This cautionary tale comes to us from Trooper Jeff Merrill of the Washington State Patrol's King County regional office.

Merrill reports that a 27-year-old Redmond man suffered a broken neck Saturday when a large stereo speaker he had in the back of his 1973 Datson 240Z flew forward and hit him when the Z-car was struck from behind on a freeway on-ramp. The man is now paralyzed from the neck down, Merrill said.

The wreck occurred in Kirkland at a metered ramp onto Interstate 405.

The Datsun was stopped at the meter light about 4:15 p.m. when it was struck by a 1998 Ford F250 pickup being driven by a 40-year-old Bothell man.

The speaker (seen here in a photo provided by the State Patrol) flew off the back dash and hit the Datsun driver in the neck at high speed, Merrill reported Tuesday. The Ford's driver was not hurt. An investigation is underway.

Merrill warns drivers to properly mount any speakers or other auxiliary equipment inside their vehicles

Pierce County juvenile prosecutors are awaiting the results of a Washington State Patrol investigation before deciding whether to file charges against a 17-year-old girl who was driving a car that went out of control last week and crashed, leaving Ashley Magnusson dead.
Deputy prosecutor Fred Wist said Monday troopers must reconstruct the crash, await the results of other tests and do more investigative work before they'll be ready to forward the case to his office for a charging decision.

The investigation could take as long as two months, Wist said.

The driver, who was taken to the Remann Hall juvenile detention center following the Wedensday night wreck near Eatonville, has been released pending charges, which could include vehicular homicide, Wist told Lights & Sirens.

Ashley (seen here) died of head trauma.

Lakewood police were on the look-out Friday for a man they believe tried to kill a woman who'd just broken off a relationship with him.

Lt. Dave Guttu said the 30-year-old man attacked the woman while she was sleeping in a unit of the Sage Terrace Apartments about 7:15 a.m. Friday.

She'd ended their relationship just a few hours before, Guttu said.

The man reportedly entered the apartment, stabbed the woman in the back with a knife then tried to smother her with a comforter, Guttu said. She suffered serious injuries but is expected to live, he said.

Guttu said investigators know who the man is and hoped to pick him up soon.

The News Tribune is not releasing the suspect's name because he has yet to be charged with a crime.

News Tribune readers following the Zina Linnik case have raised several questions about police procedure, the subsequent search for Zina and Terapon Dang Adhahn, the man charged with causing her death. Adhahn is also charged with multiple rapes involving two other adolescent victims. Many of these questions have been answered in news stories, but readers who haven’t followed daily coverage will find them here as well. We’ll try to respond to additional questions through on this blog as they arise. (Go here for an archive of our news coverage.)

If you have questions or comments about this case, you can post a comment below or contact us.

- Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486; Sean.robinson@thenewstribune.com
- Randy McCarthy: 253-597-8277; Randy.mccarthy@thenewstribune.com

Q: Why did police wait 12 hours to issue the Amber Alert for Zina Linnik?

A: Because they thought they’d captured the kidnapping suspect in the first few hours after Linnik disappeared.

During a news conference July 13, after Linnik’s body was discovered, Tacoma Police Chief Don Ramsdell explained that police were following ”a very hot lead” on July 4, the night of Zina’s abduction.

The suspect detained by police that night drove a van similar to the one described by Zina’s father. Police questioned the suspect for several hours, and subjected him to a polygraph test, Ramsdell said. Eventually, police realized they had the wrong man, and issued the Amber Alert.

=> Read more!

Police in the state's capital say they've finally caught up to the person who plagued Harrison Avenue businesses during a six-week burglary spree.

Lt. Steve Oderman reported Wednesday police arrested a 15-year-old boy in 10 buglaries along the Harrison corridor since June 1.

The M.O. was always the same, Oderman said: Someone would smash out a window during the early-morning hours then make off with merchandise.

Businesses ripped off included Target, Day & Night, the Dollar Store, Game Crazy, Falconne Schwinn, Paradise Video and The Paintball Store.

Oderman told L&S that the boy stole cash, tools, electronics and pornography, among other things.

Investigators got a tip about the boy, who confessed when shown surveillance video from some of the burglaries that appeared to show him committing the break-ins, Oderman said.

Detectives who served a search warrant at the suspect's home found some items reported stolen, Oderman said.

The teenager was booked into the Thurston County juvenile detention center for investigation of 10 counts of burglary.

King County sheriff's spokesman, Sgt. John Urquhart, reported today that an arrest has been made in the July 10 shooting of cab driver Jagit Singh.

Singh was gunned down after responding to a call on South 177th Street. His Far West cab then was set ablaze.

Urquhart said detectives identified 18-year-old Earnest Lenell Collins as a suspect using cell phone records and evidence collected from his family's home, including a burnt shirt.

Investigators later traced Collins to Chicago, where he was arrested Monday, Urquhart said. He's been charged with first-degree murder in Singh's death. Detectives think Collins killed Singh in the course of a robbery, Urquhart added.

Collins and a younger brother, who was wanted on an unrelated warrant, will be extradited from Chicago to Seattle next week.

A woman federal authorities say acted as a scout for a serial bank and credit union robber was sentenced two years in federal prison Tuesday.

Deseri C. Garred, 28, pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy to commit credit union robbery, armed credit union robbery and lying to a grand jury, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle.

Garred was convicted of helping Mitchell Andre Friend, 27, of robbing three Tacoma credit unions in 2004 and 1005, federal prosecutors said. Andre was sentenced to 19 years in prison in March.

We should find out about midday what authorities believe happened to Zina Linnik.

Prosecutors are scheduled to charge Terapon Dang Adhahn in the girl's death about 1:30 p.m. An affidavit of probable cause will accompany the charging documents. That affidavit should spell out how authorities think Adhahn abducted the 12-year-old girl and how she died.

In addition, Prosecutor Gerry Horne has scheduled a news conference for about 2 p.m. I expect Horne to discuss whether his office will seek the death penalty for Adhahn or has plans to charge him with any other crimes.

Check the home page later for updates.

Here's most of what we've written so far on this case.

This is a special Lights & Sirens appearance by TNT editor David Zeeck. Here's what he had to say on his blog today about publishing Terapon Dang Adhahn's photo in the paper and online:

Since Tuesday the TNT had a photo of the man charged in several rapes of young South Sound girls. But we didn't decide to print it until late yesterday.

Why wait?

Tacoma police asked us not to print the image while they were out questioning witnesses in other cases linked to the man. They wanted to present half a dozen photos of various men and see whether witnesses picked that of Terapon Dang Adhahn, charged yesterday in two complex rape cases.

Their concern was that -- once Adhahn's photo was widely circulated in the press -- people might choose it in a photo line-up simply because it's familiar to them.

We agreed to the TPD request as long as the photo wasn't widely circulated. (It was being distributed in the Tillicum neighborhood by Lakewood police, seeking information in the disappearance of Adre'anna Jackson.)

That narrow distribution ended yesterday when all three Seattle television stations broadcast his photo from the Lakewood police flier, and when it appeared on news Web sites throughout the region.

Once the image was widely distributed, there was no further purpose in us withholding the image from our readers.

The case of Adre'anna Jackson made quite an impression on us here at Lights & Sirens, so much so that you'll notice we have a category devoted to her on this blog.

Stacey, who wrote a great profile of Adre'anna, still keeps the case file on top of her desk, more than a year after the girl's remains were found out in Woodbrook.

She was the first person I thought of when authorities announced last week that Terapon Dang Adhahn was a prime suspect in the death of Zina Linnik.

The effects of her disappearance still linger in Tillicum, too, where most residents keep a closer eye on their children now.

"My three girls are always on lock-down," Tillicum resident Vivian McMillian told us Tuesday after news broke that Adhahn now is being looked at as a person of interest in Adre'anna's death. "Some of the kids have taken to walking to school together in big groups since she died."

McMillian and others are holding out hope that Adhahn's the one who snatched up and killed Adre'anna.

"I hope it is for the fact that whoever killed her needs to be brought to justice," she said.

But McMillian also worries there will be an unintended downside.

"Some of these parents will get lax again," she said. "I wish they'd learn."

One of the many searches we ran on Terapon Adhahn over the past few days revealed that he has been a registered voter since 2002.

That doesn't make much sense - Adhahn was a legal permanent resident, according to the immigration folks, but not a U.S. citizen. Plus, he was a convicted sex offender, which should have barred him in another way.

Since it's the weekend, we can't call the bureaucrats at the county or the Secretary of State's office to get a clear answer on this one, but we're working on it. Meanwhile, I checked with Stefan Sharkansky, the blogger and voting issues watchdog who writes at the lively Sound Politics site.

"You absolutely have to be a U.S. citizen to register legally," Stefan said. I checked the state laws as well, just to be sure, and found the same requirement.

(Later addendum - I should have noted that Stefan posted the information about Adhahn's voter registration Friday on the Sound Politics site. I'm pretty sure he was the first to mention it publicly, though I haven't checked every media source. I spotted the registration info through a different source initially. The link to Stefan's invaluable voter database is here because it's more readily available.)

We won't know for a while where Adhahn slipped through the cracks in the registration process. That will take a bit of research. I did run one query, and I see no sign that Adhahn actually voted after his 2002 registration.

Stefan, offering cautious speculation, suggested that one possible route would be the motor-voter registration system: you renew your driver's license, and you get a registration form at the same time.

"It becomes just another piece of paper that people sign when they’re doing other things that they don’t have to think about," he said.

What we don't know is whether the 2002 registration form included an explicit question about citizenship. If it did, and if Adhahn said he was a citizen, well...

The registration forms changed slightly in 2005, following the dust-up over the governor's race. Stefan graciously sent me a copy of the 2004 registration form, and said he had no reason to think it had changed since 2002.

I meant to upload the thing, but my blogging experience amounts to about two hours, and I'm not quite up to speed yet. You'll have to trust me when I say the form includes a question in the upper left-hand corner that asks "Are you a citizen of the United States?" and boxes for yes and no.

One of our online readers, who goes by the handle jerrygarcia, raised a question about naming Terapon Adhahn, which we first did in web stories posted yesterday, before Tacoma police formally named Adhahn as a suspect in a news conference a little later.

The answer: high-level editors decided to go ahead with the name, which we had known for several days, because of the previous night's disclosure that information from Adhahn led to the discovery of Zina Linnik's body. Up to that point, we had relied on our general standard of not naming people before they are charged with crimes, though we were well aware of the possibility in this case (we were also the first to publish information about evidence recovered from the suspect's van and home.)

The disclosure by police came very late in the day, and we had to move very quickly to get the print version out. But we continued to assemble a followup story after press time, and went ahead with it the following morning.

When police announced yesterday that they were looking for links to Terapon Adhahn's possible involvement in other cases of missing or slain children, the timing of his arrival in Pierce County became a burning question.

A closer look at the court records from his 1990 conviction for incest provides the best answer I've seen so far. (Obviously, all the reporters looking at this case are reading the same set of records - it's a 133-page file. We're not posting the actual document, because it includes some private information about the victim.)

The jail intake form for that case was filed March 27, 1990, and filled out a day earlier. It gives Adhahn's date of birth, address, marital status and such. He was asked for his previous address. "Germany" is the answer written on the form.

Another question asks, "How long in Pierce County?" The answer: three and a half months.

Unless he was lying, that means he arrived in Pierce no earlier than December 1989. For what it's worth, I haven't found anything else in the various records we've compiled to suggest an earlier date.

Match that against the list of cases involved missing or slain children we published today, and the importance becomes obvious. Five of them date back to 1988 or earlier, including the cases of Michella Welch and Jenny Bastian.

If the timing of Adhahn's arrival is correct as written in the court records, a link to those early cases looks less likely.

This is Sean Robinson, pinch-hitting for the Lights and Sirens crew today.

We're still following developments in the Zina Linnik case, pursuing a a few stray angles. Tacoma Police spokesman Chris Taylor said there won't be any major announcements today. Five or six detectives are assembling their case for prosecutors. According to chief Don Ramsdell, that work will lead to charges against suspect Terapon Adhahn - but not until next week, perhaps a few days in.

More to come...

Richy Carter posted $20,000 bail Thursday evening and was released from jail pending his Aug. 31 sentencing.

Carter is the friend of Baker Middle School principal Harold Wright Jr. and was convicted along with Wright of third-degree rape in an assault on a 19-year-old woman three years ago.

Wright is also out on bail. He'll be sentenced the same day.

Tacoma police reported Friday afternoon that Zina Linnik died of homicidal violence.

Police spokesman Mark Fulghum said no more specific information would be released about the cause or manner of the girl’s death.

The body of Zina Linnik was found off 403rd St. near the Silver Lake Recreation Area on Mountain Highway outside Eatonville, according to the Tacoma Police Department.

A memorial fund has been established at Key Bank that's called the Zina Linnik fund. You can make a donation at any Key Bank branch.

Tacoma police tentatively announced an noon press conference on the Zina Linnik case, but it could be delayed. Police spokesman Mark Fulghum said internal briefings at police headquarters and additional information-gathering could push it back further.

Harold Wright Jr.'s attorney, Wayne Fricke, reported about 3 p.m. that his client has posted bail and been released from jail.

Fricke said he was "stunned" at the jury's decision Thursday to convict Wright of third-degree rape and already is considering strategies to appeal the conviction.

See story here.

On Monday afternoon my editor, Randy, said that FOX News called and wanted to speak with a News Tribune reporter about the case of Zina Linnik, the missing 12-year-old girl from Tacoma. I told him I'd do it. I thought it would be a fun experience, and, if nothing else, I'd have a story to tell.

I drove up to Fisher Plaza in Seattle on Tuesday morning. I wore my light blue shirt and sport coat, but I didn't shave. I was wearing sneakers and jeans because I knew the camera wouldn't show them.

The engineer who greeted me looked me up and down and said: "You're a newspaper reporter, aren't you?"

"Yep."

They sat me in a chair, put a piece in a my ear so I could hear the host and told me to just look into the camera. There's no video monitor in the room because of a four-second delay, so you have no idea what you look like on TV. They could digitally add devil horns to your head and you wouldn't know it until it was too late.

The host, who used to be on "A Current Affair" (classy show), started asking me questions about the case. I was on for a few minutes and did well. Apparently, people clapped in the News Tribune newsroom when I finished.

Afterwards, I drove to buy the new Smashing Pumpkins record when I received a voice mail. It was from another producer at FOX. She wanted me to go on their morning show on Wednesday. Then Randy called and said CNN wanted me to go on at 5:30 p.m. to talk about the case.

I didn't want to do either because I didn't want to drive back to Seattle. I called the FOX producer back and eventually agreed to do a phone interview, which was a good deal because I didn't even need to shower to be on TV.

Randy and I played phone tag for a while. I told him I didn't want to do CNN because another News Tribune reporter called me and said she heard in the newsroom that it was Nancy Grace's show. (I’m generally terrified and turned off by night-time cable talk shows.) About an hour later, I got a voice mail from a CNN producer saying that she'd booked my studio time at 5:30 p.m. and that I should call her back. She was a very pushy woman.

I called Randy, and he said he didn't agree to it. I decided to do it anyway, even the producer was railroading me into appearing. (My dad told me I'd regret it if I didn't go on CNN when I had the chance. Even if it is CNN Headline News.)

I drove back up to Seattle and settled into the studio's green room. I took the latest news off The News Tribune's Web site -- that police were focusing on a convicted sex offender in connection with the abduction -- and settled in.

During the first half of Grace's show she talked to a panel of people who were only remotely acquainted with reality about a video on YouTube that apparently showed a Texas toddler high on ecstasy. She spent 40 minutes on that before we got to the Zina segment.

I sat in the chair and the producer told me Grace would throw to me first and ask for the latest. I dutifully reported the latest news, and stayed alert just in case she asked me any more questions.

But she didn't.

The panel was speculating wildly about exactly whose house was searched in connection with the abduction. I kept trying to jump in.

"Nancy, I can answer that question. Nancy?"

Nothing.

Then the segment wrapped up, and the show ended.

I’m told today there were a few people in the newsroom who were yelling at the TV, "Ask Paul which house was searched! He knows! That's why he's on the show! He's your facts guys!"

I drove back to the newsroom to finish out my normal night shift. I wrote an addition to a hot weather story about some grass fires. I felt like it was payback for my fun day on TV.

This morning, I rolled out of bed at 7 and talked to FOX News' Bill Hemmer for about a minute. I basically just read him the lead of today's story in the paper about the abduction.

Grace's producer called me twice during the morning to try and get me to do the show again tonight. I declined, telling her I'm finished with TV interviews unless "60 Minutes" calls. Or Anderson Cooper. I would definitely talk to Anderson.

People in the newsroom were interested in talking to me about my TV appearances when I got to work this afternoon. And I found out that Greta Van Susteren's show wanted me for tonight, too.

Talk about a weird experience that quickly got out of hand.

The Pierce County jury deliberating the fate of Tacoma middle school principal Harold Wright Jr. and co-defendant Richy Carter left the County-City Building Monday afternoon without rendering a verdict.

Jurors are scheduled to reconvene Thursday for more deliberations.

Thursday from 6-7 p.m. at Peace Community Center, 2106 S. Cushman.

Here's the link to our latest story about the missing girl.

UPDATE: Fire dispatchers now reporting it's a building in the 7400 block of 56th Street East. KIRO-TV aired some video shot from its chopper on the 5 p.m. newscasts. Looks like it might have been a farmhouse.

We've gotten a couple of calls into the newsroom about a fire in the Puyallup area.

Initial reports are that an RV caught fire at a park near the 7900 block of River Road East.

We've got calls out for more details.

The last witnesses were called Monday in the rape case against Tacoma middle school principal Harold Wright Jr.

Jury instructions and closing arguments are all that's left before the jury gets the case against Wright and co-defendant Richy Carter. Those should be accomplished before the close of business Tuesday. I'll be at closings and will file a story for the Wednesday paper/home page.

Monday saw many of the key players back on the stand.

Carter spent much of the morning explaining inconsistencies between statements he gave a detective investigating the case two years ago and statements he made on the stand during trial.

Deputy prosecutor Kevin McCann pressed on one point in particular. Carter insisted during his testimony that he never saw the alleged victim bare-chested the night she claims she was raped. McCann pointed to a police report Monday that quotes Carter as saying he saw the woman without her bra on that night.

Carter said he told the detective some things that weren't accurate because he was nervous and wanted to speak to a lawyer.

The alleged victim and her friend, Jamie Whittaker, also were called back to rebut testimony by Wright that he didn't smoke marijuana that night. Wright then took the stand again to deny (again) that he'd smoked weed at the party.

Seems Lights & Sirens is and adults-only blog.

Stacey's husband, ace political reporter Chris Mulick, turned us on to a Web site that examines the contents of blogs then assigns them a rating just like the movies get.

Seems our reporting on rape, sex, murder and porn earns us an NC-17. Who knew the truth was so ... naughty?

Anyway, it's kind of fun to type in blogs to see what you get.

BTW, the TNT's "edgy" Grit City blog rates only a PG. Gritty, my butt. Oops, that'll hurt our rating.

ABC News ran a feature on its Web site Tuesday called "What Made Missing Pregnant Mom Murder So Compelling?"

By Scott Michels, the piece reports how the disappearance of a 26-year-old woman in Canton, Ohio, made national news June 14 while at least 19 other murders committed the same day went "little noticed beyond a small group of bereaved friends and family, or perhaps a brief mention in the local paper."

Michels then tells the stories of some of those other victims, one being Spanaway's Nicholas Danforth (seen here). The 17-year-old boy was shot to death in a travel trailer early that morning, allegedly by his father.

Michel's piece on Nick includes this quote from the boy's aunt, Kerri Gettman: "Nicholas had such a positive impact on people. We called him 'Gentle Giant.' He was always trying to making (sic) people happy."

For the record, The News Tribune ran two substantial stories on Nick. The first, by TNT writer Debby Abe, appeared June 15. I wrote the second, which appeared the next day.

We'll be following his father's murder case through the court system.

A Pierce County judge set bail Thursday at $150,000 for a man accused of trying to ram two police cars during a wild chase across town earlier this week.

Superior Court Judge John Hickman set the bail at the request of deputy prosecutor Eric Norman, who called Louis James Foti "an extreme danger to the community."

Not guilty pleas were entered on Foti's behalf to four counts of second-degree assault and one count each of attempting to elude police and resisting arrest.

Foti, who appeared in court in shackles, said nothing during his arraignment.

Public defender Lisa Contris reserved arguments over bail for Foti's next attorney.

Click.

Apparently, a 33-year-old man tried to ram two or three police cars for some unknown reason Sunday about 10:20 p.m. before leading officers from at least four jurisdictions on a chase across town.

Authorities finally nabbed him out in Lakewood with the help of Tasers and a K-9. He's been charged with assault.

I’m working on a story for tomorrow’s paper.