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American Morning

Enrique Sosa Alvarez Faces Multiple Felony Counts

Aired June 11, 2003 - 08:02   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: To California now, the suspect in the abduction of a 9-year-old California girl is scheduled for arraignment today. Enrique Sosa Alvarez faces multiple felony counts. The prosecutor now says the girl, the 9-year-old girl helped them to catch the suspect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT BRAKER, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY, SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA: It is her bravery and ability to maintain her wits that led to the arrest and now prosecution of her assailant. Both her 15-year-old brother and her mother are to be commended, as well. Each of them bears the injuries and scars from their efforts to stop the assaults of their sister and daughter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: The girl was found on Sunday. She's back with her family right now.

And with us now, Deputy chief of police in San Jose, Ron Davis, back with us here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Thanks for coming back, Chief.

We want to know what you can tell us right now about what the girl may have said to her abductor that may have helped herself get free.

DEPUTY CHIEF ROB DAVIS, SAN JOSE POLICE: I can't go into too much conditional since the D.A. is still looking at the case. But we know that she said a lot of things that allowed her to humanize herself in the eyes of the suspect. That is to say, that in the conversations she held with him and the way in which she conducted herself, we know that she most likely was seen more as, perhaps, a human than as a victim during the abduction.

HEMMER: Does that give us an indication she was telling him about her own life and about her family or what?

DAVIS: I think it was just in the way that she was communicating with him, the way that she would speak to him or the way that she would try and say certain things to him. Again, I can't go into too much detail with this at the time -- at this time. I need to let that D.A. run with the case.

HEMMER: Yesterday you told us that you believe that this was a case that truly hinged, possibly, on sexual assault. Was that the motive that you believe right now is at play here?

DAVIS: Yes, well, we certainly believe that was one of the key motives based upon some continuing things that we have learned as a result of the interview we held the other day with the victim. We know that there were some potential other motives. And those motives we're still developing as we do more investigation.

HEMMER: Yesterday for a time there was consideration given to charging him with attempted murder that now we understand is off the table, to quote one officer in San Jose.

Why was that considered in the first place?

DAVIS: Sure, prior to booking the suspect, there was a great deal of discussion between the police department and the district attorney's office to try and determine what charges we would initially use to book the individual into jail. Once that happened, there was still ongoing investigation that had occurred. Once we sat down with the district attorney's office yesterday afternoon and reviewed all of the issues and all of the information we had at that time, the district attorney decided to go ahead and just go through with the charges, which he did.

HEMMER: So murder is off the table for good, right?

DAVIS: At this time it is, yes.

HEMMER: Yesterday we see the suspect...

DAVIS: Attempted murder.

HEMMER: ... coming out of really behind handed from one building into a car wearing a face mask here. We were told, reports said that he was spitting on officers.

How is his behavior behind bars, sir?

DAVIS: Well, he was clearly uncooperative at the -- during his arrest. And that's done as a protection sometimes to put the face shield on in case he either is spitting or intends to spit on someone. And there are also, just for investigative purposes, you may want to keep his identity somewhat undisclosed so that if you need to do additional photo lineups or something like that, you haven't destroyed the ability to do that.

HEMMER: His name has changed. You thought it was one name, it's now different. Alvarez is his last name, apparently.

What more are you learning about him?

DAVIS: Well, we're learning that there's not a lot of information out there about him. You know, he's got several aliases that he uses amongst his friends and we're in the process, as we speak, of digging more into that individual's background so we can determine exactly who he is, how long he's been here, where he's been, where else he may have been to assist us in the follow-up. HEMMER: Do you think those answers will come today, Chief?

DAVIS: We hope so. But my feeling on it is that we're going to have a long, long investigative process with this individual. This case is just really beginning in terms of some of the follow-up that we need to do. Clearly, he may have had contact with other children in the area. We need to find out where he's been in the past, also follow up on that. He may have been involved in crimes elsewhere in the state or the nation and we need to try and coordinate with other law enforcement agencies to see if they may have more information about the individual.

HEMMER: You see...

DAVIS: We've got a long, long process ahead of us.

HEMMER: You said something in there, do you believe he had contact with other children in that area of San Jose?

DAVIS: Well, we're certainly looking into that. We know that there were other children in the home where he was renting a room, so we clearly are concerned and we're going to be looking into it.

HEMMER: Rob Davis, deputy chief of police there in San Jose, thanks.

The hearing, again, arraignment, takes place today.

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 11, 2003 - 08:02   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: To California now, the suspect in the abduction of a 9-year-old California girl is scheduled for arraignment today. Enrique Sosa Alvarez faces multiple felony counts. The prosecutor now says the girl, the 9-year-old girl helped them to catch the suspect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT BRAKER, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY, SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA: It is her bravery and ability to maintain her wits that led to the arrest and now prosecution of her assailant. Both her 15-year-old brother and her mother are to be commended, as well. Each of them bears the injuries and scars from their efforts to stop the assaults of their sister and daughter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: The girl was found on Sunday. She's back with her family right now.

And with us now, Deputy chief of police in San Jose, Ron Davis, back with us here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Thanks for coming back, Chief.

We want to know what you can tell us right now about what the girl may have said to her abductor that may have helped herself get free.

DEPUTY CHIEF ROB DAVIS, SAN JOSE POLICE: I can't go into too much conditional since the D.A. is still looking at the case. But we know that she said a lot of things that allowed her to humanize herself in the eyes of the suspect. That is to say, that in the conversations she held with him and the way in which she conducted herself, we know that she most likely was seen more as, perhaps, a human than as a victim during the abduction.

HEMMER: Does that give us an indication she was telling him about her own life and about her family or what?

DAVIS: I think it was just in the way that she was communicating with him, the way that she would speak to him or the way that she would try and say certain things to him. Again, I can't go into too much detail with this at the time -- at this time. I need to let that D.A. run with the case.

HEMMER: Yesterday you told us that you believe that this was a case that truly hinged, possibly, on sexual assault. Was that the motive that you believe right now is at play here?

DAVIS: Yes, well, we certainly believe that was one of the key motives based upon some continuing things that we have learned as a result of the interview we held the other day with the victim. We know that there were some potential other motives. And those motives we're still developing as we do more investigation.

HEMMER: Yesterday for a time there was consideration given to charging him with attempted murder that now we understand is off the table, to quote one officer in San Jose.

Why was that considered in the first place?

DAVIS: Sure, prior to booking the suspect, there was a great deal of discussion between the police department and the district attorney's office to try and determine what charges we would initially use to book the individual into jail. Once that happened, there was still ongoing investigation that had occurred. Once we sat down with the district attorney's office yesterday afternoon and reviewed all of the issues and all of the information we had at that time, the district attorney decided to go ahead and just go through with the charges, which he did.

HEMMER: So murder is off the table for good, right?

DAVIS: At this time it is, yes.

HEMMER: Yesterday we see the suspect...

DAVIS: Attempted murder.

HEMMER: ... coming out of really behind handed from one building into a car wearing a face mask here. We were told, reports said that he was spitting on officers.

How is his behavior behind bars, sir?

DAVIS: Well, he was clearly uncooperative at the -- during his arrest. And that's done as a protection sometimes to put the face shield on in case he either is spitting or intends to spit on someone. And there are also, just for investigative purposes, you may want to keep his identity somewhat undisclosed so that if you need to do additional photo lineups or something like that, you haven't destroyed the ability to do that.

HEMMER: His name has changed. You thought it was one name, it's now different. Alvarez is his last name, apparently.

What more are you learning about him?

DAVIS: Well, we're learning that there's not a lot of information out there about him. You know, he's got several aliases that he uses amongst his friends and we're in the process, as we speak, of digging more into that individual's background so we can determine exactly who he is, how long he's been here, where he's been, where else he may have been to assist us in the follow-up. HEMMER: Do you think those answers will come today, Chief?

DAVIS: We hope so. But my feeling on it is that we're going to have a long, long investigative process with this individual. This case is just really beginning in terms of some of the follow-up that we need to do. Clearly, he may have had contact with other children in the area. We need to find out where he's been in the past, also follow up on that. He may have been involved in crimes elsewhere in the state or the nation and we need to try and coordinate with other law enforcement agencies to see if they may have more information about the individual.

HEMMER: You see...

DAVIS: We've got a long, long process ahead of us.

HEMMER: You said something in there, do you believe he had contact with other children in that area of San Jose?

DAVIS: Well, we're certainly looking into that. We know that there were other children in the home where he was renting a room, so we clearly are concerned and we're going to be looking into it.

HEMMER: Rob Davis, deputy chief of police there in San Jose, thanks.

The hearing, again, arraignment, takes place today.

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