Preliminary hearing opens in teen’s death

In broad daylight, a large, bald man in a patterned shirt walks into an ATM kiosk in downtown Los Angeles with one arm tightly wrapped around a petite, teenage girl, barefoot and in a sundress. When they emerge about two minutes later, the man appears to be grabbing her right arm and left wrist.

Prosecutors presented the surveillance footage Friday as a key piece of their murder case against Charles Samuel, the 50-year-old man they allege kidnapped 17-year-old Lily Burk in July and killed her after repeatedly trying to get her to withdraw money from the ATM.

The preliminary hearing, expected to continue Monday, will determine whether there is enough evidence to try Samuel for the teen’s murder.

Samuel, who has previously been convicted of robbery and residential burglary, faces allegations of committing the murder during a kidnapping, robbery and carjacking, making him subject to the death penalty.

Six attempts were made to withdraw cash at the ATM with a credit card under Burk’s father’s name, each effort rejected because of an incorrect personal identification number, prosecutors said.

Burk, who left her Los Feliz home to run an errand for her mother, was found the next morning with her neck slashed and her head beaten in a parking lot less than a mile from the bank.

The testimony at Friday’s hearing revealed a series of moments that could have changed the course of the day’s events.

Minutes before Samuel allegedly kidnapped Burk, an assistant at Southwestern Law School offered to help Burk carry a box of exams out to her car, the assistant testified. The girl said she could manage, he testified, and walked out on her own. Burk’s mother, an attorney, taught at the school

A security director at the law school testified that he had noticed Samuel peering over a gate, then slipping onto the school’s grounds. But when he saw the man leave the school’s premises after getting a light, possibly for a cigarette, he stopped watching the man, thinking he was no longer of concern.

The surveillance images from the downtown bank showed other ATM users and pedestrians walking past Samuel and Burk, but paying little attention to the pair.

Just over an hour after the two left the bank, surveillance footage showed a man resembling Samuel walking away from a parked black Volvo, where authorities said they later found Burk’s lifeless body. He was stopped that evening on skid row on suspicion of drinking in public. Police said he had bloodstains on his shirt and Burk’s car key and cellphone in his pocket.

Samuel, bald with a graying mustache, appeared in court Friday in an orange jail-issue jumpsuit with his wrists chained to his waist. He sat slumped in his chair, flanked by his attorneys.

One of his lawyers, Albert DeBlanc Jr., questioned the identification of Samuel from the grainy surveillance images and pressed the lead investigator on whether anyone could have tampered with the car between the late afternoon when Burk died and the next morning, when her body was found.

Sitting in court, Burk’s family quietly wept as images of the girl were projected on a large screen. Her mother, Deborah Drooz, stared intently after the man accused of killing her daughter was led from the courtroom at the end of the day.

victoria.kim@latimes.com