Samantha Runnion's Killer Sentenced to DEATH
tiny dancer
kidnapped and killed Samantha Runnion in 2002.
A jury in May convicted Alejandro Avila of snatching the 5-year-old girl
outside her Stanton home. Her nude body was found the following day in the
mountains about 50 miles away.
The same jury had recommended the death penalty.
Defense attorneys had urged jurors to spare Avila's life. They claim the
abduction was prompted by a brutal childhood in which Avila was beaten by
his father, raped by an uncle and neglected by his mother.
tiny dancer
By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer
Friday, July 22, 2005
(07-22) 10:16 PDT Santa Ana, Calif. (AP) --
A judge on Friday formally sentenced to death the man who kidnapped,
sexually assaulted and murdered 5-year-old Samantha Runnion in 2002 - a case
that led to the expansion of child abduction alerts on electronic billboards
along California's freeways.
"You're a disgrace to the human race," Samantha's mother, Erin Runnion,
tearily told Alejandro Avila in court before the sentencing. "... Everything
in me wants to hurt you in every possible way."
A jury convicted the 30-year-old former factory worker in April and voted
for the death penalty in May. Superior Court Judge William R. Froeberg
endorsed the jury's recommendation Friday.
Avila snatched a kicking and screaming Runnion as she played outside her
Stanton home. Her nude body was found the following day in the mountains
about 50 miles away, left on the ground as if it had been posed.
Authorities said she had been suffocated by pressing on her chest.
More than 4,000 people attended her funeral and then-Gov. Gray Davis ordered
a statewide increase in the number of electronic billboards that flash
information about a suspected abduction soon after it's reported.
A friend of Samantha's gave police a description of her kidnapper that
produced a police sketch resembling Avila. Prosecutors used cell phone and
bank records to show that Avila had been near where Samantha was abducted.
They also said Avila's DNA was under her fingernails, and sneaker prints and
tire tracks found near the girl's body came from him. Samantha's DNA also
was found on the inside of the door of Avila's car, probably from tears or
mucus, prosecutors said.
The defense challenged the reliability of the DNA analysis and suggested
that the material found inside Avila's car had been planted.
After the conviction, defense attorneys urged jurors to spare Avila's life,
arguing that the abduction was an impulsive act prompted by a brutal
childhood in which he was beaten by his father, raped by an uncle and
neglected by his mother.
The defense challenged the reliability of the DNA analysis and suggested
that the material found inside Avila's car had been planted.
Samantha's killing was one in a series of child abductions, including
7-year-old Danielle van Dam of San Diego and 15-year-old Elizabeth Smart in
Utah.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/07/22/state/n100426D64.DTL&feed=rss.news
Scorpi...@attnospam.net
Good! I heard her nitwit mother on TV wanting to spare his life.
--
Scorp
EnEss
<ScorpionKing wrote:
> <tinydancer wrote:
(quoting text:
>>Samantha's killing was one in a series of child abductions, including
>>7-year-old Danielle van Dam of San Diego and 15-year-old Elizabeth
> Smart in
>>Utah.
> Good! I heard her nitwit mother on TV wanting to spare his life.
You heard whose "nitwit mother" on TV?
NS
(add sbc before global to email)
Michael Ejercito
Those defense attorneys had a tough sell. they might as well ask us
to spare the lives of Al Qaeda terrorists.
Michael
eartha...@yahoo.com
Judge says Inland man 'forfeited his right to live'
09:57 AM PDT on Saturday, July 23, 2005
By LISA O'NEILL HILL and PHIL PITCHFORD /
The Press-Enterprise
Moments before an Orange County judge sentenced her daughter's killer
to death Friday, a tearful and angry Erin Runnion said she wanted
Alejandro Avila to instead spend the rest of his life in prison,
forgotten, alone and unloved.
"You don't deserve a place in my family's history. And so I want you to
live," Runnion said, staring sharply at Avila, who would not
acknowledge her. "I want you to disappear into the abyss of a lifetime
in prison where no one will remember you, no one will pray for you, no
one will care when you die."
Avila, "energized by child pornography, went hunting" for a victim and
found Samantha Runnion, Superior Court Judge William R. Froeberg said
before handing down the sentence. The chestnut-haired 5-year-old was
playing outside her Stanton home with a friend on July 15, 2002.
Avila pretended to look for a lost puppy, then forced the kicking and
screaming child into his green Ford Thunderbird. He beat her in the
head, and sexually assaulted and asphyxiated her. Samantha's nude body
was found by hang gliders the next day in a remote area of Riverside
County. Avila had "posed her as if she were some kind of trophy,"
Froeberg said Friday.
Erin Runnion, standing next to her husband and at times shaking with
fury, spoke directly to Avila for the first time and demanded an
apology. She said she never will fathom how he could have killed her
loving, bright and funny daughter.
"I wrote this statement on the third anniversary of the night you took
my baby and hurt her and scared her and crushed her until her heart
stopped. She fought. I know she fought. I know she looked at you with
those amazing, sparkling brown eyes and you still wanted to kill her. I
don't understand it. I never will."
Avila, 30, of Lake Elsinore, remained stoic, just as he had during the
five-week trial. He did not make a statement, and none of his relatives
spoke on his behalf. They could not be reached Friday.
The conviction and death sentence are automatically appealed to the
state Supreme Court.
Death Penalty
Assistant Public Defender Denise Gragg said the jury's recommendation
of death over life in prison without parole showed she failed to
adequately present mitigating circumstances, such as Avila's difficult
upbringing among pedophiles and alcoholics.
"Obviously, I should have been better," she said, adding there was a
"mob mentality" surrounding the case.
"People have been baying for this man's blood since the day he was
arrested," she said.
Orange County Assistant District Attorney Dave Brent, who prosecuted
Avila, said Erin Runnion was hoping for something she never got from
Avila -- "even a small sliver of remorse."
"He's just not going to do it," Brent said.
An eight-man, four-woman jury convicted Avila in April. The following
month, they recommended that the former factory worker receive the
death penalty. Jurors rejected a defense claim that Avila deserved
mercy because he had a wretched childhood.
"He apparently comes from a rotten family," Froeberg said. "That may be
an explanation, but it is not an excuse for his behavior. He has
forfeited his right to live."
An Orange County probation officer said in a report that anything less
than the death penalty would diminish the value of Samantha's life.
"The defendant's actions against this victim are viewed to be (the)
epitome of evil and wickedness," Deputy Probation Officer Pamela D.
Hostetler wrote. "Moreover, this innocent victim was made to realize
one of childhood's most prevalent fears, that of the bogeyman."
National Attention
The sentencing came a week after the three-year anniversary of
Samantha's abduction and four days before what would have been her
ninth birthday. Samantha was 11 days shy of turning 6 when she was
snatched; her mother already had bought her presents.
Samantha's kidnapping and murder gained national attention and spurred
efforts to improve the Amber Alert system for abducted children.
On Friday morning, the hushed Santa Ana courtroom was packed with
observers. Avila entered wearing tan slacks and a light blue, striped
shirt. He did not look at anyone but whispered to his attorneys as he
sat down.
Eleven jurors and alternates were in the audience for the sentencing,
some saying they needed closure in a case that continues to haunt them.
Foreman Terry Dancey gave jurors buttons he had received from a victim
witness advocate. One featured a bright sunflower, the other a
photograph of Samantha featuring one of her favorite expressions, "Be
Brave."
"If ever there was a case that needed the death penalty, this was it,"
Dancey said outside of court.
"He's a different sort of beast than the rest of us on this planet,"
Dancey said.
Another juror, Linda Sullivan, said she was impressed with how Runnion
handled herself.
"I don't know how she stood up there and did what she had to do,"
Sullivan said. "This man tore her family apart. She has to live the
rest of her life without her little girl."
Sullivan said she respected Runnion for remaining true to her feelings
about the death penalty.
"I'm not going to second-guess someone's beliefs," she said.
A Mother's Pain
Runnion, wearing a red shirt and black skirt, told the court that since
Samantha's death, she has felt more rage and hate than she ever thought
possible. But she said she would not allow her hatred for Avila to take
more space in her heart than her love for her daughter.
"The pain is impossible to describe, the guilt I feel for bringing that
sweet baby into the world only to be tortured and terrified," she said.
"I am so sorry I let her down."
At times angry and forceful and at other times weeping, Runnion said
Avila will never understand the gut-wrenching agony that he has
created. He has no idea what love means, she said, and was so arrogant
to take a life.
"I want an apology. Someday I want you to feel the impact of what you
did to Samantha," she said. "I want you to realize how much you stole."
Soon after, Runnion became frustrated with Avila and raised her voice,
saying sharply, "You better pay attention."
At one point, a woman in the back of the courtroom interjected as
Runnion spoke, shouting, "Take him out of protective custody." The
woman then walked out, followed by a deputy.
The Trial
During the trial, prosecutors presented ATM receipts, cellular phone
records and forensic evidence as proof. Samantha herself left the most
compelling piece of evidence as she fought off her abductor: Her DNA,
consistent with tears, was found on the passenger side of Avila's car.
The child also had Avila's DNA under her fingernails.
The testimony of three Riverside County girls who said Avila had
molested them proved pivotal in establishing him as a sexual deviant.
He had been acquitted of molesting two of them 18 months before he
snatched Samantha.
During the penalty phase, Runnion and her mother, Virginia Runnion,
were the prosecution's only two witnesses. Jurors wept as the women
described how the girl nicknamed "Mantha" left notes for relatives that
said, "be brave," and "I love you."
Avila's attorneys called 21 witnesses, many of them relatives who
testified that Avila's father taunted and beat his son, and that an
uncle molested him. But Froeberg said Friday that he did not believe
Avila had been sexually abused.
"The court views this evidence with a great deal of skepticism," he
said.
Gragg had begged the jury to show her client mercy.
The mother of one of the girls Avila was acquitted of molesting in
Riverside County said Friday that she had mixed feelings about the
sentence.
"Even if he goes to death row, the state of California will not put him
to death right away," said Lizbeth Veglahn, 39, of Murrieta. "He'll
still be sitting there in 20 years."
Runnion said Avila is a disgrace who wasted his life "to satisfy a
selfish and sick desire."
"You knew it was wrong, but you chose not to think about it," Runnion
said. "Now you have a lot of time to think about it. Don't waste it.
Write it down so the rest of us might learn how to stop you people."
eartha...@yahoo.com
Avila will become Orange County's 50th - and California's 645th -
inmate on death row. He will be transferred within 10 days to San
Quentin State Prison to wait, possibly for decades, for his execution.
The last man executed in California was Donald Beardslee, in January,
after 20 years and 10 months on death row.
Scorpi...@attnospam.net
The victim's nitwit mother.
--
Scorp
Sarah Monroe
Maybe he can get his very own web pages, like Scott Peterson.
Sarah