A young girl’s death– and a troubling question

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Last updated: July 14th, 2007 01:24 AM (PDT)

The news that Zina Linnik had been found dead eight days after she was abducted was hard to take.
The Linnik family’s grief is its own, but they should know that the entire South Sound community shares their loss and prays they will find some comfort. Children should be able to play outside without fear of being abducted and killed. When it happens here – to girls like Adre’anna Jackson in 2005, Jennifer Bastian and Michella Welch in 1986, and now Zina – it is a heart-numbing blow.

There is some solace in knowing that Tacoma police are confident that they have Zina’s killer, a Parkland man with a sex offense conviction who reportedly provided information that led to her body. If they are right, and justice is served, he will never be able to hurt another child.

No one has ever been charged with the other girls’ murders, but police say they are looking at whether the suspect in Zina’s death may have been involved in any of them or with other unsolved crimes.

Some have questioned whether police were too slow to issue an Amber Alert after Zina’s abduction was reported. So far that does not look to be the case. If anything, it appears that Tacoma police deserve credit for finding a suspect so quickly. A detective acting on vehicle information provided by Zina’s father and a neighbor was able to quickly narrow the search to a van that led straight to the suspect.

[b]What seems clear is that Zina might be alive today if officials hadn’t dropped the ball back in 1990. That’s when the suspect, Thai immigrant Terapon Adhahn, was convicted of sexually assaulting his 16-year-old half-sister.

Adhahn served a 60-day jail sentence, underwent 60 months of court-ordered treatment and was classified as a Level 1 sex offender. He could have been deported after a 1992 conviction for intimidation with a dangerous weapon. But he wasn’t, and Zina is dead because of it.

A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said, “He escaped our attention.â€