Post by LadyBlue on Jul 8, 2007 14:12:33 GMT -5
Forty federal agents have joined Tacoma police in the search for a 12-year-old girl who was apparently abducted Wednesday, but leads so far — including one that vanished at a neighbor's front door — have yielded no trace of her.
Officers broke into the home of Zina Linnik's next-door neighbor in the 2500 block of South J Street on Friday night after three bloodhounds led them there. Police said they kicked in the door and searched the house but found no one home and no sign of the girl.
The alley where she disappeared, often filled with neighborhood children, was silent Saturday afternoon.
"I feel like my own child is missing," said Joan Harris, who lives across the alley from the Linnik home. "It could have been any one of our children."
She said her children had played basketball in the alley with the Linnik children for years.
Harris and Tanisha Thomas, another neighbor, said that the close-knit neighborhood was frustrated to hear so little about the ongoing investigation and confused about why the current Amber Alert didn't go into effect the evening of the apparent abduction.
Police say they had apprehended a suspect matching descriptions from witnesses late Wednesday night, but confirmed his alibi and released him the next morning. At that point they expanded their search and activated the Amber Alert, about twelve hours after the reported abduction.
Zina disappeared around 9:45 p.m. on July 4. Her father heard her scream from the alley behind the house and rushed out to see a gray van with partial license plate number 1677 speeding away.
The girl, who stands 4 feet 10 inches tall, was wearing a pink T-shirt, orange-and-yellow capri pants, red flip-flops and her blond hair was in a ponytail.
Tacoma police have been out in force; everyone from patrol officers to the chief of police was knocking on doors Saturday.
FBI spokesman Larry Carr said the agency had committed the full resources of its Seattle branch and flown in one of its Child Abduction Rapid Deployment teams from Washington, D.C.
Tacoma police, meanwhile, are reviewing security-camera footage from nearby hospitals, businesses and residences for clues about what happened Wednesday night.
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003779610_missinggirl08m.html
Officers broke into the home of Zina Linnik's next-door neighbor in the 2500 block of South J Street on Friday night after three bloodhounds led them there. Police said they kicked in the door and searched the house but found no one home and no sign of the girl.
The alley where she disappeared, often filled with neighborhood children, was silent Saturday afternoon.
"I feel like my own child is missing," said Joan Harris, who lives across the alley from the Linnik home. "It could have been any one of our children."
She said her children had played basketball in the alley with the Linnik children for years.
Harris and Tanisha Thomas, another neighbor, said that the close-knit neighborhood was frustrated to hear so little about the ongoing investigation and confused about why the current Amber Alert didn't go into effect the evening of the apparent abduction.
Police say they had apprehended a suspect matching descriptions from witnesses late Wednesday night, but confirmed his alibi and released him the next morning. At that point they expanded their search and activated the Amber Alert, about twelve hours after the reported abduction.
Zina disappeared around 9:45 p.m. on July 4. Her father heard her scream from the alley behind the house and rushed out to see a gray van with partial license plate number 1677 speeding away.
The girl, who stands 4 feet 10 inches tall, was wearing a pink T-shirt, orange-and-yellow capri pants, red flip-flops and her blond hair was in a ponytail.
Tacoma police have been out in force; everyone from patrol officers to the chief of police was knocking on doors Saturday.
FBI spokesman Larry Carr said the agency had committed the full resources of its Seattle branch and flown in one of its Child Abduction Rapid Deployment teams from Washington, D.C.
Tacoma police, meanwhile, are reviewing security-camera footage from nearby hospitals, businesses and residences for clues about what happened Wednesday night.
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003779610_missinggirl08m.html