Vancouver Teen Held In Girl’s Strangulation

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested in the strangulation death of Tamara Gritchenko, whose body was found last month in a Vancouver-area creek.

Sergey S. Spigitsyn was being held in the Clark County Jail for investigation of first-degree murder, police said. He is to appear today in Clark County Superior Court.

Police spokesman Lt. Tony Braunstein would release few details. However, Spigitsyn was one of three teenage boys seen driving away with Gritchenko on Sept. 15 after Sunday services at the Slavic Evangelical Church in Vancouver.

That was the last time family members saw the 14-year-old girl alive.

Neighbors walking along Discovery Trail found the girl’s body three days later, face down in Burnt Bridge Creek.

Police would not say what led to the arrest, but said that the other two teens were cooperating.