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American Morning

Avila to Be Arraigned Today for Abduction, Murder

Aired July 22, 2002 - 08:01   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: "Up Front" this morning, the man arrested in the Samantha Runnion case is scheduled for arraignment a little bit later today in California. Authorities arrested Alejandro Avila on Friday, four days after Samantha's abduction.

CNN's Rusty Dornin is standing by in Santa Ana, California and joins us now with the very latest on the investigation -- good morning, Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, it's one week to the day since 5-year-old Samantha Runnion was snatched from her front yard while she was playing with her young friend. As you said Alejandro Avila will be in court, make his initial appearance, and be arraigned on kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder charges.

Now, police are saying that it was several tips that initially led them to Avila and then they began comparing some of the physical evidence left at the scene. They went to his mother's apartment, where he lived, and began gathering belongings. They impounded several of the family's cars to look through those.

And Sheriff Mike Carona does say that there was DNA evidence that did lead them to Avila. Now, we don't know exactly what that is, but we do know that police were looking for a man who had scratches on his body, indicating possibly that the little girl fought and might have had some kind of skin or something underneath her fingernails.

Sheriff Mike Carona says at this point he has no doubt that has he his man.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF MICHAEL CARONA, ORANGE COUNTY CALIFORNIA: I've had the opportunity throughout this investigation to look at not only the investigative evidence, but also the forensic evidence that has come out. And the combination of those two elements leads me to believe that at the level of 100 percent, we have the right man that committed this crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DORNIN: Now, apparently Orange County has its own DNA lab that they ended up building after another case where the DNA evidence came in too late. So this county actually has its own lab, which is why that enabled them to get preliminary tests back very quickly.

Funeral services have not yet been announced for Samantha Runnion and although her mother did appear before well wishers over the weekend and thanked them for all their sympathy and their help in terms of her daughter's death -- Paula.

ZAHN: So, Rusty, one of the D.A.'s, or the D.A. of Orange County yesterday says he's considering the death penalty. Do you know exactly what would ultimately push him to do that?

DORNIN: Well, they're reviewing the case. As you know in California, Paula, that there are special circumstances that must be along with a murder charge. Of course, in this case it's kidnapping. He says that he will review the case. He wants to talk to the family. He wants to get a sense of the community and that sort of thing before he actually goes forward with that.

We'll have to see when that will be announced, whether that's today, tomorrow or this week.

ZAHN: I thought the most interesting thing the sheriff had to tell us this morning was that even though they did not have the conclusive DNA link at the time of Friday's arrest, they arrested Avila anyway because they were afraid he was going to flee.

Have you heard anything else about that?

DORNIN: No. From what I understand, they felt they had enough circumstantial at that point but they were still awaiting some of these tests to come back later in the afternoon and that they just didn't want to lose track of him at that point. So that was what made their decision to go ahead and arrest him and that might have also been, contributed to the very unusual press conference where he didn't answer any questions at all, you know, but only to announce Avila's arrest, but said that he would answer questions later and that we can only believe that that's, possibly that was pending the outcome of some of these preliminary tests.

ZAHN: Sure.

OK, thanks, Rusty. Appreciate it.

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