Uploaded April 2010 | Updated September 2026, 17 hours ago
Because Pierce County prosecutors took the death penalty off the table last year in exchange for information about the location of 12-year-old Zina Linnik's body, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Rosanne Buckner had no alternative but to sentence Terapon Dang Adhahn to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Under state law, a conviction for aggravated first-degree murder must be punished by either death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Adhahn declined to speak at his sentencing hearing.
Adhahn, 43, pleaded guilty last month to aggravated first-degree murder and rape in the Zina, who was snatched from near her Tacoma home on July 4. He also pleaded guilty to 13 additional charges of rape and kidnapping in connection to repeated assaults against two other young girls and failing to register as a sex offender.
In his exchange for his guilty pleas, Adhahn had asked only that the court lift a restraining order preventing him from having contact with his son. But Buckner today declined that request.
Zina's slaying prompted state lawmakers to pass laws requiring the collection of DNA samples from a wider array of sex offenders, allowing authorities to publish the names of unregistered sex offenders and authorizing the broader use of GPS tracking devices by the Department of Corrections.
When Zina was kidnapped from behind her Hilltop-area home, her father heard a scream, saw a van driving off and gave police a partial license plate number that led detectives to Adhahn.
Four days after his arrest on July 8 and once prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty, Adhahn led investigators to Zina's body, which had been dumped in rural Pierce County. She died of blunt force to the head, according to court documents.
Subsequent investigation led prosecutors to charge Adhahn with assaults on two other girls.
In one case, he was charged with seven counts of rape for repeated sexual assaults against a girl whose mother had allowed her in Adhahn's care for several years. The girl, who now lives in Wichita, Kan., moved in with Adhahn in 2001 when she was 12 because her mother had unspecified "troubles" that made her unable to care for her.
The girl told Tacoma detectives that she was raped at least 150 to 200 times during the four years she lived with the man she called "Dad." The attacks stopped, court documents said, only when she fled his home at 16 after he raped her at gunpoint.
Adhahn also was charged with the kidnapping and rape of an 11-year-old Gault Middle School student who was on her way to school May 31, 2000, when she was abducted by Adhahn.
Because Pierce County prosecutors took the death penalty off the table last year in exchange for information about the location of 12-year-old Zina Linnik's body, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Rosanne Buckner had no alternative but to sentence Terapon Dang Adhahn to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Under state law, a conviction for aggravated first-degree murder must be punished by either death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Adhahn declined to speak at his sentencing hearing.
Adhahn, 43, pleaded guilty last month to aggravated first-degree murder and rape in the Zina, who was snatched from near her Tacoma home on July 4. He also pleaded guilty to 13 additional charges of rape and kidnapping in connection to repeated assaults against two other young girls and failing to register as a sex offender.
In his exchange for his guilty pleas, Adhahn had asked only that the court lift a restraining order preventing him from having contact with his son. But Buckner today declined that request.
Zina's slaying prompted state lawmakers to pass laws requiring the collection of DNA samples from a wider array of sex offenders, allowing authorities to publish the names of unregistered sex offenders and authorizing the broader use of GPS tracking devices by the Department of Corrections.
When Zina was kidnapped from behind her Hilltop-area home, her father heard a scream, saw a van driving off and gave police a partial license plate number that led detectives to Adhahn.
Four days after his arrest on July 8 and once prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty, Adhahn led investigators to Zina's body, which had been dumped in rural Pierce County. She died of blunt force to the head, according to court documents.
Subsequent investigation led prosecutors to charge Adhahn with assaults on two other girls.
In one case, he was charged with seven counts of rape for repeated sexual assaults against a girl whose mother had allowed her in Adhahn's care for several years. The girl, who now lives in Wichita, Kan., moved in with Adhahn in 2001 when she was 12 because her mother had unspecified "troubles" that made her unable to care for her.
The girl told Tacoma detectives that she was raped at least 150 to 200 times during the four years she lived with the man she called "Dad." The attacks stopped, court documents said, only when she fled his home at 16 after he raped her at gunpoint.
Adhahn also was charged with the kidnapping and rape of an 11-year-old Gault Middle School student who was on her way to school May 31, 2000, when she was abducted by Adhahn.
