Uncle Molested Avila, Aunt Says

An aunt of the man convicted of killing Samantha Runnion testified Monday that an uncle had molested him as a child, which defense lawyers hope will persuade jurors to spare Alejandro Avila from the death penalty.

Jurors are expected to start deliberating next week whether the 30-year-old factory worker from Lake Elsinore should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison without parole for the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of the 5-year-old Stanton girl.

Teresa Avila testified via teleconference from Guadalajara, Mexico, that she saw one of her adult brothers pulling up his pants while Alejandro lay on his stomach next to him with his pants down. The incident happened during a family gathering in Southern California in 1979 or 1980, when Alejandro was 5 or 6 years old, she said.

Her brother told Teresa Avila not to tell anyone about what she had seen, she testified.

“If you say anything,” she said he told her, “I will kill you, and I will kill your children.”

She added during cross-examination that, although the defense team had already interviewed her three times, she didn’t reveal that the child was Alejandro Avila until a fourth interview in Tijuana a week ago, after her nephew had been convicted.

It was a silence based on “shame,” she testified.

“It’s very ugly,” she said.

That incident along with frequent beatings and other sexual abuse she witnessed at family gatherings, prompted her to move back to Mexico, she said. “I was revolted by seeing so much dirt,” she testified in Spanish through an interpreter.

Samantha Runnion was kidnapped July 15, 2002, as she played outside her family’s condominium, and her battered body was found the next day in the mountains overlooking Lake Elsinore.

Other witnesses Monday added to the picture of Avila’s extended family, describing gatherings that included uncles masturbating in front of their nieces, men getting drunk and passing out next to children, and frequent beatings of the boys.

Avila’s sister, Maria, testified that the pair watched through a window as their father shot and killed a next-door neighbor in the early 1990s. Rafael Avila Sr. eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was deported after serving prison time.

Afterward, she said, her brother smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand, she testified, as he said over and over, “I can’t believe my [expletive] dad did that.”