Suspicions mount in 2nd girl's death

LAKEWOOD -- There hasn't been a week when David Anderson hasn't thought of Adre'Anna Jackson, the 10-year-old girl he used to drive to Sunday school in their Tillicum neighborhood.

Same goes for Lakewood police detectives, who never identified the person who left her body in a Pierce County field, where it was found last year and identified through dental records. She disappeared in December 2005.

Monday afternoon, police flagged down Anderson's car on the block where Adre'Anna had lived, handed him a picture of the man now suspected of abducting 12-year-old Zina Linnik on July 4 and killing her and asked if Anderson recognized the 42-year-old suspect.

Anderson didn't, but police said several other Tillicum residents had seen Terapon Adhahn driving a tow truck and working as a handyman when Adre'Anna disappeared nearly two years ago.

"He looks like anybody's handyman that you would trust," Anderson said.

Police say Adhahn, who has been identified as the only suspect in Zina's kidnapping and death, is a person of interest in Adre'Anna's death, too.

Tacoma police said Tuesday that a search warrant was obtained to collect a DNA sample from Adhahn, which could be used in the Jackson investigation.

He also is being investigated in the 2000 kidnapping and rape of an 11-year-old Tacoma girl and in at least four other unsolved Pierce County crimes.

Her friends still cry when telling of how Adre'Anna's always-bright smile was stolen from them, and the fear that came when a $60,000 reward produced no witnesses or suspects.

Community members hope this will be the break that helps them find closure for a haunting crime.

"It hurts your heart," said Frances Clark, whose granddaughter rode Adre'Anna's hot-pink bike Tuesday on the block where she was last seen.

Adre'Anna's grieving mother had given away the bike and other personal belongings after the girl's disappearance.

"I've worried for my grandchildren since the day she went missing," Clark said.

Tuesday, she told her granddaughter to stay in sight before sunset, and she wouldn't let them go out at night. That has become the standard for many children in the community near Tacoma on the fringe of Fort Lewis.

On Dec. 2, 2005, Adre'Anna left her family's apartment about 7:45 a.m., going to check if school had been canceled because of weather. When she didn't returned, hundreds of people trudged through freezing conditions, hoping to find traces of her.

Adre'Anna's case was the highest-priority homicide investigation for Lakewood police, who contacted all sex offenders in her neighborhood and put nearly two dozen detectives on the case the day of her disappearance.

"She was a well-known girl," neighbor Tanja Mueller said. "Every day she would walk home waving to someone."

No Amber Alert was issued because it wasn't clear that she had been abducted. The FBI used sonar to scan the bottom of American Lake near Adre'Anna's home. When rewards and police work found no suspects, some around Tillicum pointed to Adre'Anna's stepfather, who took a lie-detector test in December 2005 with inconclusive results.

He was never named as a suspect, and on April 4, 2006, two boys found Adre'Anna's body in a blackberry-choked lot less than two miles from her home.

Adhahn lived in Parkland, a short drive east of where Adre'Anna lived in the Tillicum area.

		Meryl Schenker / P-I
	Demetria McClure, 8, sits on the bicycle that belonged to Adre'Anna Jackson. When Adre'Anna's mom moved after her daughter's death, she gave the bike to Demetria.

Anderson said his heart sank as he read how Zina was abducted July 4 after watching fireworks with her family. According to police reports, Zina's father heard her scream, ran to the alley behind their house and saw the partial license plate of a gray van as it drove away.

"I thought of Adre'Anna," Anderson said. "It happened a year and a half ago. That wasn't that long ago."

A psychological profile of Adhahn, a convicted sex offender who is expected to be charged in the Linnik case later this week, indicated that he is a "disturbed individual" with a tendency toward pedophilia.

According to police and court papers, he immigrated here legally, but avoided deportation that could have come with his criminal history, which includes an incest conviction and failing to register as a sex offender.

Similar to Adre'Anna's, Zina's body was found dumped in a Pierce County field. The Pierce County medical examiner said she died from "homicidal violence."

"It took me awhile; it took me until last night to cry," Adre'Anna's mother, Yvette Gervais, said Friday. It didn't take much for Anderson on Tuesday. Talking about the heartache people feel, he broke down, unable to hold back the tears that come often in Tillicum.

"You never forget that memory, and it becomes like your own child," he said, recalling the night of Adre'Anna's disappearance. "This opens up the wounds all over again."