UPDATE ON SAMANTHA (CA) Arrest made in murder!!!!!!!

7/19/02 | Joe Hadenuf

[Joe Hadenuf]

Update from OC Sheriff... Press conference..

Playing 911 tape of the people that found the body, male caller was extremely upset, and scared, he was crying, and telling 911 the location but the cell phone transmission was breaking up and was disconnected.

They called the telephone number he left before the disconnect and they called his home and got a messege machine. He called back within minutes and made contact again with 911 and was almost hysterical and crying saying it was little girl and was very distraught,

When Cell caller got home he called again from home phone and recontacted 911, 911 said they would pick him up and the he could show him where the body was.

End of 911 tape

Press conference continues, stating over 2000 citizens have given leads......

Another press conference at 6 PM

At 955 AM they made an arrest alihondro avial DOB 3-1375

[Askel5]

I'm going to do a long-overdue post on Kinsey.

Not only do I believe depiction of illegal acts (however "faked" is the cyber sex) should be illegal ... rather than the For-Profit "Free Speech" our courts have decided to protect, I believe with freedom comes certain authority.

That authority is most just the more it is seated in the individual, the family, the community, the town, the state ... rather than being seated in the Federal Government or World State and imposing on All the tyranny of judicial fiat and Democratization.

Any community that wants to ban the likes of Larry Flynt of or the peddling of pornography within its city limits should have the freedom to do so.

Unless the State can make the case for pornography as a Self-Evident Good, they have no business FORCING it on us.

[Illbay]

You are WAY too sweet.

I recently nominated you and Summer as "Sweethearts of the Rodeo Called 'Free Republic'".

I can't recall ever seeing either of you lose your cool here. That's an extraordinary compliment.

[sweetliberty]

"what were his priors?"

A couple of years ago he was charged with molesting a couple of other girls, one of them the daughter of an ex-girlfriend who just happened to live a couple of doors down from Samantha. He was found "not guilty."

[homeschool mama]

**Do you approve of this memorial?**

Are you baiting Fres?

[Illbay]

I admit: You really struggle with the notion of "innocent until proving guilty." I understand how lynch mobs can form in situations like this, as happened in the Frank case in Atlanta back in the 1910s.

But everyone has a right to fair representation, etc.

What I DO hate is the really smarmy publicity-hounds that typically do these cases. If Johnny Cochran volunteers, I'm gonna lose all respect for him!

[Joe Hadenuf]

LOL!

I would almost bet that he made more than one telephone call during this day, in an attempt to cover tracks, make excuses, and or to appear normal.....

[Redcloak]

Some new details from the OC Register...

---

Man arrested in girl's kidnapping

Garden Grove woman says suspect molested her daughter, niece.

July 19, 2002

By JEFF COLLINS, BILL RAMS and JOHN McDONALD
The Orange County Register

	ALEJANDRO AVILA, of Lake Elsinore, arrested in connection with Samantha Runnion's kidnap-murder

A Lake Elsinore man was arrested this morning in connection with the kidnap-slaying of Stanton grade-school student Samantha Runnion, Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona announced, and a woman told the Register that the suspect had molested her daughter two years ago.

Alejandro Avila, 27, was detained late Thursday and held for questioning through the night as sheriff's investigators served three search warrants at family apartments in Lake Elsinore and at a Temecula business where he worked.

Relatives told reporters early this morning that investigators had taken him to an undisclosed hotel.

The 6-foot-tall, 200-pound man has a black mustache and resembles the composite drawing made from a 6-year-old witness's description.

Avila's mother, Adelina, said that her son had been charged with child molestation in the past but was acquitted. His sister, Elvira, maintained that charges were based on accusations from a vengeful former girlfriend.

Adelina Avila told television reporters this morning that she spoke with her son Monday night and he claimed to be at a mall in Ontario.

	COMPOSITE SKETCH of suspect released Tuesday as identified by a witness from the kidnaping scene. Source: Orange County Sheriff's Department

"His record is clean," said Marie Quiros, a family friend at his mother's apartment this morning.

But Beth Veglahn of Garden Grove said she was amazed that Avila hadn't been convicted of charges that he molested her 11-year-old daughter and pre-teen niece.

Veglahn said her daughter was victimized by Avila when he lived with them two years ago. Her daughter, now 11, had lived in the Stanton town home complex where Samantha was kidnapped and had even played with her.

"I think he went there to get my baby, but instead he took this little girl," she said.

Samantha, 5, was playing with a 6-year-old friend on a perimeter road Monday night in the Smoketree town home complex in Stanton when a man in a green car asked them for help finding his dog, then grabbed the girl and forced her into his car.

Her nude body was discovered 20 hours later on a Cleveland National Forest hillside near Lake Elsinore, and an autopsy determined that she had been asphyxiated.

Rewards totaling $150,000 have been offered for information leading to the arrest of her killer, and about 400 local officers and FBI agents are investigating.

Riverside County Sheriff-Elect Bob Doyle this morning played for reporters portions of a 911 tape in which a distraught, tearful witness reported finding Samantha's body off Killen Trail Tuesday afternoon.

"Oh, my God! We just found a dead body," the man, identified only as Justin, said during a cell phone call. He told a dispatcher he had to get out of there because the sight frightened him.

"I'm so scared, it was a little kid. ... I'm sorry, but I have a 3-year-old son," he told the dispatchers. "I think it might even be the little girl that's been on the news."

Quiros said that Avila had been staying for a while at Elvira's unit in the Lakeview II Apartments in Lake Elsinore.

"(Avila's) mother's like, really devastated," she said.

Sheriff's investigators searched both his sister's and mother's apartments in the complex, as well as Guidant Corp. in Temecula, where he worked.

A Guidant spokesman declined to comment.

Residents in the Stanton neighborhood where Samantha was abducted said FBI agents were showing a photo of Avila to them Thursday to see if anybody recognized him.

Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo met with Samantha's family to deliver news that an arrest had been made.

"They were glad to see us," Jaramillo said. "They're emotionally controlled and refrained. I could only hope to have the strength of character the mother has had in these trying times."

---

This line from the mother of girl "allegedly" molested by Avila is chilling: "I think he went there to get my baby, but instead he took this little girl".

[nycgal]

Whoever it was, he/she should feel real proud of themself!

...along with the jury that acquitted him.

[Illbay]

Right on, man. I find it ironic that so many of us here scream and yell about these "third world animals," all the while demonstrating that we can be just as insanely irrational as they are.

In the end, it's called "tribalism," and it is the very thing that civilization was intended to get away from.

[latina4dubya]

so glad i'm not the only one who was unaware of Chandra Levy's murderer being arrested... when did that happen?

[Illbay]

I'm assuming that the father never married the mother? And that he didn't think enough of his little girl to move to be near her? In that case, although I know his grief is real, I suspect it's probably more from self-recrimination.

[MsCynic]

I have been following this "debate" from the start and I still can't figure in where certain posters think that KineticKitty said that she associated crime with California.

I guess you're so focused on "home schooling" your children that you forgot how to read in a way that your narrow mind could absorb what is in black and white.

[sweetliberty]

"He said, "I think he's sick. I'd hate to think that someone could be that evil."

This is a symptom of liberal brainwashing of the culture. Denial of evil is denial of God. Acknowledgement of evil means there are absolutes and that there must be accountability. This is in direct conflict with the liberal doctrine that nobody is responsible for their actions therefore there has to be another explanation. Oh, I know....sickness, then they can't help it. The next step will be some perverted acceptance of the behavior as some variant of "normal" as with homosexuality.

[Illbay]

Excellent. While most of us just talk about it, you're actually DOING something to make it a better world.

Hats off to you.

[Joe Hadenuf]

What I DO hate is the really smarmy publicity-hounds that typically do these cases. If Johnny Cochran volunteers, I'm gonna lose all respect for him!

Well I never had any real respect for Johnny, other than he was street slick and knew what to say.

And yes, more than a few people have contacted me and want to rush the GD courthouse with torches and pitchforks. No kidding, it's hard to not join the lynch mob....Some seem to be waiting to hear the evidence, and others are totally convinced, and are extremely angry to put it mildly.

This has really brought many people together here in Southern Cal......

[Illbay]

Well, since they've ruled on numerous occasions that SPEECH that can incite criminal activity, etc., is actionable, I don't see why not.

In this extremely litigious world, often people realize, as the Goldmans did with Orenthal, that civil action is the only remedy you have left since it seems that the law protects evil in our modern society more than it protects good.

[Hornetsrule]

It's not hard if you've read Roman history. It's not like I thought up this stuff myself or anything.

I'm kicking myself for not knowing Roman history - just recently read E.Gibbon's D&F Ch. 44, where nine crimes worthy of death are listed.

3.The murder of a citizen...(I particularly like the punishment for a parricide.) The parricide, who violated the duties of nature and gratitude, was cast into the river or the sea, enclosed in a sack; and a cock, a viper, a dog, and a monkey, were successively added, as the most suitable companions.

Sounds about right for this guy.

5.Judicial perjury. The corrupt or malicious witness was thrown headlong from the Tarpeian rock, to expiate his falsehood...

I would have been content with that punishment for Clinton.:-)

[Politicalmom]

Well, now I am in trouble. Native born Californian, recently moved to Georgia. How long do my teeth have, exactly??? : )

[homeschool mama]

bump!

[alexandria]

Thanks for pointing that out! It's an interesting coincidence..
Yes it's, possibly one of the more "tin foil type varity" coincidences in this case and I don't feel that the date was a MO type factor. (IE, he only dumps the bodies on the 16th of the month)
I do not belive he is that kind of precise fetish type killer, I also don't belive that this is his first. From what we know so far this was a pretty graphic, horrible, and staged death scene. I'm just not buying the fact that this is his first not by a long shot. I belive he's done this before but didn't get caught and he has progressively gotten braver and more severe in his killings.