STANWOOD- Sheriff's detectives remain
stumped by Friday's brutal murder of a 13 year-old Cambodian refugee girl.
The death of Yee Lu was Stanwood's first murder in recent memory, possibly ever, said Starwood’s Police Chief Bob Kane, who supervises a four-officer department.
Kane said as soon as the body was discovered he requested help from the Snohimish County sheriff's office, which has the manpower to investigate the homicide.
*We do not have any prime suspects at this time," sheriff's Sgt. Clyde Foote said Wednesday.
Foote is supervising the three-detective team investigating the death.
Yee Lu's body was found near a rear door on the floor of a utility room in the family home in Stanwood. According to the autopsy report, she died of multiple blows to the head. There was no indication she was sexually molested.
Yee was the second youngest of five children in the family of Joe and Ying Lu. The Lu family came to Stanwood eight years ago, sponsored by members of Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, where funeral services were held Wednesday afternoon.
Foote said he can only speculate about the motive. "We're still in the initial part of our Investigation," he said.
"Any time you have a case and you don't know immediately who the suspects are or what the motives are, you might call it baffling," Foote added.
Detectives, who cordoned off the house Friday afternoon after the body, was discovered, have gathered numerous items of potential evi-dence, Foote said. Much of the material is being processed in crime laboratories, but Foote wouldn't be specific about what is being examined.
Foote would not say whether the evidence includes a cord a witness reported seeing. One end had been tied around the girl's neck and the other around a doorknob.
Yee apparently was killed between 9:30 and
11:45 a.m. Friday. A neighbor saw her alive at
9:30 and she didn't respond at 11:45 a.m. when someone came to pick her up for a babysitting job, Foote said.
A 9-year-old neighbor, hoping to play with Yee, discovered the body about 1 p.m.
Yee was home alone Friday. Her parents were at work and she walked her little brother, Sam, to the corner on his way to day camp. Her three sisters were picking spinach.
The Stanwood community has been "very supportive" of the Lu family, said Rev. Paul Wietzke, pastor of at Our Saviour's church.
The grieving family is "doing as well as can be expected," he said.
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