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Remains ID'd as missing Pierce County 10-year-old

Thursday, April 6, 2006
By Christine Clarridge
Seattle Times staff reporter

LAKEWOOD, Pierce County — A skull and spine found in a vacant, overgrown lot near Woodbrook Middle School were identified by dental records Wednesday as those of 10-year-old Adre'Anna Jackson, who disappeared from nearby Tillicum in December.

County medical investigators have not yet determined how she died and under what circumstances. But police said they are treating her death as a homicide.

The girl's mother was in Colorado and unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Adre'Anna was last seen on the morning of Dec. 2 when her parents sent her off on a five-minute walk to see whether her school, Tillicum Elementary, was closed because of snow.

With the help of the King County Green River Task Force and FBI forensics experts, Lakewood police are now combing the lot, which is not far from one of the back gates of Fort Lewis Army post, police said.

According to police spokesman Lt. Bret Farrar, police dogs searched the lot immediately after the girl's disappearance but found nothing. The owner of the long-vacant lot, though, began clearing out underbrush and bulldozing there in the last few weeks.

Two children found a skull and a portion of a spinal column Tuesday while searching for snakes in a blackberry bush on the lot. The lot, which is about two miles and across Interstate 5 from Adre'Anna's home, for years has been used as a local dumping ground and by transients who live there, police said.

"We don't know if she was buried there and the body was disturbed by the bulldozing, or if she was dumped there and we just couldn't find her ... or even if she'd somehow gotten back there and gotten hypothermia," Farrar said.

It will take police at least several days to sort through what he estimates to be more than 1,200 pieces of garbage for evidence, Farrar said.

"Hopefully, the crime scene will reveal something to us," he said.

Farrar said police have not focused in on any particular person in her death. Lakewood police had previously used scent dogs to try to track the girl's movements, investigated all the registered sex offenders in the area and called upon the expertise of FBI sonar and dive teams to search American Lake, where the girl was known to play.

Lakewood Police Chief Larry Saunders announced the identification of the girl's remains at a news conference Wednesday.

"The death of a child is a tragedy for the entire community," Saunders said. "We are deeply committed to turning over every stone, initiating every effort to restore justice in this situation and bring closure to the family and community."

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Lakewood Police face heat in Adre'Anna Jackson investigationMissing girl's father denies involvement

Friday, April 7, 2006
By RAY LANE
KING 5 News and KING5.com Staff

LAKEWOOD – The Lakewood Police Department was in the hot seat at a community meeting Thursday night. Neighbors want to know how officers could have missed Adre’Anna Jackson’s body, recently discovered just two miles from her home.

Police have the remains of the 10-year-old girl who disappeared last December, but they are no closer to finding out who killed her.

Lakewood Police Chief Larry Saunders faced pointed questions from a shaken community. Most of the neighbors helped search for Adre’Anna. On Tuesday, two young boys found her bones in a blackberry patch that had just been cleared by the landowner, just two miles from her home.

"We did not do a complete search of Woodbrook,” said Saunders. “In hindsight, we should've. At the point and time we didn't have any indication that something happened there."

Police said the dogs never picked up a scent in that area back in December. But many in the community, including Adre’Anna’s father, believe officers simply missed her body.

"What makes it hard is knowing the body was there knowing it could have been found right away," said John Federici, father.

The site is adjacent to a transient camp; Federici believes one of them killed his daughter.

"Since they were living back there, they or one or two probably overpowered her," said Federici.

Federici himself has already been questioned several times by Lakewood Police and the FBI, even given a lie detector test. He once again denied any involvement in his daughter’s death and sought to disperse the cloud of suspicion that has followed him through the investigation by talking with KING 5 News.

When KING 5 News asked him Thursday whether he had anything to do with Adre'Anna's disappearance, Federici said "absolutely no."

And, he said, the discovery of the body was proving painful as well.

"What makes it hard is knowing the body was there when it could have been found right away," Federici said.

"Knowing that the body has been there a long time, it sounds like, that's what's troubling," Federici said. "And the person that did it got a four-month head start on us."

Federici was also critical of the way the investigation was conducted early on and said police were being less than sympathetic to him.

"I just wish that any detectives or anybody that talks to me, I just wish that they'd be a little bit more kinder," he said.

And, "they promised me that they'd looked all around the fields and stuff, which evidently they didn't do."

In the meantime, searchers were removing brush and intensifying a search for evidence in a vacant lot in Lakewood where Jackson's bones were found.

Working on their hands and knees, investigators conducting a grid search -- dividing the area to be searched into smaller areas that can be combed completely by teams of investigators. By midday, officers said more bones had been found.

"We had some skeletal scattering due to animal activity and there's been things located out, close to our original search zone," said Lt. Bret Farrar. "So, as you find things on the outside of the perimeter, you expand the search area and that's what we've done."

About 100 police officers and forensic experts from multiple agencies were on the scene, including members of the Green River Task Force, who could share expertise in tough, outdoor crime scenes.

Adre'Anna's bones, skull and spinal cord, were found Tuesday by several boys playing in a vacant lot at 146th Street Southwest and 76th Avenue Southwest.

On Wednesday, Lakewood Police Chief Larry Saunders would not reveal information about evidence or possible suspects, including whether police believe Jackson died from homicide or from something else.

"We want to bring justice to this situation so we don't want to be premature about what we know and what we don't know at this point," he said.

Saunders said of the search, "It’s going to be a carefully, methodically, well-planned, comprehensive, grid-by-grid search for all the evidence that might be in that field. No stone will go unturned in our attempt to solve this case.”

Jackson was last seen at about 7:45 a.m., Dec. 2 on her way to Tillicum Elementary School near Portland and Orchard streets in Lakewood. Her father walked her part way to school, not knowing that school was cancelled due to snow.

She was not seen again.

At the time, more than 100 people searched for her, and police combed the area with bloodhounds while divers searched the waters of a nearby lake.

The site where the remains were found is near Woodbrook Middle School, about two miles from Jackson’s home.

Among those who visited the scene while the search was underway was Melissa Pitcanen, a friend of Adre'Anna.

Tearfully, she said she had a bad feeling when she heard that remains had been found.

"It's hard, you know. When I heard there were remains I had this gut feeling all day," she said. "I knew, I just, my gut was so tight and I just knew it was her."

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Memorial Held For Adre'anna Jackson

April 14, 2006
KIROTV.com

LAKEWOOD, Wash. -- A memorial service was held Friday at Tillicum Elementary School for Adre'anna Jackson.

Hundred’s of people went to remember the 10-year-old girl whose remains were found last week in an overgrown lot in Lakewood.

Adre'anna's mother, Yvette Gervais, said she wanted the girl's classmates, family and friends to celebrate her life and try to start the healing process.

"Now there is closure," Gervais said. "I can grieve now -- and try to establish a new life."

Police are still looking for Spencer Grant a 44-year-old transient who they said is a potential witness in Adre'anna's death. Grant is not a suspect because he was in jail at the time Adre'anna disappeared.

Police wrapped up their search Friday for evidence at the lot where Adre'anna's remains were found.

She disappeared Dec. 2 while walking to a nearby school.

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Man Explains Actions In Adre'Anna Jackson Case

April 19, 2006
By George Howell
KOMO 4


PIERCE COUNTY - The man police detectives deemed a "person of interest" in the death of 10-year-old Adre'Anna Jackson is speaking out about why we didn't tell police he had found her bones several days before it was reported to police.

Adre'Anna's body was later found two weeks ago in a field in Lakewood by two young boys, who did report their finding to police.

Police had been looking for Grant, not as a suspect, but as someone who may provide clues they need.

In a jailhouse interview, Grant told KOMO 4's George Howell that he found the bones weeks before, and told more than 20 people about his discovery. But he didn't go to police because he has a criminal past, had outstanding warrants and didn't want to go to the police as the guy who found the bones.

"I feel bad for not saying anything sooner," Grant said. "But I figured she was already gone."

Grant admits he was hiding out at a friend's house, but once detectives showed up there, he says he turned himself in.

"To set the record straight, I didn't have anything to do with it," Grant said. "I just didn't want people coming back on me thinking I did it and I just didn't want to be on the news or the person they focused on saying, 'I found the body.' "

He later added, "I was looking for some clothes that got thrown out there near where I found the body at, and I grabbed a tent pole and I started looking and lifted up the branch, and then I seen (sic) the body, seen the spine first, and it looked like an animal. And then I looked closer, and I see a head. It was a skull actually."

He was asked, "When you first found the bones, did you think it might be Adre'Anna Jackson?"

"At first, I thought it was an older man, actually (based on) the teeth and the dental work that had been done," he replied. "I asked people if they knew if she had any dental work done, and everybody said, 'no' that I talked to. If it was, I'd have shown them the body....tell them it was her...she was there. But it was only a spine and a skull that I could find."

Grant adds that he did help walk police through the exact spots where he found her body.

"I took them around the field a couple places that they hadn't been yet."

Police are holding Grant in the Pierce County Corrections Center in Tacoma. He is not charged with any crime related to Adre'anna's death.

And, police have made no arrests in the case.

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Lakewood Police still searching for Adre'anna's killer

March 26, 2007
KING5.com

LAKEWOOD, Wash. - Lakewood Police detectives and the FBI need people's help to find out what happened to Adre'anna Jackson, a 10-year-old girl from the Tillicum area of Lakewood.

She was last seen walking from her family's apartment on Portland Ave. SW to Tillicum Elementary at 7:45 a.m. on the morning of Friday December 2, 2005.

Her remains were found on April 4 in a vacant lot in the 7500 block of 146th St. SW in the Woodbrook area of Lakewood, approximately 2 miles from her house.

Detectives fear her death may have been a result of foul play and are looking for any information regarding this investigation.

A reward up to $60,000 has been offered for information leading to the arrest, charges, and conviction of the person or persons responsible in this case.

Anyone with information in this case is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 253-59-5959 or send a confidential tip to www.cityoftacoma.org

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Revisiting unsolved cases of 2 Tacoma-area girls

Seattle Times
7/13/07

The abduction of Teekah Lewis, 2, and the abduction and slaying of Adre'anna Jackson, 10, have frustrated Tacoma-area police for years.

But the arrest of Terapon Dang Adhahn in the July 4 abduction and slaying of Zina Linnik, 12, could also signal a break in the two other cases. Tacoma Police Chief Don Ramsdell said investigators are trying to determine whether Adhahn could have some connection with other abductions, including those of the two Tacoma-area girls.

Some of those cases include:

• Michella Welch, 12, of Tacoma, whose body was found hours after the girl disappeared from Puget Park on March 26, 1986.

• Jennifer Bastian, 13, of Tacoma, who was found dead Aug. 28, 1986, in Point Defiance Park, where she'd been last seen riding her bicycle two weeks earlier.

• Lenoria Jones, 4, of Tacoma, who disappeared July 20, 1995.

Here's a look at the Teekah Lewis and Adre'anna Jackson cases.

Teekah Lewis

Teekah disappeared from Frontier Bowling Lanes in Tacoma around 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 23, 1999. The girl's mother told police she saw her daughter standing near the bowling lanes' video games. When she looked back, Teekah was gone.

Police at first thought the little girl had wandered off. But when an extensive search of the area turned up nothing, the girl's disappearance began to look more like an abduction and no one — including relatives — was immune from suspicion.

Tacoma police later said the family was ruled out as suspects. But despite a 24-hour tip line and interviews with people who were at the lanes that night, no suspect has emerged.

In 2001, the girl's mother, Theresa Lewis, was asked to provide a DNA sample to match against the body of an unidentified dead child found in Kansas City, Mo. The child was not Teekah.

In April 2006, Theresa Lewis was notified by a private investigator that he had found a girl he believed to be Teekah living with a woman in Dallas. The investigator, who was hired by the Lewis family more than a year earlier, sent her photos of the girl, she said.

"We compared her picture to my twins and other children, and we think it's her," Lewis said. "We feel in our hearts that it's her."

But DNA testing proved the girl was not Teekah.

On Friday, Theresa Lewis came to the Linnik home to offer support. When she heard that Adhahn could be connected to her daughter's disappearance, she was too distraught to speak.

Adre'anna Jackson

Adre'anna was last seen Dec. 2, 2005, when her parents sent her off on a five-minute walk to see whether Tillicum Elementary School was closed because of snow. Police spent days searching her neighborhood and scoured nearby American Lake for any sign of the girl.

Two children found a skull and a portion of a spinal column in a vacant, overgrown lot near Woodbrook Middle School on April 4, 2006. The remains were identified by dental records as those of Adre'anna Jackson.

Investigators could not determine the cause of death.

A 44-year-old transient was questioned about the disappearance and death, but it was determined he was in jail on an unrelated matter from the time the girl went missing.

Reached at home this afternoon, Adre'anna's mother, Yvette Gervais, said she thought there were physical similarities between her daughter and Zina Linnik.

"We're just sitting here and hoping that, if it is him, there will be some closure," she said. "At least someone has been apprehended and that's one more person that's not going to do this to more families."

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Police search Adhahn home, backyard for clues in Jackson case
Sex offender is 'a person of interest'

By Casey McNerthney
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
7/31/07

Lakewood police dug through the backyard and searched a home where Terapon Adhahn lived south of Tacoma, collecting evidence Tuesday that detectives said is part of the investigation into the death of Adre'Anna Jackson.

Lt. Dave Gattu said detectives used hand shovels and found items including carpet that they believe Adhahn buried.

The convicted sex offender pleaded not guilty last month to the kidnapping, rape and murder of 12-year-old Zina Linnik and 11 felony counts related to sexual assaults of two other girls and to failing to register as a sex offender.

"He's still a person of interest," said Gattu, who stopped short of calling him a suspect in the death of Adre'Anna. "Any evidence we collected will add to the evidence we've already gathered."

Tacoma police took a DNA sample from Adhahn, but Gattu would not say whether it has been used in connection to Adre'Anna's case, or specify what other items were taken Tuesday.

Adre'Anna disappeared Dec. 2, 2005, after leaving her snow-covered Tillicum apartment to see if her elementary school was in session. Four months later, the 10-year-old's skeletal remains were found in a field less than two miles from her home.

Adhahn was named as a person of interest in the case July 17 after police said several Tillicum residents had seen him in the area driving a tow truck and working as a handyman when Adre'Anna disappeared.

Police went to the home after talking with Adhahn's former girlfriend Monday.

Adhahn is on suicide watch in the Pierce County Jail, held on more than $7 million bail.

If convicted for Linnik's murder, the 42-year-old Thai immigrant will spend the rest of his life in prison.