TACOMA – Tacoma police and the FBI held a news conference to once again ask the public for any clues in the disappearance of a 12-year-old Tacoma girl who apparently was abducted on the Fourth of July.
Chief Don Ramsdell says investigators are looking for a van that left the scene. They’d also like to talk to anyone who was in the area when Zinna Linnik disappeared.
He says one person questioned by investigators is being held for immigration violations.
FBI agent Laura Laughlin says investigators are still following leads and have not given up hope.
Zinna was last seen the night of July 4 in an alley behind her house. A witness heard a girl scream and saw an older gray van speed away.
Zinna is 4-feet-10 inches tall, 80 pounds and was wearing a pink T-shirt, capri pants and flip-flop sandals.
Kennewick: Woman dead, boyfriend injured
A woman was shot to death in a car and her boyfriend was severely wounded in a car in the driveway of a house owned by the man’s father, police said.
Wendy Rae, 22, of Connell, was pronounced dead at the scene about 7 a.m. Sunday. Her boyfriend, Jason Jansen, 38, who managed to get out of the brown 1972 Chevrolet El Camino and collapsed on the ground, was listed in serious condition late Sunday after being flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
Both had been shot in the head, and a semiautomatic pistol was found in the car, police Sgt. Randy Maynard said.
Investigators were trying to determine who was responsible for the shooting but don’t believe a third person was involved, and Rae’s death is being treated as a homicide, Maynard said.
Jason Jansen had domestic violence issues in the distant past, and Rae was recently arrested on a misdemeanor narcotics charge, he said.
Idaho: Crash kills three Puyallup children
A sport utility vehicle went out of control and slammed into a pillar along Interstate 90 near Fourth of July Pass, leaving three children dead and two women injured, Idaho State Police said.
Toys were scattered across the freeway and traffic was limited to one lane following the crash Sunday near the Rose Lake exit west of the pass, about 10 miles southeast of Coeur d’Alene, officers said.
Monica Cahoon-Haase, 9; Kaitlynn Haase, 5; and Sarah Haase, 4, all of Puyallup, died at the scene, police said.
The driver of the westbound 2000 Dodge Durango, Tomi J. Dickerson, 34, and a passenger, Melody Haase, 29, both of Puyallup, were in serious condition late Sunday at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane.
Laboratory to conduct explosives test in desert
Bomb experts at the Idaho National Laboratory will detonate explosives sometime this week in a remote sage-and-grass corner of the 890-square-mile atomic research reservation in a new program aimed at helping design buildings better able to withstand terrorist attacks.
U.S. Department of Energy engineers will test the effects of thousands of pounds of vehicle-borne explosives on buildings, protective barriers and materials. Only one test will be conducted this week, INL spokesman Ethan Huffman said. Ensuing tests would occur weekly and monthly.
While explosives tests at other U.S. sites, including the Nevada Test Site near Las Vegas, are geared to improving weapons systems, these tests at the Idaho lab are aimed at making safer buildings, bridges and tunnels.
Since 1949, 52 nuclear reactors have been built at the Idaho lab; this week’s planned explosions are part of the installation’s changing mission following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. For three years, the Energy Department has planned research at the site to probe the effects of car bombs and other explosions on sensitive facilities and security systems.
Judge urged to protect sage grouse population
Environmentalists urged a federal judge Monday to reverse a 2005 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruling that kept the sage grouse off the endangered species list, arguing the agency’s decision ignored science and was tainted by political meddling.
For decades, populations of the bird that once thrived across more than 150 million acres of western sagebrush in 13 states and Canada have been in decline.
Alaska: Federal jury convicts ex-lawmaker
Former Alaska state Rep. Tom Anderson was convicted Monday of conspiracy and bribery by a federal jury.
Anderson, 39, was charged with conspiring to take money he thought was coming from a private prison firm, Cornell Industries, Inc. The money was supplied by the FBI through an informant working for Cornell who secretly recorded his conversations with Anderson and a coconspirator, former municipal lobbyist Bill Bobrick.
Anderson said he planned to appeal.
Anderson was one of four current or former Alaska state lawmakers facing federal bribery indictments. The other three face trial this fall for charges related to VECO Corp.
“I think the prosecution has criminalized being a legislator over the last year,” Anderson said. “I think I fell victim to that.”
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