Family Agonizes as Girl’s Death Remains Unsolved : Crime: Police have had a suspect since the beginning in the killing of 9-year-old Laura Arroyo, but no arrest has been made. Some evidence is still being analyzed.

Ten months after 9-year-old Laura Arroyo was abducted and killed after answering a nighttime knock at the front door, the little girl’s family is anguished over the justice system’s slow pace in bringing her killer to justice.

Chula Vista homicide detectives have said for almost a year that they have a suspect in Laura’s murder, but Luis Arroyo, father of the slain girl, said he is frustrated by the delay in arresting the man.

“The police told me he (the suspect) is Latino, but I don’t know who he is. I’m trying to be patient because they told me it was going to be a slow investigation. But I began thinking today that my daughter has been buried for almost a year, and the anxiety is building up again,” a tearful Arroyo, 33, said in a recent interview.

Laura, a third-grader at Nicoloff Elementary School, disappeared June 19. The little girl with the shy smile and long dark hair was dressed for bed when she ran down the stairs to answer a knock at the front door of the family’s San Ysidro condominium at 9:10 p.m.

Arroyo and his wife, who is also named Laura, heard the girl yell “I’ll get it!” as she ran to the door. Those were the last words the couple heard from their daughter. Almost a year later, Laura’s words still ring in her father’s head.

At 6:30 a.m., almost nine hours after she was abducted, Laura’s bludgeoned and stabbed body was found lying on the sidewalk of a Chula Vista industrial complex. Chula Vista police, who assumed control of the investigation, said she was still clothed in the pink pajamas she was wearing when she disappeared. She was not sexually molested.

From the beginning, the case proved to be a difficult one for investigators. Police officers swarmed through the well-tended condominium complex looking for witnesses to Laura’s abduction. Although the complex is overrun with children and is across the street from a postage-stamp-size community park, nobody heard or saw anything.

Frustrated detectives struggled to find a motive for the brutal killing. Arroyo said that he, his wife and other family members took polygraph tests that eliminated them as suspects. Detective Wayne Maxey described the Arroyos and their two sons, Jaime, 12, and Luis, 11, as a happy and hard-working family.

Although there were no witnesses to the crime, an autopsy produced some significant clues, and Maxey expressed confidence that Laura’s killer would eventually be brought to justice. But, in the past months, Chula Vista police officials have become increasingly defensive about press inquiries regarding the investigation’s progress.

Independent sources familiar with the case have described to The Times some of the forensic evidence they feel will enable investigators to arrest Laura’s killer. Chula Vista police officials refused to discuss anything about the investigation.

Sources, however, said police got their first big break in the case when they found nine hairs in one of Laura’s hands. Eight hairs were sent to the FBI crime laboratory in Washington to be checked for DNA evidence.

Investigators were hoping the hairs could be matched to blood on a rag police took from the suspect. But the lab tests were inconclusive. Earlier this year, the last remaining hair was sent to another laboratory for testing, but those tests, too, were inconclusive, sources said.

Chula Vista police are now pinning their hopes for an arrest on a substance found on Laura’s body. The substance, microscopic and unique, is undergoing laboratory analysis. Investigators hope the substance can be linked to the suspect in the case, sources said.

Sources said the man police have under surveillance knows he is a suspect in Laura’s murder. They said the man has been questioned several times since the killing.

A frustrated Luis Arroyo, who was interviewed last week at his job aC. Towing in Chula Vista, said police have not shared any information with him, except to tell him the suspect is Latino.

“The police don’t want to tell me who this man is. I think they’re afraid that I might try to kill him,” he said. “But that’s not in my character. If they would at least show me a picture of him maybe it would help me remember something that could help them solve my daughter’s killing.”

He said he gave police the name of a possible suspect shortly after the murder. According to Arroyo, the man, who is also Latino, lived in the neighborhood but moved suddenly, just days after the killing. He said Laura used to play with the man’s daughter.

However, Arroyo said investigators have not told him if the former neighbor is the suspect they are keeping tabs on.

Despite the painstaking progress of the investigation, Arroyo said he prefers a slow investigation resulting in the arrest of the real killer, rather than have police arrest an innocent suspect just to close the case.

“You know, that’s happened before in this country. Police have charged an innocent person with a crime just to say they solved a case,” Arroyo said. “I don’t want them to arrest an innocent man. The only way that my family and I are going to get justice is if the real killer is punished.”

In addition to the physical evidence, police also know Laura was carried away by her killer when she was abducted. Sources said the 9-year-old girl’s feet were clean when her body was found, indicating that she did not walk away willingly with her killer. The nature of the wounds also indicates that Laura put up a struggle before she died.

Although police said there were no witnesses to the abduction, sources said the suspect was seen at the condominium complex where the Arroyos live about an hour before Laura’s abduction. Sources told The Times the suspect appeared at the complex, where Laura and other children were playing, and shooed them away.

Meanwhile, Luis and Laura Arroyo remain haunted over their daughter’s death. A grieving Arroyo said last week that he is prone to sudden bursts of tears while at his job.

“There isn’t a day that I don’t think about her. How can I explain the loss that I feel to someone who hasn’t lost a son or daughter? It’s impossible,” he said, tears welling in his eyes.

The family visits Laura’s grave several times a week, including after Mass on Sunday.

“When the police do arrest the killer, I want to be allowed to ask just one question of him,” Arroyo said. “Why? I just want to know why. She was only 9 years old. She was just a little girl. What did she do to deserve to die like this?”