Body found in Reno is missing student

<p>A college student and former Mendocino resident who had been missing since she was abducted nearly a month ago was strangled by a serial rapist who has attacked at least two other women and may strike again, Reno police said Saturday.</p><p>An autopsy confirmed that a dead woman found Friday in a brush-covered field near a business park was 19-year-old Brianna Denison and that she died of strangulation, Reno Deputy Police Chief Jim Johns said.</p><p>Her body had been in the field for more than a week about 8 miles from the house where she last was seen early Jan. 20 at the edge of the University of Nevada, Reno.</p><p>"The totality of the information in this case leads us to believe it is a sexually motivated crime," Johns said at a news conference. "I'm worried this guy is still out there, and I'm worried somebody else is going to get hurt."</p><p>Denison was abducted by a suspected rapist that police have linked by DNA to a string of attacks near the Reno campus.</p><p>A student at Santa Barbara City College, she spent winter break in Reno, where her mother and 15-year-old brother live. She was last seen sleeping on a couch at a friend's rental house just off the University of Nevada campus.</p><p>Her grandparents, Bob and Barbara Zunino, live in Mendocino, where Denison attended junior and senior high school. They declined comment.</p><p>Her mother, Bridgette Denison, issued a statement on behalf of the family Saturday thanking police and the community for their help in the search.</p><p>"On March 29, 1988, Bridgette and Jeffrey Denison were given the incredible gift of their daughter Brianna. On January 20, 2008, she became the daughter of our entire community," she said in the statement.</p><p>Bridgette Denison asked that every woman in the community "be diligent about their own safety."</p><p>DNA evidence links Denison's kidnapping to two other attacks on women near the university late last year, police said, and an earlier campus attack also could be related.</p><p>In that earlier incident, the attacker brazenly raped a woman at gunpoint in a parking garage where campus police park their cruisers.</p><p>Based on partial descriptions from previous victims, police have described the suspect as a white male between ages 28 and 40 and at least 5 feet 6, with a long face and brown hair. He was believed to have no accent or regional dialect.</p><p>The killer probably lives near the campus just north of the downtown casino district or on the city's nearby northwest side, Johns said, and he may work closer to the city's southeast side, where the body was found.</p><p>This story includes information from Staff Writer Laura Norton and the Associated Press.</p>