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CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview With Mike Carona
Aired July 20, 2002 - 07:23 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Let's bring you up to date on the investigation and the arrest, kidnap and killing of little Samantha Runnion. It's been a heart-wrenching story as we've watched this whole thing unfold. And at the center of it the whole time has been the Orange County sheriff, Mike Carona, who has done a commendable job, at the very least, in handling the media, and we hope handling this investigation.
Sheriff Carona, good to have you with us.
SHERIFF MIKE CORONA, ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: Thank you, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right. We -- I was just talking to Rusty Dornin, who's there, and I'm sure you've had an opportunity to talk with her quite a bit over the past few days. And some of the big questions which remain this morning are the tips, how you received tips, how you were led to this particular suspect, Mr. Avila.
CORONA: Well, you all in the media were our best friend. When this first broke, within the first hour of the abduction, we were able to get a physical description out to the public as well as a suspect vehicle. And from that, we started receiving tips. In about four days, we received over 2,500 tips.
It was from those tips that we were able to narrow the field of the focus of our investigation to Mr. Avila and eventually make an arrest on that case.
O'BRIEN: And can you give us any more specifics, though, on exactly who might have made a phone call that was crucial in this case?
CORONA: No, you know, the sad part for me is, there -- this is a great story that's going to be told about how Mr. Avila was arrested and things about this case. The sad part for me is that I'm not going to be the one that's going to be allowed to tell this story. Most of the investigative information and physical evidence that we have is now going to be embargoed, and the prosecutor is going to have to use this as part of his case.
So I can't impact -- negatively impact that case, and so I'm not going to be able to talk about it. O'BRIEN: All right. I guess it -- I'm probably wasting my time, but I'm going to have to ask you about the forensic evidence that you might have. Can you give us any insights as to what it might be?
CORONA: Well, I can tell you that we have a tremendous amount of forensic evidence. Mr. Avila made a lot of mistakes in committing this crime. He made mistakes at the original crime scene of the abduction, and he made mistakes at the crime scene in Riverside County.
We capitalized on those mistakes, and so I will tell you that we have a tremendous amount of physical evidence that we are still sifting through that will be part of the prosecutor's case.
O'BRIEN: In all your years in law enforcement, how would you -- how certain a case would you put this one at? Is it as good as -- as airtight as it gets?
CORONA: I'm 100 percent convinced that Mr. Avila is the one that kidnapped and murdered Samantha Runnion, and I can tell you that we are still moving forward with investigative leads that are still coming in from the public, and we're going to make this case as -- for the prosecutor, at least from the law enforcement side of it, as airtight as we possibly can.
O'BRIEN: Can you give us any sense of how the interviews went with Mr. Avila, and has he confessed?
CORONA: I cannot tell you how the interviews went nor whether or not there was a confession. I haven't had a chance to meet with the investigative teams. I've been at the command center. We're about 3:00 in the morning here in California, so I haven't had a chance to debrief them there yet, sir.
O'BRIEN: Sheriff, I'm sure that -- I know you've been very busy, and I'm sure you haven't had a chance to pulse (ph) the community. But I imagine there's a tremendous sense of relief, but then when the relief kind of passes, there's a tremendous sadness that the entire community is left with.
CORONA: We get so caught up in law enforcement in trying to bring a person to justice that sometimes we forget about the collateral pain that takes place in he community. You hit the nail on the head.
Last night, when this was all over and I stopped to get a bite to eat with a couple of my command members at the command center there, you could just see that the community was hurting, and there was pain because of the death of Samantha.
And that's just part of the healing process that we're all going to have to go through. I felt it, but I didn't realize how big it was out there in the community, and I -- my sense is it's probably even bigger than the community of Stanton.
O'BRIEN: So what next for this community, you think? CORONA: I don't know the answer to that question. Unfortunately, I'm not schooled in behavior sciences or healing somebody, I'm just a cop who knows how to bring somebody to justice.
O'BRIEN: Sheriff Mike Carona, Orange County, California, thanks very much for being with us, and good work out there.
CORONA: Thank you, sir.
O'BRIEN: All right.
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