Home Invasion Suspected in Irvine Slaying : Crime: Police believe an acquaintance or acquaintances of college student may have helped intruders enter home where she was killed during a robbery Thursday night.

The murder of an 18-year-old college student, found tied up and bloodied in her home, may have been the result of a home-invasion robbery gone awry, police said.

Irvine Sgt. Jim Potts said new leads obtained by detectives indicate that an acquaintance or acquaintances of Linda Young Park may have helped intruders enter her home, where she was killed during a robbery Thursday night.

“We think it’s a combination of a [home-invasion robbery] and someone she knew,” Potts said.

“Right now it’s so early we just don’t want to say a lot,” Potts said, declining to elaborate. “We just don’t know for sure.”

A woman who identified herself as a relative of Park said Saturday that she “very much doubted” that Park could have known anyone connected with a group of people involved in home-invasion robberies.

Potts said home-invasion robberies have become increasingly common in Orange County’s Korean American and other Asian communities. Gangs have been known to carefully select their targets.

Park’s father, Sun Hwa Park, found his daughter’s body hogtied face down on the living room floor when he returned home from work about 8 p.m. Thursday. Irvine police have not disclosed how she was killed.

Relatives said Park, who was known to be cautious about opening the door to strangers, would never have allowed someone in the house she did not know. They also speculated that the assailant must have known the family’s schedule.

Park last spoke with her father, the owner of a Tustin upholstery shop, between 5:30 and 6 p.m. Thursday to say she was going out and had left dinner for him. When the father called back at 6:30 p.m., there was no answer, according to relatives and neighbors.

When he came home an hour and a half later, the father found Park’s body. Detectives said Friday that robbery appeared to be the motive. The father said $500 in cash and his wife’s jewelry were taken, although the home was not ransacked.