Clear 'Picture' Of Kids' Gravesite

Authorities know what they're looking for looks like, just not where it is.

Prosecutors who charged a New Hampshire man with murdering his two children said Tuesday they were searching for a burial site, most likely in northern Indiana, southern Michigan or northeastern Illinois.

No bodies have been found, though an indictment announced Monday says Manuel Gehring, 44, shot his children to death in New Hampshire sometime around July 4. Authorities have refused to say why they suspect that.

Gehring and the children, Sarah, 14, and Philip, 11, were last seen in Concord on July 4. He was arrested July 10 in Gilroy, Calif. He left California under police and FBI escort last week and was expected to return to New Hampshire on Tuesday.

New Hampshire Attorney General Peter W. Heed said Gehring will be arraigned first on an interference with child custody charge and later on murder charges.

The FBI, state and local police have searched for the bodies along the Concord-to-California route Gehring drove in the days after the alleged murders. Assistant Attorney General Jeff Strelzin said Monday the formal search had ended, although authorities still hoped to make a discovery.

The suspected site was described as a rural, grassy area about 10 to 15 miles on either side of Interstate 80, from around the Indiana-Ohio state line to Joliet, Ill., a distance of around 190 miles. The site is near a two-lane road, authorities said. Interstate 80 snakes across far northern Indiana, not far from the Michigan state line.

Though they are focusing on Indiana to Joliet, authorities said the full search area stretches from Grove City, Pa., to Iowa City, Iowa. There is a $5,000 reward for whomever finds the site, state Attorney General Peter Heed said.

Prosecutors said the bodies were buried during the daylight hours, probably on July 5. Among other things, prosecutors said, the burial site has several large trees, an old-fashioned water pump, concrete cylinders similar to sewer drain pipe, and a large yellow or tan building nearby.

"Because the potential site covers so many hundreds of miles .... the farmer, the fisherman, the kids, the high school people, the local police officers, townspeople, may know some of these specific facts," Heed said at a news conference.

Prosecutors would not say how authorities learned of the burial site, and have not said whether Gehring cooperated in the search.

Paul Martinek, a lawyer and editor of Lawyers Weekly USA in Boston, said Gehring almost certainly is cooperating, or authorities would not have taken him to the Midwest.

However, Martinek told the Manchester (N.H.) Union-Leader the long, cross-country trip could cause problems if Gehring's public defender claims later that he was coerced to cooperate without a lawyer present.

Gehring, a 44-year-old accountant, was arrested in California on July 10 and has been with detectives in the Midwest since July 15, apparently helping authorities in their search for the bodies. Authorities say he has been held at various jails in the Midwest.

He had been in a custody battle with his ex-wife. Authorities said he did not return the children to her July 6, as agreed. Gehring's ex-wife, Teresa Knight, said in court papers July 7 that he had told her in a "very agitated and angry" call that he had no intention of abiding by a new custody agreement.

Authorities said Gehring left after arguing with his daughter at a Fourth of July fireworks show in Concord, where he lived. According to prosecutors and court records, both children were crying as they walked to his car.

A half-hour later, all cell phone activity on Gehring and Sarah's cell phones abruptly ceased, reported the Union-Leader.

His trip was traced across the country, mainly on Interstate 80, using credit card receipts. Authorities from Pennsylvania to California helped in the investigation.

Gehring's neighbor and close friend Linda DeSantis, whose children both played with Philip, said she is struggling to understand why Gehring might have killed his children.

"I just wish he would say something to somebody about where they are, so they can be brought home properly," she said.