Parents Turn Grief to Action

By Jean O. Pasco

May 6, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

In the three years since her 5-year-old daughter was abducted, raped and murdered, Erin Runnion has become a public face for a parent’s private anguish.

After Samantha’s body was found and the killer tracked down, Runnion launched a nonprofit foundation to crusade nationally for child safety. The group organized neighborhood patrols where red-vested volunteers watched for trouble as children played outside, or walked them to and from school.

Runnion appeared twice on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” where King referred to Samantha as “America’s Little Girl.” People magazine last year featured Runnion and one of the 35 neighborhood patrols organized through her the Joyful Child Foundation under the headline “Crusaders.”

The loss of her daughter moved her to do something good for others, she told the magazine. “It was the only way to give her death purpose,” said Runnion, who has declined recent requests for interviews until a jury decides whether the man convicted of Samantha’s murder -- Alejandro Avila -- should either get the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

In many ways, Runnion is traveling a road blazed long ago by other parents of murdered children who found both solace and purpose in activism. In some cases, the names of the murdered youngsters -- Polly Klaas and Megan Kanka, for instance -- have become synonymous with efforts to make the world a safer place.

“We don’t stop being parents,” said Dr. Henya Shanun-Klein, a Houston psychologist who studies parental bereavement. “We want to continually remind the world that our child existed and that she made a difference in the world.”

Collene Campbell, a former mayor of San Juan Capistrano, was transformed by tragedy 23 years ago when her adult son, Scott, was murdered. Six years later, her brother, racing promoter Mickey Thompson, and his wife, Trudy, were gunned down by two hit men outside their home in Bradbury.

Campbell sat through three trials before juries convicted two men of killing her son -- based largely on evidence that she and her husband, Gary, had collected. The man accused of planning the execution-style slaying of her brother and sister-in-law was arrested in 2001 and faces trial in Los Angeles County.

Frustrated by the lengthy court proceedings, Campbell started a group called MOVE -- Memories of Victims Everywhere -- and pressed state lawmakers and Congress for more aggressive criminal investigations and prosecutions. In 1990, she co-chaired the campaign for Proposition 115, the successful crime-victims’ initiative. She has testified three times before the U.S. Senate urging a federal counterpart.

“It’s what we do to honor Mickey and Trudy and Scotty,” she said this week before flying to Sacramento to speak to a national conclave of district attorney investigators.

In 1980, Candy Lightner founded what is now called Mothers Against Drunk Driving after her 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunk driver with a long list of prior arrests. The group, and the national movement against drunk driving that it triggered, was her way of “keeping Cari alive,” Lightner has said in interviews.

Bereaved father John Walsh founded the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the Adam Walsh Foundation after his young son was abducted from a Florida store in 1981 and later found slain. In 1988, Walsh became host of Fox TV’s “America’s Most Wanted,” whose first featured fugitive was captured three days later. Walsh said his work was a way to honor his son’s memory and create a legacy for his lost boy.

Two foundations to help protect children were launched in 1993 after 12-year-old Polly Klaas was found slain. She had been snatched from a slumber party in Petaluma. By then, Mike Reynolds of Fresno had begun lobbying for what in 1994 became California’s “three strikes” law for repeat offenders, provoked by the murder of his 18-year-old daughter, Kimber, by a paroled felon.

How a parent reacts to the tragedy of a murdered child is deeply personal, said Shanun-Klein, who decided to devote her career to the study of parental bereavement after her 11-year-old daughter, Gili Klein, was killed by a reckless driver in 1990.

Whether a parent chooses to take up the cause of child safety or of toughening criminal laws or shuns the spotlight, they are grieving in a way that is characteristic to them. For those who become activists, “it can be an altruistic drive,” Shanun-Klein said. “ ‘My personal grief is transcended. I had a horrific experience. It darkened my world, literally, so I want to bring light into it.’ ”

To become involved as Runnion and Campbell and other parents have is their way of taking outward steps to reconnect with life, to show their love for their child and to continually bond with their child, she said -- a process that will last a lifetime.

Samantha’s death motivated California’s then-Gov. Gray Davis to make statewide the Amber Alert system, which had been used in Orange County and 11 other counties to alert freeway drivers and others to child abductions. The system was created in Texas in 1996 after 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was kidnapped, while riding her bike in Arlington, and murdered.

Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona sits on a national committee considering expansion of the Amber Alert system nationwide. He called Samantha’s abduction -- from outside her three-story condominium in Stanton, a working-class town in northern Orange County -- a “wake-up call for America.”

Decades of toiling by the Campbells has led to changes in state laws in California and around the country. Last year, President Bush signed the Scott Campbell, Stephanie Roper, Wendy Preston, Louarna Gillis and Nila Lynn Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

Pushed by U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the bill created eight rights for crime victims within the federal justice system, including being allowed to observe the court trial of the accused, to be heard at sentencing, to confer with the attorney for the government in the case and to be notified of any crime committed by the accused, or the release or escape of the accused.

Campbell said she sympathized with Runnion as soon as she learned of Samantha’s disappearance.

“I died for her,” said Campbell, summing up her feeling after hearing that Runnion’s daughter had been murdered. “She’s been doing a great job during a difficult time.”

Runnion was in Orange County Superior Court on Wednesday to testify during the penalty phase of Avila’s murder trial. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

“When your child has been murdered, you don’t want someone to come in and hold your hand in court and sit with you,” Campbell said. “You want to get the bastard who killed your child.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Turning grief to activism

Parents of some murdered children have become advocates for child safety, finding missing children or strengthening state and federal laws on the rights of crime victims and their families. Below are some of the organizations created by surviving parents:

Crime: Kidnapping and murder

Victim: Adam Walsh

Year:1981

State: Fla.

Organization: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Web site: www.missingkids.org

Organization: Adam Walsh Foundation

Crime: Murder

Victim: Scott Campbell

Year:1982

State: Calif.

Organization: Force 100