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Thread: Samantha Runnion

  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Samantha Runnion




    Ten years later, her joy lives on

    "The hardest things are questions about the time — about what she endured in the last eight, 12 hours. He has admitted to nothing. And that is hard because the imagination is worse than any reality — and then there is the place where she was found."

    Erin Runnion and I were having a cup of tea in Huntington Beach last week and she was describing, in part, what inspired a journey she had made several days before to an outpost along the Ortega Highway — to the spot where her daughter Samantha's body was discovered 10 years ago, brutally murdered after being abducted the day before at her home in Stanton by a man named Alejandro Avila (who is now deservedly on death row).

    Yes, this Sunday marks 10 years since the precious youngster's face entered the national consciousness. To mark the anniversary and to continue generating awareness for the plight of abducted and abused children, Erin is organizing a series of public events. But this very private trip she took (with our mutual friend, TV producer Maria Hall-Brown, who will be presenting a special edition of "Real Orange" on PBS SoCal that documents the trip) was something Erin said she just needed to do once and for all.

    "Going to where she was found was one of the few details I had not taken in," she said. "I tried to find it once, but they've changed the name of the exact area, so I didn't know what road it was. We went with Jim Amormino from the Orange County Sheriff's Department and Gary Jones, the lead investigator on the case. They showed me exactly where she was found that day. They were there. It was very emotional. Gary, who's been retired for six years but flew down for this, had interviewed the perpetrator for 10 hours. And he was there for every day of the trial."

    Erin and I spoke at length about what the last decade has been like for her. Now living in Westminster, she has become a tireless activist and sheer force of nature in the fight to stop sub-human beasts like the one who murdered her daughter, right down to the teachers, coaches, clergy and anyone and everyone else who dare lay an inappropriate hand on a child. Her grace, guts and courage are as refreshing as they are inspiring.

    She's particularly outspoken on how poorly she thinks public school systems handle child molestation issues.

    Schools act the same basic way the church did — by moving their own from one place to another," she said. "How many complaints does it take to arrest a teacher? A lot. They're overly protective when it comes to investigating sexual complaints — it takes three complaints over three years. Most kids wait three to 15 years to ever disclose, and most times teachers are reinstated upon appeal. It just comes down to a liability issue. That's how schools seem to view it."

    Just after the horrific crime, she started the Joyful Child Foundation in honor of her daughter.

    "I wanted to transform all of the instant compassion we received into ongoing prevention," she said. And so she did.

    "I had no idea how common child sexual molestation is, and no idea how common abduction is," Erin explained. "There are 58,000 children taken every year in this country, and that has been consistent for a long time. And those are not crimes committed by a family member — that's just by acquaintances and strangers. Of those, about 115 are cases like Samantha's."

    She also reflected on what else was happening 10 years ago.

    "Think about 2002 — the media called it the 'summer of abductions.' Elizabeth Smart had been taken one month earlier. Danielle Van Dam's murder trial had just started. Maybe people remember six of the 115 that were taken that year — or the next year or the year after that. But that's not fair to all those kids."

    Today she organizes, speaks out, lobbies, and perhaps most importantly, educates people. But it frustrates her that the California Megan's Law website main page has not been updated in 10 years, that so much of the information appears to be outdated, and that the state attorney general's office does not seem to consider any of this to be a huge priority.

    Even in the face of the massive red tape and bureaucracy she deals with, Erin has still managed to make a huge difference over the years, getting bills passed, creating coalitions, changing the alert systems — and the fight is ongoing. Her energy, focus and sheer will have helped change the game, but to hear her describe it, it was just the natural thing to do.

    "Not a lot of us end up in a position where law enforcement does everything right: The bad guy is caught, the family is able to focus on the grief and reach out and do something to honor their child and all of the others. That's why I do this. Not enough of us get put in this position so I did not want to waste the chance."

    Erin told me that, in one way, the 10 years have flown by, that it does feel like yesterday, and that she feels as though she and her army should have changed the world by now (though we all know she has).

    She also said, though, that when you miss someone so much every single day, it also slows time down. She said she survived the trauma by relying on the faith and belief that her daughter was watching her and didn't want her mom to wallow in misery for the rest of her life, nor would she want her own life to be defined by what happened to her.

    So she'd stare at pictures of her baby and decide that crying was not always necessary because this was a child who always made her laugh and smile — so why let all of those memories be tainted by how she was taken?

    It's still very sad," she said. "But I focus on the goodness of Samantha and how she always made me feel."

    On July 26, Samantha's 16th birthday, Erin has organized an event at 10 a.m. at the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, near the monument that's dedicated to her daughter. Then, later that day, she'll return to the site off the Ortega Highway where Samantha was discovered — a site that truly surprised her when she reached it last week.

    "It sounds strange, but it's really quite open and beautiful," she said, "not remote and hidden at all. People were lined up to go paragliding off the side of the mountain, and you have to know that Samantha's two favorite movies were 'Hercules' and 'Peter Pan.' She'd say, if Hercules could fly, he would be her favorite. So to watch these people flying, at this leaping-off point, it struck me that there is some poetic beauty in that this is where she was when it was time for her soul to fly."

    You can donate, volunteer and learn more about Erin at http://www.thejoyfulchild.org.

    http://articles.hbindependent.com/20...tega-highway/3
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    RUNNION CASE: Mother of slain girl ‘will never forgive'

    Erin Runnion remains dedicated to her daughter’s memory, and to educating others about the cycle of violence that led to the tragedy.

    The first time Erin Runnion saw Alejandro Avila was in a packed courtroom during a pre-trial hearing about 12 years ago.

    Their eyes briefly met. This was the man who had snatched her daughter Samantha days before the girl’s sixth birthday. This was the man who took her into a motel room and violated her, as the little girl kicked, screamed and fought.

    This was the man who left Samantha’s brutalized, naked, lifeless body on a hillside in Lake Elsinore, posed, as if to show off his work.

    This was the man who took innocence away from a little girl who loved superheroes, princess costumes and sunflowers.

    On that day, in that courtroom, Runnion turned away in disgust at the sight of his face.

    Avila was 30 when an Orange County jury found him guilty and handed him the death sentence. Two types of DNA evidence proved telling during the trial. There was the DNA extracted from tears Samantha shed on the door handles of Avila’s car, after he had snatched her on July 15, 2002, from outside a condo complex where she was playing with a friend.

    Then, there was Avila’s DNA ensconced in Samantha’s tiny fingernails, which officials say got there when she tried to fight him off.

    Samantha’s death, her memorial service at the Crystal Cathedral and Avila’s trial were widely covered in the media. Runnion was on “Larry King Live” and other television shows talking about the case, keeping Samantha’s memory alive. She knew she had to do her part to prevent such a heinous crime from happening again.

    But she was also angry to see her daughter’s murder sensationalized. She cringed every time she saw Samantha’s photo displayed in the media next to her killer’s, “as if they were a couple.”

    She didn’t watch television for the next eight years. She didn’t want to hear his name. She didn’t want to see his face or image.

    All she cared about were memories of those precious few years she shared with her daughter – and her crusade to prevent violence against children through the Joyful Child Foundation, an organization she founded in memory of her own little bundle of joy.

    • • •

    There is one thing that still bothers Runnion. Avila never admitted guilt. He never showed remorse. That hasn’t changed as he sits on death row.


    The thought of forgiving Avila has not even entered this mother’s mind.

    “I will never forgive what he did to my daughter,” Runnion said recently. “This was not just a crime against Samantha, but against all society. It devalued life across the board.”

    Also, she feels forgiveness is not hers to give. The person he should seek forgiveness from is Samantha, she said.

    Runnion struggles with the concept of forgiveness.

    “My way of forgiving is to recognize and accept who (Avila) was and where he came from,” she said.

    During the trial, Runnion heard from defense attorneys and testimony from Avila’s own family members about severe physical and sexual abuse to which her daughter’s killer had been subjected.

    She learned that he and his siblings were disciplined harshly. They were tied up in a room, beaten mercilessly. During the trial, defense attorneys told jurors how Avila was repeatedly berated by his father.

    Runnion learned that the system had failed Avila and his siblings. They never had the choice or the opportunity to leave that environment, which Runnion saw was a fertile breeding ground for a monster who would do what he did, as an adult, to an innocent child.

    “It’s no excuse for what he did at all,” she said. “But, it is a fact that (Avila) was a victim of horrible crimes himself as a child. We need to prevent crimes against all children.”

    Runnion tells Avila’s story, without mentioning his name, as she speaks about crime prevention and victim advocacy.

    “I tell his story for a lot of reasons,” she said. “People tend to think about child murderers as monsters. But we need to understand that what creates these monsters is this cycle of violence.”

    Without understanding this vicious cycle, Runnion said, you cannot combat or prevent these atrocities from happening again.

    • • •

    The death penalty is an issue about which Runnion rarely speaks.


    She knows when she talks on the subject, it could be easily misunderstood or sensationalized. The truth is, Runnion has always been against the death penalty – even when it came to the man who murdered her daughter.

    Runnion said she understood at the time that District Attorney Tony Rackauckas had to do what was necessary to take Avila off the streets so he doesn’t harm one more child.

    But what does the death penalty truly accomplish, she asks.

    “Believe me, I would’ve killed him, if it meant saving my child,” Runnion said. “But when she was gone, what’s the point of killing him? How is killing someone making a statement against murder? I just don’t think we should be playing God.”

    Life in prison without the possibility of parole is the way to hold these criminals accountable, she said.

    • • •

    When you deal with something as powerful as the death of a child, everything else becomes mundane and insignificant. Runnion quit her job at British Petroleum and became a full-time child safety advocate.

    Runnion says her work as an advocate has not only given her the opportunity to provide parents and caregivers with tools they need to keep children safe, but it has brought her face to face with other moms and dads who have lost their children in tragic circumstances.

    She has connected with Jayann Sepich, mother of Katie Sepich, the New Mexico college student who was brutally attacked outside her home in August 2003 and found two days later raped, strangled, burned and abandoned at an old dump site. Jayann and her husband, Dave, worked to pass Katie’s Law at a federal level, providing funding to states to implement the process of collecting DNA samples from those who are arrested for violent felonies. An earlier law required such testing only for convicted felons.

    Runnion said it was heartwarming to hear from Sepich that she derived inspiration from Runnion’s safety crusade. In fact, Samantha’s death kick-started the Amber Alert system in California to track missing children.

    Runnion also talked about how Jayann Sepich met with her daughter’s killer. Runnion wonders if she will ever get to that point.

    “Katie’s killer ended up apologizing to Jayann, and that meant a lot to her,” Runnion said. “I’m working toward the point where I can get myself to meet him. I’d like to be open to that possibility.”

    Hearing from the killer, horrific as it may seem, could actually help parents heal, Runnion said.

    “That’s because we’ve all spent years wondering what our children went through,” she said. “It’s absolutely futile to think about what might have happened, because, often, what you imagine will be a lot worse than what actually happened.”

    Runnion says over the years meditation has helped her be mindful and catch negative thoughts as they enter her mind. It also helps that Samantha’s foundation has educated thousands and created much-needed awareness about child safety and violence against children.

    For Runnion, healing and reconciliation will come from the positive work that is being done in her daughter’s memory.

    The Joyful Child Foundation is in the process of testing the BRAVE program in several Orange County school districts. The program provides supplemental health and physical education curricula for all grade levels, and a community-based program with 90-minute workshops for children of different age groups.

    The program gets its name from Samantha’s favorite catchphrase: “Be brave.”

    http://www.pe.com/articles/runnion-7...ha.html?page=3
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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