RENO: BRIANNA DENISON BODY FOUND

Brianna Zunino Denison

A sign with a photograph showing Brianna Denison, a 19-year-old college student missing since she was abducted nearly a month ago, is seen on Friday, Feb. 15, 2008 near a field where the body of a woman was found in Reno, Nev. A worker found the body about noon in a brush-covered field on the city's south side near a light industrial area, Reno police spokesman Steve Frady said. (AP Photo/Kevin Clifford)

Washoe County coroner Personnel remove the body of a woman found in a field in Reno, Nev., on Friday, Feb. 15, 2008. A worker found the body about noon in a brush-covered field on the city's south side near a light industrial area, Reno police spokesman Steve Frady said. (AP Photo/Kevin Clifford)

In Reno, a Body Is Found and Fear Mounts
By MARTIN GRIFFITH – 54 minutes ago

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A 19-year-old college student 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.

An autopsy confirmed that a dead woman found Friday in a brush-covered field near a business park was Brianna Denison and that she died of strangulation, Reno Deputy Police Chief Jim Johns said.

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, he said.

"I would say this is a serial rapist," Johns said at a news conference. "We have two, probably three (cases) linked through DNA."

"The totality of the information in this case leads us to believe it is a sexually motivated crime," he said. "I'm worried this guy is still out there, and I'm worried somebody else is going to get hurt."

Campus officers will do all they can to support investigators "in hunting this animal down and bringing him to justice," said university Police Chief Adam Garcia.

Heavy snowfall over the past few weeks may have delayed the discovery of her body, police said.

Denison was abducted by a suspected rapist that police have linked by DNA to a string of attacks near the Reno campus. A student at Santa Barbara City College in California, she was visiting her hometown over winter break and was last seen sleeping on a couch at a friend's rental house just off campus.

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.

In that earlier incident, the attacker brazenly raped a woman at gunpoint in a garage where campus police park their cruisers.

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.

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