Update:Allinger/Rasmussen
stew...@yahoo.com
Ashley Allinger says the two were together the day Cindy Allinger, 9, disappeared
October 27, 1998
By John Gillie
The younger sister of Lakewood murder victim Cynthia Allinger told
jurors Monday she saw her sister with the murder suspect the day the
girl disappeared.
Ashley Allinger, who was 7 years old when her 9-year-old sister was
killed, told prosecutors she never saw her sister again after seeing her
with Guy Rasmussen on July 4, 1996.
Rasmussen is on trial on charges of aggravated first-degree murder and
rape in the 9-year-old's death. He faces a possible death sentence if
convicted.
The younger Allinger was among a parade of witnesses presented Monday
who had seen the victim with Rasmussen or a man resembling him that day,
Pierce County deputy prosecutors Barbara Corey-Boulet and Lisa Wagner
said.
Defense attorney Fred Leatherman noted that Ashley Allinger hadn't told
deputies or detectives that she had seen his client with her sister on
July 4.
But the girl, dressed in a white blouse and a blue jumper with brass
buttons, held firm on her story. She said her mother told her and her
sister not to go to the home of the 32-year-old rock band member, whom
the girls called "Raz." But Cynthia disobeyed her.
A neighbor in the Lakewood area where Cynthia disappeared, Martha
Erickson, said she saw the girl with a man about 5:30 p.m. on July 4.
She recognized the girl from the flowered dress she was wearing, she
said. She couldn't identify the man, however, because she never saw his
face.
That dress was the same one the girl was wearing in a picture on a flier
that searchers passed out the next day to nearby residents.
Erickson said she started crying when she saw the flier.
"I had seen her just one day before," she tearfully told the jury.
Another series of prosecution witnesses, all involved in the lengthy
search for the 9-year-old, told jurors they briefly searched an
abandoned home near where her body was eventually found 10 days after
her disappearance.
All of the searchers said they didn't see a pile of carpet scraps under
which the girl's body was found on a psychic's tip.
Defense lawyers have suggested Rasmussen couldn't have committed the
crime because he had an alibi for his whereabouts on July 4. Lawyers
also say police shadowed him for days without seeing suspicious
activity.
The attorneys contend the girl's body was dumped at the site by someone
other than Rasmussen.
The News Tribune Tacoma Wa
JBrown6000
...<Another series of prosecution witnesses, all involved in the lengthy
search for the 9-year-old, told jurors they briefly searched an
abandoned home near where her body was eventually found 10 days after
her disappearance.
All of the searchers said they didn't see a pile of carpet scraps under
which the girl's body was found on a psychic's tip.
**Whoa, this story is really creepy. Was the psychic one of those well known
"detective" types?
jb