Stanton Girl’s Slaying Still Hits Home

Detective Gary Jones doesn’t usually get sentimental. It’s not his nature to visit a memorial for a homicide victim. But the Samantha Runnion case was different. The 5-year-old girl was taken from her Stanton condominium complex last July 15 -- the day his own daughter turned 13.

“This one hit home,” said Jones, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigator.

“We don’t usually get that emotionally charged over these, but this case was emotionally draining.”

And so Jones took some time off from his shift Tuesday afternoon to join well-wishers and former neighbors of Samantha’s at a memorial commemorating the anniversary of her abduction.

“It’s disappointing we weren’t able to save her,” Jones said. “But the fact that Samantha’s murder [helped] put the Amber alert system into place means that other children will live because of her and lets us know that she didn’t die in vain.”

Samantha was abducted while she and a friend played near a row of garages at the complex.

Her nude body was discovered by a hiker the next day in the Cleveland National Forest.

Four days later, authorities arrested Alejandro Avila, 28, of Lake Elsinore, accusing him of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing her. Avila is scheduled for trial early next year.

In a small courtyard just yards from where Samantha was kidnapped, residents in the Smoketree Condominiums began assembling their makeshift memorial at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday. Photographs of last year’s memorial were tacked up on trees and light poles.

Stuffed animals, candles and flowers were displayed on one table, and, on two others, paper was rolled out for those who wished to send a message to Samantha’s mother, Erin Runnion.

“Erin, I am thinking of you today and I pray for your peace,” one woman wrote. “Your daughter was a beautiful child.”

A child drew a map with Samantha as a dot, following two roads that led to a place marked “heaven.”

A large glass jar with a red ribbon was set out for donations to the Joyful Child Foundation, established by Erin Runnion to commemorate Samantha’s love of drawing and the mother’s desire to help form neighborhood volunteer groups to watch over children.

Last year’s neighborhood tribute to Samantha began as a symbol of hope. It later became a somber memorial.

This year’s memorial was considerably smaller and more subdued. But Rebecca Clifford and her daughter, Heidi, who organized the event, were confident their efforts were a fitting gesture to the little girl they used to see playing “Marco Polo” in the pool with her friends.

“This is everything I wanted it to be,” said Heidi Clifford, 23. “It’s good to see families coming out from all over Orange County, showing us what Samantha stood for: community.”

Sheriff Michael S. Carona, whose leadership of the investigation into Samantha’s disappearance brought him national fame, dropped off a white teddy bear wearing a sheriff’s badge.

Erin Runnion, who has remarried and moved out of the area, sent a thank-you card to those who honored her daughter, whom she called mi cielito linda, Spanish for “my pretty little sky.” Samantha would have turned 7 later this month.