Search For Missing Girl Ended

The search for a missing 9-year-old girl in two areas of the suburbs south of Tacoma has ended, and Pierce County investigators believe she may be dead.

Axes and machetes were used to hack through dense underbrush Wednesday, a week after Cynthia Ann Allinger disappeared from her home. She had told her mother she was going to a friend’s house.

Search dogs were deployed in a heavily wooded area three blocks from the apartment where she lived with her mother near McChord Air Force Base. Eventually the search was canceled there and in an area along some railroad tracks about a mile from the apartment.

“You can’t rule out the possibility that we are looking for a body,” sheriff’s officer Curt Benson said.

Detectives have interviewed the mother and a 30-year-old musician whose criminal record includes rape and assault convictions. The musician, who has denied any involvement in the girl’s disappearance, is under 24-hour surveillance, Benson said.

The girl’s father is serving a 30-year prison term in Nevada.