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.