Pa. airport may have freed slaying suspect

BELLINGHAM - Despite being the subject of a nationwide search, a slaying suspect may have been allowed to go free after being briefly detained last month at Philadelphia International Airport, local officials say.

James Allen Kinney, 50, is charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the Oct. 3, 1998, slaying of Keri Lynne Sherlock, 20, whose body was found on a logging road near Glacier, Whatcom County. He also has been investigated in the unsolved killing of young women in Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Idaho and Oregon.

Kinney disappeared the day after the Sherlock killing, and authorities issued a nationwide warrant for his arrest.

On April 23, one night after Kinney was featured in a segment on the television show "America's Most Wanted," two security guards at the Philadelphia airport recognized a man matching Kinney's description, said Detective Mark Joseph of the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office.

The man, who was accompanied by a young woman, waited while guards searched his baggage, where they discovered items labeled with Kinney's name, Joseph said.

The guards called their supervisor and recommended calling airport police, but Joseph said the supervisor "apparently didn't think it was important" and instructed the guards to release the man.

Celeste Bottorff, spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Argen Bright, which provides security at the Philadelphia airport, said yesterday that the company was investigating the matter.