Avila’s Lawyers Cite His Troubles

After four days of testimony, lawyers for Samantha Runnion’s killer on Tuesday finished painting their client as a loner whose depraved childhood inspired his pedophilia -- circumstances they hope will prompt jurors to spare his life.

Closing arguments for the trial’s penalty phase will be given today after Orange County Superior Court Judge William R. Froeberg instructs the jurors. The prosecution will call one rebuttal witness, a mental health expert. Jurors are expected to start deliberating in the afternoon or Thursday.

Alejandro Avila, 30, a Lake Elsinore factory worker convicted of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and suffocating the 5-year-old Stanton girl, faces execution or life in prison without parole.

One of the defense’s last witnesses, a clinical psychologist who had interviewed members of Avila’s family, testified that Avila experienced among the “most severe” risk factors for deviant behavior he had ever seen.

Growing up in a family with a history of physical and sexual abuse, where male alcoholics dominated the women, and children were molested and beaten at family gatherings, seemed to doom Avila to deviant behavior, said psychologist Francisco Gomez, an expert on risk factors and Latino culture.

“Some people have so many risk factors that their options for free will are limited,” Gomez testified. He said he was not trying to excuse what Avila did.

Gomez also said during questioning by Assistant Dist. Atty. David Brent that the poverty, alcoholism effects and harsh discipline that Avila’s father experienced as a child was passed on to his own children.

Gomez said Avila’s parents minimized or denied the allegations of abuse that other family members had testified about.

Rafael Avila Sr. was a “controlling and manipulative” man who tried to control the interview, depicting himself in the best possible light, Gomez said.

“He wanted to present himself as someone taking a day off from work to help his son,” the psychologist said. “There was a lot of bravado.”

Alejandro Avila’s former co-workers depicted him Tuesday as a recluse who socialized only with women and was happy to help others. Ruth Conly, who worked at the factory where Avila helped assemble medical devices, said he often walked her to her car after their shift ended at 4 a.m. Once when her car had a flat tire at 2 a.m., she said, she called Avila and asked him to drive out and install her spare.

“I knew he’d be up, and I knew he would help me,” Conly said.

She stepped down after two minutes of testimony and walked past Samantha’s mother, Erin Runnion, who has sat in the Santa Ana courtroom every day of the trial.

“I am so sorry,” Conly whispered to Runnion. The mother smiled wanly in return.

During the penalty phase, defense testimony has centered on the potentially mitigating evidence of Avila’s childhood abuse.

Samantha’s mother and grandmother testified for the prosecution about the girl’s childhood, including her fascination with heroic figures such as Hercules, and notes of love and encouragement that she left around the house for relatives.

Although they vividly described how Samantha’s murder devastated their lives, the relatives stopped short of telling jurors that Avila should die.