SeaTac-area man Nicholas Francisco’s car was found Monday morning in Federal Way, but he has not.

Meanwhile, the reward for finding him has raised to $15,000, and this video was just released:

A missing SeaTac-area man’s car has been found in Federal Way, according to KING-TV.

Nicholas Francisco, 28, was last seen around 6 p.m. on February 13 as he was leaving work in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood.

His red 1992 Toyota Paseo hatchback was found at the Heritage Condos at 123 S. 340th Street in the Panther Lake area of Federal Way at 10:20 a.m. Monday.

Family members plan to start searching that area and hand out flyers.

Federal Way Police say, as far as they know, Francisco has no connection to the Heritage Condos.

Francisco is about six feet tall. He was last seen wearing a light-blue or off-white button-down short, a black jacket and blue jeans.

There’s a $5,000 reward in the case.

“We just need him to come home,” said Christine Francisco, wife of Nicholas Francisco, who disappeared after leaving his Queen Anne office.

“I am begging everybody, begging everybody to please, please help me find my husband because I cannot live my life without him,” she said.

Deputies also have been pinging his cell phone, but have gotten no response. Nicholas’ co-workers say his cell phone batteries were dead on his last day at work.

Just before he vanished, Nicholas called his wife and promised his 4-year-old daughter, Zea, he’d make Valentine’s Day cookies with her, but never showed.

The Franciscos also have a son, Noah, age 2 1/2, and Christine is pregnant with their third child, due in early October.

“If you can’t find him, these kids won’t have a daddy then,” Christine said in an interview, breaking into tears. “This unborn baby won’t have a daddy.”

In their last phone conversation, from Nicholas’ work phone, he told his wife that he was “signing off on something,” then planned to head home after running an errand at Costco for her.

“He told me he loved me,” she said.

Francisco’s co-workers on Friday combed the streets around Francisco’s work and retraced his route home, hoping to find some sign of the missing man.

“Literally there is no place to search,” said King County sheriff’s spokesman John Urquhart. “What we have to do is our investigative work and try to track him either through cell phone or bank records.”

“It’s not normal for him to make stops, have hangouts or go visit anyone else,” said one co-worker. “He’s a man who comes home after work.”

Christine Francisco said there has been no activity in Nicholas’ e-mail or bank account since he vanished.

Francisco stands about 6 feet tall and was last seen wearing a light blue and white button-down shirt, a plain black jacket and a pair of blue jeans.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts is urged call 911 immediately.

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SOURCES:

• KING-TV
• KOMO Radio

SeaTac – Unsanitary sheets and mattresses forced state officials to shut down a SeaTac motel early Wednesday morning, investigators said.

The New West Motel, located at 21450 International Boulevard, violated construction, maintenance, electrical, fire and safety codes and is operating under unsanitary conditions, according to the Washington State Department of Health.

Conditions in the motel rooms include dangerous wiring installations and broken and boarded-up windows that would prevent guests from escaping a fire.

Other conditions include mold and unsanitary mattresses, bed covers, sheets and mattress pads.

The state was forced to suspend the license of the motel after learning of these violations.

The motel must be vacated by Feb. 15 and may not offer accommodations until a hearing is held.

It has 20 days to request a hearing and contest these charges.

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SOURCE:

• KIRO-TV

SEATAC – A SeaTac company is voluntarily recalling its coconut-flavor frozen desert after state inspectors found one contaminated with a bacterium that can be especially dangerous to pregnant women.

No illnesses have been reported from the nondairy dessert, sold by Ca Rem #1. The dessert, similar to a Popsicle, is sold at 40 food markets and restaurants in Western Washington and western Oregon.

“We know that these desserts can stay in freezers for months, so families should take a second look at what they’ve been saving for a special treat,” said Claudia Coles, manager of the state Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Program.

Coles is encouraging people to throw away Ca Rem #1 coconut desserts they bought.

A Department of Agriculture inspector randomly selected the contaminated dessert Jan. 14 at Asian Planet Food Market in Kent as part of routine food testing, spokesman Jason Kelly said.

Test results returned eight days later showed it was contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, a harmful bacterium.

The Department of Agriculture determined the product’s distribution area and initiated the recall Friday.

The dessert was made in Hillman City, where the retail and wholesale ice cream business was located until being licensed in SeaTac earlier this month, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Ca Rem #1 is owned by Jackie Bell, a Vietnam native who makes nondairy frozen desserts with coconut milk and fruit. She also owned Le Bambou, a now-defunct Vietnamese cafe in Hillman City.

“We don’t know what caused that,” she said of the contaminated product.

Food contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes may not look or smell spoiled. Eating food with the bacterium may cause listeriosis, a food-borne illness that can cause high fever and severe headache, among other symptoms. The elderly and people with weakened immune systems are also particularly at risk.

Consumers with questions are encouraged to call Ca Rem #1 at 206-720-1887.

SOURCE:

• Seattle P-I

SEATAC – For the first time ever, the Port of Seattle has taken stock of the greenhouse gas that is pumped into the atmosphere by activities associated with Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, from parking-lot and hotel shuttles to the vehicles on the tarmac — and, of course, the jets themselves.

The news is sobering.

“Airports are big polluters,” said John Creighton, president of the Port commission. “But we want to be part of the solution not the problem, and the first step is getting solid data, to reduce aviation-related emissions.”

Airport activities generated about 5 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions in 2006 — and 84 percent of that came from airplane emissions, according to the report. Emissions associated with airline travel were equivalent to each of Sea-Tac’s 31 million passengers that year driving for 300 miles in cars that get 23 miles per gallon, according to Russ Simonson, a senior environmental program manager at Sea-Tac.

Transportation to and from the airport was a distant second, at 11 percent of the problem. All the other activities on the ground came to 5 percent or less.

Sea-Tac is the nation’s 17th busiest airport, and last year was its busiest ever.

The Port already has identified steps it wants to take to reduce the emissions, including consolidating shuttle-bus trips and converting some ground-crew vehicles to natural gas. Other airports in the country, including Los Angeles, Dallas and Phoenix, already have taken similar steps.

Airport officials also say they want to build the infrastructure needed to provide electrical power and air to airplanes while they are parked at the gate, so pilots can switch off the jet engines. Some other airports already have taken those steps, too.

But the airport may also use the emissions inventory to break new ground.

Creighton said he sees a special role for Seattle, the home of Boeing and Alaska Airlines, to lead the way nationally. “We need a Northwest clean-air strategy for the airport,” Creighton said.

He said he may push the Port to support federal emissions reductions for aircraft and work with airlines to set voluntary targets to reduce aircraft emissions at the Port of Seattle.

It’s worked before on other environmental issues. In the 1980s, the Port negotiated with the airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration to phase out noisier planes.

While the FAA would prefer a national approach, there’s nothing standing in the way of Sea-Tac again negotiating voluntary agreements, this time on air pollution, said Carl Burleson, director of the office of environment and energy for the FAA.

The FAA is helping airports reduce emissions through operational changes, including implementing more efficient routes, new navigational equipment and switching to electrical power for gate operations, Burleson said.

Any local emission-reduction targets would have to be significant but realistic, Creighton said, taking into consideration current technology, public-safety issues and airlines’ need to remain competitive.

“We don’t want to impose standards that aren’t reachable,” Creighton said. “But I think the Port of Seattle has a role to play and needs to step up and lead.”

SOURCE:

• The Seattle Times

SEATTLE – Bail was set at $250,000 Friday for a Seattle man suspected of raping a 12-year-old runaway and forcing her into prostitution while her family tried to find her.

Known as “Smoke Bone” on the streets, the suspect was observed following a juvenile prostitute two years ago in SeaTac, and may have persuaded two teenage girls working for him to rob a man at knifepoint in 2006, according to a law enforcement source.

On Jan. 9, he befriended the runaway on a sidewalk in Seattle and persuaded her to stay with him. They rode a bus to White Center, where he had sex with her for the first of several times. Within days, he had persuaded her to become a prostitute for him, even instructing how much to charge for sex acts, court documents say.

One night they rode a bus to Federal Way, where she performed oral sex for money. She handed most of the money to the suspect, but was allowed to keep a small portion for food, according to court documents.

The suspect, who has numerous convictions and 10 warrants for his arrest, was arrested Thursday after an officer found him near an apartment where he’d been staying with another girl in West Seattle. He faces charges of first-degree child rape and promoting prostitution.

“I think the detectives were a little shocked at her age,” Seattle police spokesman Mark Jamieson said. “You just think about what if she hadn’t been found.”

The Seattle P-I is not naming the suspect because he has not yet been charged.

The girl’s family had reported her missing when she didn’t return home on Jan. 9. Police had no luck finding her until another woman who knew the suspect called the girl’s legal guardian, after finding her number in a backpack that contained schoolbooks, notebooks and a pair of jeans, according to court documents.

The victim and the suspect had been staying with the woman at a Seattle address, court documents say.

The woman later told police she knew of other young girls the suspect had pimped out for profit, according to court documents.

Once the girl’s family was told of the girl’s whereabouts, her uncle went looking for her Sunday and found her downtown with the suspect.

The uncle confronted the suspect and he ran, court documents say.

The girl reluctantly went with her uncle, but later told police that she “would not stay with him or her guardian and would leave at the first opportunity,” according to a police report.

The victim was taken to Children’s Hospital and Regional Medial Center, where she underwent a rape examination.

In 2005, the P-I detailed how police and social workers were alarmed by a growing number of young girls, some as young as 11, who had been caught in street prostitution. Seattle is one of several hub cities on a network.

The P-I’s report detailed how predatory men often charm and befriend young girls by buying them clothes, showering them with attention, and offering them places to stay. Some were foster children; others ran away from middle-class or upper-class homes.

They soon find themselves emotionally attached and asked to repay their debt by selling themselves. Others are coerced with promises that the money will buy the girl and her pimp a better life.

Researchers estimate that nationally, one of every three kids on the streets will be solicited for sex.

“It does lend a good argument to why we do enforce these laws and have a vice unit, because it’s not a victimless crime. You have somebody who was being raped and forced into prostitution,” Jamieson, the police spokesman, said.

Three years ago, the King County Sheriff’s Office investigated the suspect after two girls, ages 17 and 15, robbed a man at knifepoint outside a Walgreens store on Aurora Avenue North in Shoreline. The girls forced the man to withdraw $40 from an ATM and were seen giving the money to the suspect, a law enforcement source said.

The case was referred to the Prosecutor’s Office, which declined to file charges because of a lack of evidence.

The following year, a deputy patrolling state Route 99 in SeaTac observed a 17-year-old prostitute roaming the street and stopped her.

The deputy noted that the suspect was walking close behind her. Both were interviewed, but police lacked evidence to arrest either one.

The deputy reported that the two were staying at a nearby motel.

SOURCE:

• Seattle P-I

SEATAC – A 22-year-old Fife woman died after her car was hit at about 6:45 Friday morning by a school bus going north on Interstate 5 near SeaTac.

The State Patrol says an Acura rear-ended the car of Megan R. Simon, of Fife, as traffic slowed on Interstate 5 (near South 200th Street) during the morning commute.

Trooper Jeff Merrill says Simon lost control of her car and swerved left into the HOV lane, where a school bus slammed into her car.

There were no passengers on the bus, which was on its way to pick up students from the Kirkland campus of the Northwest School of Innovative Learning.

Merrill says Simon had head and internal injuries. She was taken to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, where she died.

She was alone in her car. No one else involved in the crash was injured.

In the aftermath of the crash, Merrill says another car struck the damaged cars, then sped off. Witnesses say the car was blue, but no better description was available.

Troopers are asking anyone who saw that crash or the initial crash to call 425-649-4370.

The crash blocked most of the freeway for more than three hours, causing an eight-mile backup at one point.

SOURCE:

•  KOMO-TV News

SEATAC, WA – Sea-Tac Airport reported today that more than 31 million passengers used the airport last year, a million more than the year before.

The airport says international traffic jumped more than 9 percent and domestic traffic nearly 4 percent.

The busiest airline at Sea-Tac is Alaska with 35 percent, followed by its regional partner Horizon with 13 percent.

Other leading airlines at Sea-Tac are Southwest with 9 percent of the traffic, United 9 percent, Northwest 7 percent, Delta 6 percent and American 5 percent.

SOURCE:

• Seattle P-I