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American Morning
24-year-old David Cruz to be Formally Charged Tomorrow
Aired June 10, 2003 - 07:33 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The man suspected of kidnapping a 9- year-old girl from her home in San Jose, California now behind bars. Police say 24-year-old David Cruz, formally charged tomorrow with kidnapping, felony assault and sexual assault. The girl was found Sunday night when she walked into a convenience store about 30 miles from her home back in San Jose.
With us today live in California, the city's deputy police chief, once again, Rob Davis.
Thanks, Chief, again, for your time with us today.
ROB DAVIS, DEPUTY CHIEF, SAN JOSE POLICE: You bet.
Good morning, Bill.
HEMMER: Clarify this matter about a fourth grader who may have known this 9-year-old girl that could have been the connection to Cruz. Help us put all these dots together.
DAVIS: Well, what it looks like at this time -- and, again, we're still at the front end of the investigation, is it seems like the victim had a child, a childhood friend, someone about her same age, who had a relative who was an acquaintance of the suspect. So there are a couple of steps in that chain before we get to the connection between the victim and the suspect.
HEMMER: All right, sir, as we go through this, then, what do you believe was the motivation for the abduction and the breaking into that home Friday of last week?
DAVIS: We believe that there were several motives for the crime. A couple of them we can't talk about at this time in the investigation, but clearly we've charged the individual with several counts of sexual assault. So we know that that was one of the motives.
HEMMER: What about the pizza? Pepperoni pizza ordered on Saturday night traced back to his home. How did you come across this?
DAVIS: Well, mostly it was through information that the victim herself provided us. The key information she provided us that led us to the suspect was her information about the residence itself. She very quickly gave us some key pieces of information which allowed the investigators to quickly move to secure the house where the suspect was located.
HEMMER: All right, are you looking for anyone else, an accomplice in this, right now?
DAVIS: We're more at a stage where we're eliminating the possibility that anybody else may have been involved. There's no indication yet at this time that there's any solid evidence of that.
HEMMER: So you just believe Cruz is the only one responsible at this point?
DAVIS: All of the evidence we have at this time tends to point to the fact that he probably acted alone.
HEMMER: Now, do you know why he released her on Sunday evening?
DAVIS: I think a lot of it had to do with the media covering. I think that there was some heat on, if you will, so that he realized that things were serious and perhaps he was, he needed to cut to the chase and get out of town as soon as he could.
Secondly, I think there are some key things that the young woman herself, the girl, told him during the abduction that may have led him to decide to release her.
HEMMER: Things such as what, Chief?
DAVIS: Those are things I can't go into too much detail about right now. I think as time goes by, we'll see that there may be some classic things that she did that may be useful to others in the future in terms of how she interacted with the suspect. But I can't go into that detail right now.
HEMMER: Classic things that down the road might be able to help others?
DAVIS: If this was to ever happen to somebody else, perhaps we could say, we could train our children that these are things you should say or do if you ever find yourself in that situation. And I think that that may be something we should look at.
HEMMER: Wow. Police met with her again yesterday on Monday.
How is she doing?
DAVIS: She's doing great. I mean we know that when she walked into the market she was still terrorized. In fact, she told the clerk not to call the police because she was so terrorized. However, once she was in police hands, she quickly put a smile back on her face, felt safe and secure and has just been a remarkable young woman in terms of the amount of detail she's been able to give us, as well as to rebound from what it is that she's gone through.
I mean there were some very, very ugly incidents during this abduction and she's been able to bounce back from that, at least in the short-term, and just be a model of what we needed to try and get the case done.
HEMMER: Our best to her. Rob Davis, thanks, deputy police chief there in San Jose.
DAVIS: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired June 10, 2003 - 07:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The man suspected of kidnapping a 9- year-old girl from her home in San Jose, California now behind bars. Police say 24-year-old David Cruz, formally charged tomorrow with kidnapping, felony assault and sexual assault. The girl was found Sunday night when she walked into a convenience store about 30 miles from her home back in San Jose.
With us today live in California, the city's deputy police chief, once again, Rob Davis.
Thanks, Chief, again, for your time with us today.
ROB DAVIS, DEPUTY CHIEF, SAN JOSE POLICE: You bet.
Good morning, Bill.
HEMMER: Clarify this matter about a fourth grader who may have known this 9-year-old girl that could have been the connection to Cruz. Help us put all these dots together.
DAVIS: Well, what it looks like at this time -- and, again, we're still at the front end of the investigation, is it seems like the victim had a child, a childhood friend, someone about her same age, who had a relative who was an acquaintance of the suspect. So there are a couple of steps in that chain before we get to the connection between the victim and the suspect.
HEMMER: All right, sir, as we go through this, then, what do you believe was the motivation for the abduction and the breaking into that home Friday of last week?
DAVIS: We believe that there were several motives for the crime. A couple of them we can't talk about at this time in the investigation, but clearly we've charged the individual with several counts of sexual assault. So we know that that was one of the motives.
HEMMER: What about the pizza? Pepperoni pizza ordered on Saturday night traced back to his home. How did you come across this?
DAVIS: Well, mostly it was through information that the victim herself provided us. The key information she provided us that led us to the suspect was her information about the residence itself. She very quickly gave us some key pieces of information which allowed the investigators to quickly move to secure the house where the suspect was located.
HEMMER: All right, are you looking for anyone else, an accomplice in this, right now?
DAVIS: We're more at a stage where we're eliminating the possibility that anybody else may have been involved. There's no indication yet at this time that there's any solid evidence of that.
HEMMER: So you just believe Cruz is the only one responsible at this point?
DAVIS: All of the evidence we have at this time tends to point to the fact that he probably acted alone.
HEMMER: Now, do you know why he released her on Sunday evening?
DAVIS: I think a lot of it had to do with the media covering. I think that there was some heat on, if you will, so that he realized that things were serious and perhaps he was, he needed to cut to the chase and get out of town as soon as he could.
Secondly, I think there are some key things that the young woman herself, the girl, told him during the abduction that may have led him to decide to release her.
HEMMER: Things such as what, Chief?
DAVIS: Those are things I can't go into too much detail about right now. I think as time goes by, we'll see that there may be some classic things that she did that may be useful to others in the future in terms of how she interacted with the suspect. But I can't go into that detail right now.
HEMMER: Classic things that down the road might be able to help others?
DAVIS: If this was to ever happen to somebody else, perhaps we could say, we could train our children that these are things you should say or do if you ever find yourself in that situation. And I think that that may be something we should look at.
HEMMER: Wow. Police met with her again yesterday on Monday.
How is she doing?
DAVIS: She's doing great. I mean we know that when she walked into the market she was still terrorized. In fact, she told the clerk not to call the police because she was so terrorized. However, once she was in police hands, she quickly put a smile back on her face, felt safe and secure and has just been a remarkable young woman in terms of the amount of detail she's been able to give us, as well as to rebound from what it is that she's gone through.
I mean there were some very, very ugly incidents during this abduction and she's been able to bounce back from that, at least in the short-term, and just be a model of what we needed to try and get the case done.
HEMMER: Our best to her. Rob Davis, thanks, deputy police chief there in San Jose.
DAVIS: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
