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Alejandro Avila Pleads Not Guilty to Murder

Aired August 09, 2002 - 14:30   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: In California, a man authorities say has prayed on young girls in past and now stands accused of murder enters his plea.
CNN's Charles Feldman was there when Alejandro Avila was arraigned on charges he kidnapped and killed Samantha Runnion.

Hi there, Charles.

CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka.

Not guilty -- that is the plea entered this morning by Alejandro Avila to charges that he kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered 5- year-old Samantha Runnion.

And one of things that came out in court this morning was that there was a concern, clearly, about pretrial publicity. And going into that argument was the fact that the district attorney himself chose to go to court this morning. That is a very unusual event at this early stage in a preceding, to have the D.A. go.

But the D.A. went because he wanted to move this case along to a preliminary hearing, which is where they determine if there is enough evidence to go to trial. He wanted that done fairly early on, but the defense won a round, and the judge has set September 16 as a date when they will set first a date in the future for that preliminary hearing. So it is going to be several weeks, probably several months now, away until that happens.

Also the lawyer representing Alejandro Avila told me that she is very likely to seek a change of venue in this case when it goes to trial, because of all of the pretrial publicity.

As I said before, this is a case that involves 5-year-old Samantha Runnion, who was playing right outside of her home, here in Orange County, California, when she was kidnapped. Her grandmother, in fact, was just inside the house at the time. She was kidnapped, and then it was determined by authorities, sexually assaulted and then, of course, murdered.

Alejandro Avila, you mentioned before, when you were tossing to me, Fredricka, has had a brush with the law before. He had been charged with sexually assaulting two minors, two young girls, including the girl of the woman he was at the time seeing; it was a girlfriend of his. But that went to trial, and a jury found him not guilty -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much, Charles Feldman.

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