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TACOMA – Pierce County prosecutors plan to file a charge of aggravated first degree murder against Terapon Adhahn for the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Zina Linnik of Tacoma. Adhahn will be arraigned Monday at 1:30 p.m. After the arraignment, Prosecutor Gerald Horne will have 30 days to decide whether to seek the death penalty, Horne's office said. The only other possible sentence for an aggravated first-degree murder conviction is life without release. Linnik's family saw her suspected killer for the first time Thursday as Adhahn stood before a judge on multiple counts of rape and kidnapping in two other...

A 12-year-old Tacoma girl, kidnapped while enjoying the all-American activity of watching fireworks on the Fourth of July, apparently was killed by a Thai immigrant who should have been deported but wasn’t. The little girl also was the daughter of an immigrant family living in the United States legally. The man arrested for her murder was convicted of first-degree incest in 1990 and has been violating a mandatory order to register as a sex offender, authorities said. And some people - from President Bush to Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar - still wonder why most Americans want immigration laws strictly enforced....

South Sound residents outraged over the abduction and slaying of Zina Linnik have raised two key questions about Terapon Adhahn, named by Tacoma police as the suspect in the girl’s death. Adhahn was an immigrant. Why wasn’t he deported after his 1990 conviction for incest? Because federal law didn’t require it. Adhahn, 42, came to America in 1977. He became a legal permanent resident, but never filed for citizenship. Under federal law, a single conviction for a “crime of moral turpitude” doesn’t warrant deportation for a legal permanent resident, Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Friday....

The body of Zina Linnik was found today (Saturday) in Tacoma, Washington, based on information from a convicted sex offender who has been arrested in connection with her abduction, sexual torture, and death. Final charges have not been filed, and there has not been any trial. But available information now indicates that the man responsible is Terapon Adhahn, 42, an illegal alien who had been convicted in 1990 of incest against an underage relative. He should have been deported then as a result of that conviction. He wasn’t. As a representative of the Immigration Service said in one article about...

[link only for subject article] Police chief: Man to be charged in Tacoma girl's kidnapping, death TACOMA, Wash. -- A man currently being held for failing to register as a sex offender will likely be charged in connection with the death of 12-year-old Zina Linnik, who was kidnapped from behind her family's home on July 4. "It is anticipated that he will eventually be charged for Zina's abduction and death," Tacoma Police Chief Don Ramsdell said at a news conference Friday afternoon. "The Linnik family is currently in our thoughts and prayers as they begin healing from this horrific event."...

"I disgraced myself, and my mother deserves a better son than me.” Terapon Adhahn said those words to a counselor 17 years ago, during treatment for a sex offense he admitted committing. What he said to Tacoma police Thursday is unknown, but information from Adhahn, 42, led investigators to the body of 12-year-old Zina Linnik, missing since July 4. "It is with great regret and sorrow that I am informing our community that we have located the body of Zina Linnik," Tacoma Police Chief Don Ramsdell said Thursday, Ramsdell provided little more information, saying only that Linnik’s body was found...