College Student Slain Inside Her O.C. Home : Crime: Victim’s body is discovered by her father as he returns from work. Police have made no arrests; neighbors stunned.

An 18-year-old college student who was found hogtied and covered with blood in her family’s home apparently was killed during a robbery that relatives speculated Friday may have been committed by someone she knew.

The murder of Linda Young Park, a freshman at Irvine Valley College, stunned residents of the Deerfield neighborhood, as family members tried to fathom the tragedy and police combed the house for evidence.

“I can’t think of a reason why anyone would do this,” said Sun Hwa Park, the young woman’s father, as he stood sobbing in the family’s front yard Friday.

The father, who owns a Tustin upholstery shop, found his daughter’s body when he returned home from work about 8 p.m. Thursday.

The Park family has lived in the quiet neighborhood of two-story homes for more than a decade and Linda Park had dreamed of becoming a fashion designer.

Irvine police detectives would not disclose how the student was killed, saying that was a “crucial” part of the investigation. Earlier, investigators said she was neither shot nor stabbed. No arrest had been made Friday.

Police said there were no signs of forced entry into the family’s home, which is tucked away on a side street away from major thoroughfares. Relatives said they suspected that Linda Park, who turned 18 last month, was attacked by someone who might have known the family’s schedule.

Duke Lee, Linda Park’s uncle, said the young woman was very cautious and always looked through the peephole before opening the front door, even when her parents were at home.

“She wouldn’t have opened the door for a stranger,” said Lee, 43, of Garden Grove. “We think it was someone she knew.”

Linda Park usually came home in the afternoon, did her homework and prepared dinner for her father, relatives said. Her mother, 49-year-old Dong Sil Park, usually left the house on Blazing Star about 4:30 p.m. to work at a nearby post office, police said.

On Thursday, Linda Park had followed her typical routine, with no hint of trouble, police and relatives said.

“She had a normal day,” Police Sgt. Phil Povey said. “She went to her [2 p.m.] class and returned home at a normal time. . . .

“There were no signs that she had gone outside and came back in to find someone in her house. She was in the residence at the time that the attacker made entry.”

Linda Park had called her father at work sometime between 5:30 and 6 p.m. to tell him she was going out and had prepared dinner, according to relatives and neighbors. When the father called her back about 6:30 p.m., he got the family’s answering machine and left a message for his daughter.

She never called back.

Coming home from work more than an hour later, the father said, he noticed that the front door wasn’t locked as he twisted the key to open it.

Sun Hwa Park said he walked inside, looked to the left toward the living room and saw his daughter’s body sprawled face down on the floor.

A neighbor said she was upstairs in her home watching television when she heard what sounded like “someone crashing through my door.”

“[Sun Hwa Park] was screaming, ‘Marilyn, Marilyn, come! Someone has killed Linda!’ ” said Marilyn Fox, 48. “I went over to the house. . . . When I saw her, I knew she was dead.

“Then we both yelled out to [another neighbor] . . . and called 911,” Fox said.

Detectives said robbery was the apparent motive for the killing. The father said $500 in cash and his wife’s jewelry were missing from the home. The house was not ransacked, he said.

“Nobody can understand the reason for this,” Lee said.

The slaying sent chills through the Deerfield neighborhood, where many residents had known the Parks since the family of four settled there in 1980. Jane Ghesquiere, who was barbecuing in her back yard across from the Park home when the body was found, said she spent Thursday night tossing and turning. Ghesquiere’s daughter was among a handful of teen-agers in the area who grew up with Linda Park.

As youngsters, Linda Park and her friends played at Deerfield Community Park and went for ice cream afterward, neighbors said.

Greg Bern, 19, who lives down the street from the Park family and also attends Irvine Valley College, said he and Linda have been friends since childhood.

“We used to play hide-and-go-seek together,” he said. “She was a quiet person.” Neighbors said they were baffled about Thursday’s killing because no one noticed any strange cars on the block around the time of the slaying, which police have pegged at sometime between 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

“This is a very close community,” Marilyn Fox said. “We all sort of look out for one another here.”

Fox said she had been home since 4 p.m. and had stepped out of her house about 5:30 p.m. to check the common mail box shared by nearby residents. She thought it was strange that the Parks’ Doberman, Sammy, didn’t bark at her but she didn’t think more of it at the time.

“Sammy never barked once,” Marilyn Fox said. “Usually, when I walk through that side door, he would at least go ‘Woof, woof.’ The dog didn’t do anything [Thursday]. . . .

“It’s just devastating that something like this could happen and I’m standing next door.”

The dog was on the premises when police arrived and investigators said they did not know why he may have been silent during the evening.

Residents described the Park family as “extremely nice” and said the Parks often cooked Korean barbecue at Christmas for their neighbors.

When news of the killing spread, residents gathered at Marilyn Fox’s home to comfort the Parks, who couldn’t go back into their home until Friday morning.

“We were up until 3 [a.m.], then they went to a relative’s,” Marilyn Fox said. “This is the worst thing that has ever happened in our neighborhood.”

Times staff writers Rene Lynch and Karen D’Souza contributed to this report.