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CNN Live At Daybreak

Thousands Mourn Samantha Runnion

Aired July 25, 2002 - 06:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: In California, emotions ran high as family and thousands of mourners paid last respects to 5-year-old Samantha Runnion.

CNN's David Mattingly was there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She was just a little girl who dreamed of one day flying like Peter Pan, but those who knew her say Samantha Runnion had an emotional depth beyond her years. She cherished her friends and deeply loved her family.

And though her life was taken in the cruel act of a stranger, it was thousands more strangers mourning her loss.

REV. ROBERT SCHULLER, PASTOR, CRYSTAL CATHEDRAL: What is true and what is good is what brought all of you here today.

MATTINGLY: Funeral services at the massive Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, standing-room only, televised across the country. And a standing ovation for the man who led the hunt for Samantha's killer, Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, who took on a case of a missing girl, and made it a personal mission for all of southern California.

SHERIFF MICHAEL CARONA, ORANGE COUNTY POLICE: She was a little girl. Little girl's aren't supposed to die. Little girls aren't supposed to die the way Samantha died.

MATTINGLY: Many in attendance with their own children at their sides. Samantha's abduction was every parent's nightmare, now her funeral is every parent's sadness.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All that was good was in this little girl, and all that was evil, that's what caused her death. A little child shouldn't die like this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's hard -- the mother -- it's really hard.

ERIN RUNNION, SAMANTHA'S MOTHER: Nothing can bring our baby back, but knowing that her death was handled with the utmost integrity and her life cherished by so many does bring some solace. MATTINGLY: It was the first chance for the nation to learn about the 5-year-old behind the bright smile and curly hair, a tragedy deepened now by that knowledge, the loss of who she was compounded by the loss of who she could have grown up to be.

David Mattingly, CNN, Garden Grove, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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