prodan eventually took out a restraining order against them.
On December 28, Porter pleaded guilty to violating the order, and he was esntenced to time served.
Prodan’s mother says police have told her they believe her daughter is dead
Prodan invited Porter to move in with her in her apartment (above) in Edina, Minnesota in October, after neeting him online
Soon after, he got back together with Prodan and she went missing just a few days later.
Last week, Livia Prodan told WCCO that local police had told her they believed her daughter was dead.
Porter (pictured in a mugshot last month) allegedly became abusive and Porter took out a restraining order against him
‘The deputies told me that they are looking for the body, but I don’t know if they find it or not,’ the mother told Fox 9 on Monday.
Livia says she warned her daughter away from Porter.
‘She felt in love with him – she wanted to get married,’ the mother said. ‘I told her, “He doesn’t love you, he just came to you to steal from you – he’s homeless, he doesn’t work.”‘
Porter has a lengthy criminal record with arrests for battery, burglary, and property damage in Arkansas, where he also lived.
He was also the subject of another no-contact order with another woman in Hennepin County,Minnesota in 2014.
In one case, discovered by WCCO, a girlfriend wrote that Porter ‘beat her unconscious…and killed her dog violently.’
Porter violated the restraining order, but Pordan (left and right) took him back soon after. She went missing a few days later