Suspect Named In Girl's Slaying Investigated In Other Crimes

Police on Friday named the suspect in the abduction and slaying of a 12-year-old Tacoma girl and said the 42-year-old man is being investigated in connection with other crimes -- locally and in other parts of the country.

Police Chief Don Ramsdell told reporters that Tacoma police "will continue to be diligent to bring the suspect, Terapon Adhahn, to justice" in the slaying of Zina Linnik, who was kidnapped from an alley near her home on July 4.

Police announced on Thursday night that Zina's body had been found. Ramsdell said it was recovered from a rural area of eastern Pierce County, but he declined to provide the exact location. An autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death.

Ramsdell said Adhahn is being charged with failing to register as a sex offender and that he would be charged in Zina's abduction and death.

Adhahn, a Thai immigrant who was convicted of incest in 1990, is being held at a federal detention center in connection with alleged immigration violations.

On July 4, Zina was sent down the alley behind her home to bring back some of her siblings, who had been watching neighbors set off fireworks, police said.

Her father, Mikhail Linnik, heard her scream, found a single flip flop on the ground and saw a boxy gray van driving away. His description of that van eventually led authorities to Adhahn -- and information from him man led them to the little girl's body.

A search of the home where Adhahn had been staying turned up "girl's undergarments," according to a search warrant return.

Adhahn denied any involvement in Zina's disappearance and said he was not in Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood July 4, Detective L.J. Wade wrote in an affidavit filed in Pierce County Superior Court in support of the search warrant application.

Investigators and forensic experts from the FBI searched the home on Monday, seizing items including used vacuum cleaner filters, bedding, black plastic sheeting and the undergarments, on which the search warrant return did not provide further details.

Adhahn was later transferred to federal immigration detention in Tacoma because he could face deportation for his 1990 incest conviction, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said earlier this week. But he also has been charged in Pierce County with failing to register as a sex offender, and would face that charge before being deported.

Court records show Adhahn was charged in 1990 with raping a 16-year-old relative. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of first-degree incest in exchange for completing 60 months of sexual-deviancy counseling.

Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulgham said investigators were reviewing two other child homicides and two to three other disappearances for any connection to Adhahn.

Some of those cases include: --Michella Welch, 12, of Tacoma, whose body was found hours after the girl disappeared from Puget Park on March 26, 1986. --Jennifer Bastian, 13, of Tacoma, who was found dead Aug. 28, 1986, in Point Defiance Park, where she'd been last seen riding her bicycle two weeks earlier. --Lenoria Jones, 4, of Tacoma, who disappeared July 20, 1995. --Adre'anna Jackson, a 10-year-old Tillicum girl whose body was found April 4, 2006, four months after she disappeared.

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