Mother Focuses on Slain Girl’s Life, Not Death

The public remembers her death. Her mother remembers her life.

Well-wishers and former neighbors plan to gather at a Stanton condo complex today to mark the first anniversary of the abduction and slaying of Samantha Runnion. Samantha’s mother, Erin Runnion, said she may not attend, preferring to celebrate what would have been the girl’s seventh birthday later this month with a daylong children’s art festival organized under a nonprofit foundation Runnion created in her daughter’s memory.

“I feel a hesitation -- I might not be up for it,” Runnion, 28, said of the public observation. “Hopefully, I can get past the focus on her death this week and next week focus more on how much fun she was.”

In a case that drew nationwide attention, 5-year-old Samantha was abducted July 15, 2002, from outside her family’s Stanton condo as she played with a friend, whose description of the abductor helped authorities put together a composite drawing of him.

Samantha’s body was found the next day in the Cleveland National Forest.

Acting on tips, Orange County sheriff’s investigators quickly focused on Alejandro Avila, 28, a medical assistant from Lake Elsinore whose former girlfriend lived in the same Stanton condo complex. Avila, who is being held without bail in the Orange County Jail, is scheduled for trial early next year on kidnapping and murder charges.

Beginning at 6 this morning, Samantha’s one-time neighbors plan to reprise the makeshift memorial they erected after her disappearance by setting out candles and providing paper and art materials so passersby can send messages to Samantha’s family.

“We just want to let Erin know that we have not forgotten her and we’re still supporting her,” said Rebecca Clifford, 50, who is arranging the day’s events with her daughter, Heidi Clifford, 23. “It’s not going to be too large. It’s just so she knows we still care.”

Runnion, who works part time as an accountant for the BP oil company, took this week off anticipating a roller coaster of emotions around the anniversary of Samantha’s killing.

“It’s been looming for so long, that the day was coming,” said Runnion, who has since married and moved out of the Stanton neighborhood.

“You just have to give yourself the time to accept it and go through what you need to go through.”

It has been a grueling experience, one that she hopes to lighten by tying her memories to Samantha’s life.

“To just focus on her death would be to rob her and everyone else of the reason that so many people cared about her,” Runnion said. “The draw of Samantha was that she was optimistic, she exuded this joy. I would rather celebrate that and share that with as many people as possible.”

Over the past year Runnion has channeled her grief into creating the Joyful Child Foundation, combining her daughter’s love of drawing with her own desire to help neighborhoods create local safety nets for their children.

Funded largely through small donations from people affected by the murder of a stranger, Joyful Child has collected about $150,000, Runnion said.

“I would like to raise people’s awareness about the dangers that children are facing and also hope to bring people together so that they’re actually benefiting the lives of children,” Runnion said.

To mark Samantha’s birthday, the foundation has organized a free children’s art festival from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 26 at the school Samantha attended, Ernest O. Lawrence Elementary School in Garden Grove. The day will include more than 20 art projects, at least eight workshops, musical acts and presentations.

Later this summer, the Joyful Child Foundation will begin a pilot program in San Clemente to use local adults to monitor children as they walk to school.

“It’s similar to the neighborhood-watch programs, only it’s focused on children instead of property,” said Erika Price Schulte, a spokeswoman for the foundation. “It gets the neighborhood involved with phone lists and phone trees down to the block level.”

Under the program, adults would be screened and would wear vests designating them as volunteers. Signs would be erected as “a signal to predators ... that people are out there watching,” Schulte said.

Runnion is listed as Joyful Child’s founder, and the board of trustees includes Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona, whose leadership of the investigation into Samantha’s disappearance brought him national fame.

The rest of the organization consists of Runnion’s relatives and community members. All are volunteers.

The foundation eventually will hold fund-raisers to underwrite operations, a task Schulte said organizers realize will become more difficult as memory of the case begins to fade.

“It’s very specifically not named for Samantha because, no matter how tragic, every event eventually becomes part of the past,” Schulte said.

“They want donations and programs that would transcend that.”