USA TODAY
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A judge on Friday
formally sentenced to death the man who kidnapped, sexually assaulted
and murdered 5-year-old Samantha Runnion in 2002 — a case that led to
the expansion of child abduction alerts on electronic billboards along
California's freeways.
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"I know she looked at you with those amazing
brown eyes and you still wanted to kill her," Samantha's mother, Erin
Runnion, tearily told Alejandro Avila in court before the sentencing.
"And I don't understand it, and I never will. It's like you never
learned to think. You have absolutely no concept of how heinous, how
egregious your acts were. I can't help but wonder how it is you survived
as long as you did, being so stupid."
Avila, who did not speak during the hearing, appeared unmoved by Mrs. Runnion's comments and sat looking away from her.
A jury convicted the 30-year-old former factory
worker in April and voted for the death penalty in May. Superior Court
Judge William Froeberg endorsed the jury's recommendation Friday.
Avila was ordered to be sent to San Quentin state prison within 10 days. His sentence automatically will be appealed.
Outside court, Avila's lawyer said she would not be surprised if the issue of defense competence was raised on appeal.
"I can't help but think he would have gotten life
if I had presented a better case," Assistant Public Defender Denise
Gragg said.
Gragg declined to say whether Avila had indicated
before the hearing whether he wanted to make any comments. She said she
had advised him not to speak in court.
But Erin Runnion had a lot to say to Avila. At one point, she suggested she did not support the death penalty in his case.
"You don't deserve a place in my family's history
and so I want you to live. I want you to disappear into the abyss of a
lifetime in prison where no one will remember you, no one will pray for
you, and no one will care when you die," she said.
But, she said: "I want you to feel remorse. ...
You're a disgrace to the human race. Everything in me wants to hurt you
in every possible way."
Avila snatched a kicking and screaming Runnion as
she played outside her Stanton home. Her nude body was found the
following day in the mountains about 50 miles away, left on the ground
as if it had been posed.
Authorities said she had been suffocated by pressing on her chest.
More than 4,000 people attended her funeral and
then-Gov. Gray Davis ordered a statewide increase in the number of
electronic billboards that flash information about a suspected abduction
soon after it's reported.
A friend of Samantha's gave police a description
of her kidnapper that produced a police sketch resembling Avila.
Prosecutors used cell phone and bank records to show that Avila had been
near where Samantha was abducted.
They also said Avila's DNA was under her
fingernails, and sneaker prints and tire tracks found near the girl's
body came from him. Samantha's DNA also was found on the inside of the
door of Avila's car, probably from tears or mucus, prosecutors said.
The defense challenged the reliability of the DNA
analysis and suggested that the material found inside Avila's car had
been planted.
After the conviction, defense attorneys urged
jurors to spare Avila's life, arguing that the abduction was an
impulsive act prompted by a brutal childhood in which he was beaten by
his father, raped by an uncle and neglected by his mother.
The defense challenged the reliability of the DNA
analysis and suggested that the material found inside Avila's car had
been planted.
Samantha's killing was one in a series of child
abductions, including 7-year-old Danielle van Dam of San Diego and
15-year-old Elizabeth Smart in Utah.
