Police take drywall from Adhahn's home

More than two weeks after searching the home of murder suspect Terapon Adhahn, Tacoma police returned to the blue-frame house Tuesday — but wouldn't say what they were looking for.

However, investigators did remove drywall from the Tacoma-area home.

Police first searched his home July 9, shortly after he was arrested in connection with the July 4 abduction of 12-year-old Zina Linnik, whose body was found July 12 in east Pierce County. He was charged Monday with aggravated first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree rape in the girl's abduction and death.

When police searched the house the first time, they noticed freshly hung drywall that had not yet been taped.

According to the police report, Adhahn offered to remove the drywall during the first search so police could see behind it, but they declined.

Police would not say why detectives returned to the home to search again. But in addition to Zina's slaying, Adhahn was considered a person of interest in the slaying of Adre'Anna Jackson, 10, of Tillicum, who was killed in 2005.

One of Adhahn's neighbors, Beverly Orlowski, said that in the middle of the night of July 8 she heard the sound of hammering coming from his home, in the 1200 block of 117th Street South. She thought it odd, but she also knew Adhahn was doing construction.

"He was over there banging. That was early Sunday," she said.

Later, Orlowski was sitting beneath a tree in her yard when she saw Adhahn crawl over her fence and stand in her yard surveying the remainder of her fence. Orlowski said that when he saw her he said he was looking for a cat, but she said Adhahn seemed very nervous and she found his actions odd.

He was arrested that day and has since been charged with raping two other girls in addition to Zina's rape and murder. He later revealed where the girl's body could be found in exchange for prosecutors not seeking the death penalty, according to Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney Gerald Horne.

Charging documents filed Monday in Pierce County Superior Court say the 42-year-old handyman's DNA was found on Zina's body. Although her body was recovered at Silver Lake in east Pierce County, the time and place of her death have not been established, police say. Charging papers say she died at a different location from where her body was found.

Adhahn, whose brothers, mother and cousins live in Texas, also is being investigated by Texas authorities in the slaying of Amber Hagerman in Arlington, Texas, in 1996, a case that launched the Amber Alert project.

He is charged in Pierce County Superior Court with the rape of an 11-year-old girl in 2000, the repeated rapes of a 12-year-old family friend whom he brought with him from Texas in about 2001, and failure to register as a sex offender.

He was convicted in 1990 of incest after raping a relative — a plea bargain down from the original second-degree rape charge.

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com