3 Sites Searched in Girl’s Slaying

Detectives hunting for the killer of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion late Thursday served search warrants at an apartment complex in Lake Elsinore not far from where the girl’s body was discovered.

No arrests have been made, but a police source said investigators are focusing on a 27-year-old man who lives in the apartment complex after receiving a tip from the public. Detectives interviewed the suspect Thursday and drew up search warrants for his home off Ortega Highway, that of a family member in the same complex and a business in Temecula.

Three green cars roughly matching the description of the killer’s vehicle were confiscated and the suspect has been detained until the searches are completed.

The developments came after a day in which officers stopped dozens of men in green cars, interviewed scores of convicted sex offenders and fielded more than 1,000 calls from across the United States as they worked to arrest Samantha’s killer, who they believe could strike again.

In a day marked by high anxiety and false alarms and erroneous reports of arrests, the FBI and Orange County Sheriff’s Department deployed 400 officers across California but said they don’t yet know who is responsible for the girl’s kidnapping and murder.

Detectives focused most seriously on a group of potential suspects--many registered sex offenders--who are being questioned.

Speed is crucial, detectives said, because an FBI profile of the killer concludes he might kill again soon. Based on the profile, Sheriff Michael Carona said he believes the man is still somewhere in Southern California and may live, work or have family in Orange County.

The dragnet is so massive that authorities are using a tracking system that helped the FBI investigate domestic terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks. A phone bank takes calls, using a special FBI computer program to set priorities in handling the tips and create a central database.

As false reports circulated throughout the day that the killer had been arrested or had attacked again, detectives fought to keep the investigation on track.

Around noon, police converged on a Costa Mesa neighborhood where a 9-year-old boy claimed a man tried to abduct him outside his house. The boy later admitted making up the story. An hour earlier, California Highway Patrol officers in Fresno arrested a man driving a car similar to the killer’s. Investigators questioned the man for eight hours but said he’s not a suspect at this time.

The false reports frustrated investigators. “When the media puts out that an arrest has been made, we see a marked decrease in the number of tips that come in, which have been very, very important to us,” Carona said.

Officials would not say how many tips have produced solid leads but urged the public to keep calling.

“I have worked a number of these cases, and I haven’t seen the kind of public response nationally that I have seen in this one,” said FBI Special Agent Randy Aden, supervisor of the Crimes Against Children Task Force at the bureau’s Los Angeles office. “This individual does not just have to worry about law enforcement trying to find him. The public is out there, and they are watching.”

Samantha was snatched from outside her condominium in Stanton on Monday evening. Detectives believe the kidnapper held her for several hours, sexually assaulting and eventually asphyxiating her sometime Tuesday. Officials suggested the girl fought back, scratching her attacker’s face and arms.

Her body was found in the open off a mountain road in the Cleveland National Forest. The killer posed the body in such a way that the FBI believes it amounted to a “calling card” and a warning that he would strike again.

Officials said they’ve gathered physical evidence, including DNA samples and tire tracks. The assailant is described as a Latino man with slicked-back black hair and a mustache who was driving a green car, possibly a Honda or Acura.

The FBI on Tuesday described the killer as an “Americanized Latino.” FBI spokesman Matt McLaughlin said the bureau based the description on the fact that the man spoke English with a Spanish accent, according to a child playing with Samantha when she was abducted. Detectives theorize that the man came from a Spanish-speaking country or was born in the United States but spoke Spanish at home.

Authorities in Riverside County have noticed similarities to a high-profile kidnapping case of their own five years ago. In that case, 10-year-old Anthony Martinez was outside his Beaumont home with friends when his abductor asked for help in finding a lost cat. The man, described as white with blue eyes, brown hair, a mustache and a baseball cap, pulled out a knife and snatched Anthony.

Officials, however, have not established a connection in that case or other child abductions. Authorities are looking into an incident in Riverside County on Wednesday in which a man fled from a car after being pursued by police.

Samantha’s case is the latest in a series of disappearances of young girls in recent months nationwide, including abductions in Salt Lake City and San Diego County. But her disappearance is different, FBI officials said, because of the flood of tips provided by the public.

Authorities have made an unusually aggressive appeal for tips, urging people to call law enforcement officials if they know anyone who missed work Monday or Tuesday, suffered cuts and bruises or has shown deep curiosity in coverage of the case.

The calls are routed to a mobile command post set up in a parking lot across the street from Samantha’s condominium complex.

This nerve center consists of two double-wide trailers. Inside one, administrators and supervisors share information and strategize. The other buzzes with the sound of fax machines and police scanners as officers staff 20 phone lines and monitor the Internet.

Those answering calls to the tip line are civilian staff trained to ask the right questions. They fill out forms the FBI developed after the terrorist attacks and pass them on to a processor--either an FBI agent or sheriff’s detective--who prioritizes the leads.

These leads are dropped into a box on a pickup table, where 15 teams of two investigators take turns pursuing them.

The teams follow a lead wherever it takes them. They enter whatever information they find--license plate numbers, descriptions of people, names, dates of birth--into a database. Some officers have worked 24 hours straight.

At the Smoketree condominium complex where Samantha lived, her mother remained in seclusion Thursday. Neighbors and strangers came to add flowers, stuffed animals and balloons to the memorial that was growing in the courtyard where Samantha had been such a familiar face.

Times staff writers Tina Dirmann, Mai Tran, Greg Krikorian, H.G. Reza and Stuart Pfeifer and the Associated Press contributed to this report.