Ellen Thompson

July 17, 2002

Dispatcher: 9-1-1, what’s your emergency?

Caller: Hello?
Dispatcher: Hi, what’s going on?
Caller: Oh my God, I found a dead body. Please hurry. I’m in the Ortegas, okay?
Ortega mountains. I’m in Riverside County. Listen to me, I’m scared to sit here.
There’s another truck up the street and we want to get out of here. We’re scared.
Dispatcher: I understand that. We need to know what street.
(Pause)
Dispatcher: What street are you on?
Caller: I’m on Killen Trail. It’s a main street, there is another main street but the big
street out here is Killen Trail. K-I-L-L-E-N Trail.
Dispatcher: Thank you. We need you to calm down a little... I understand how afraid
you are but we need you to calm down. Where is the body at on Killen?
Caller: (unintelligible)
Dispatcher: Hello?
Caller: I’m sorry, I’m so scared...
Dispatcher: Was it an adult? Was it an adult’s body?
Caller: It’s a kid. I think it may even be the little girl that’s been on the news. It’s a
little girl. I swear. We just looked and as soon as we seen, I left. I’m sorry; I don’t
know what to do.
 Ellen Thompson

July 15, 2002 – Sarah Ahn

“Your turn,” Samantha said to me from across the game board. “Hurry up
slowpoke!”
I picked up the die and threw it at the ground. A five. I counted with my token:
one, two, three, four, five. “Oh dear, not another snake! I’ll never win now!”
Samantha grinned wickedly and laughed, “You suck at this game Sarah! I
always beat you.”
It was true. Every time I went to Samantha’s house for a play, we would grab
the Snakes and Ladders box from her bedroom cupboard and find a place to sit and
play a couple of games together, every one of which she won with ease. Today
Samantha’s mum, Erin had suggested that we go outside and play while the weather
was nice so we took the game with us and set it up on the small brick wall in front of
Samantha’s house. The air held a hint of autumn, but the sun, when it wasn’t behind
the clouds, was still at its summer strength. Samantha and I would be starting school
together in the fall and no matter how daunting the idea was, I knew I would be
alright because Samantha would be with me every step of the way. We were going to
be best friends forever.
“I’m bored of this game,” I whined. “Can’t we do something else now?”
I noticed a man walking along the footpath towards us. He looked to be in his
early thirties and was one of those people who seemed like they were a cross between
an American and a Spanish person. His black hair was slicked-back against his head
and he sported a thin black moustache on his upper lip. I didn’t like the look of him.
He made me feel sick in the stomach.
“Hello girls,” he crooned. “I’ve lost my dog. You haven’t seen it have you?”
Samantha opened her mouth to reply but I nudged her with my elbow. “Your
mum said we’re not allowed to talk to strangers, remember?”
She looked away from me defiantly and turned back to the man, “What type of
dog is it?”
“A Chihuahua. He’s very, small and umm — brown. Yes that’s right, he’s
brown.” The man smiled menacingly. I felt like throwing up.
“Of course we’ll help you find him!” Samantha exclaimed. I looked at her
with wide eyes. “Come on Sarah,” she said to me. “Don’t you want to look for the
 Ellen Thompson

dog?” I knew it was a bad idea. It wasn’t the right thing to disobey Samantha’s mum
rules but I slid down off the wall and started searching anyway.
I had only been looking for five minutes when a scream pierced the serene
silence of the neighbourhood. I ran to the top of the driveway and saw Samantha
struggling to get free of the man’s tight grasp.
“Help me, help me!” she shrieked. “Tell my mum, tell my grandmother!” Her
cries for help were stifled as the man scooped her up and forced her into the boot of a
light green Acura. I raced inside and yelled for Samantha’s mum. I didn’t know what
to do. I leant over to throw up but nothing came out. I felt empty, like there was a part
of me missing. I was missing my best friend.
 Ellen Thompson

July 17, 2002 - Erin Runnion

It’s been two days since she was taken. I haven’t slept. I keep thinking that it’s
all just a bad dream - perhaps nightmare would be a better word to describe it – and
that I’m going to wake up tomorrow and see her running up the back steps into the
kitchen, her coffee coloured curls bouncing with every step.
An immense darkness has settled over the household since she’s been gone.
Not the sort of gloom that you can fix by flicking a light switch or striking a match
but one that can only be overcome by a child’s bright smile. Samantha’s smile.
The phone’s ringing. Again. Too many people have called in with their
condolences over the past twenty-four hours and every time it feels like just another
slap in the face. They don’t care that Samantha’s gone; they’re just glad it wasn’t their
own child.
I get up from the chair that I’m sitting on and wander mindlessly across the
room to the landline. “Hello.”
“Erin Runnion. This is Detective Carona from the Orange County Sheriff’s
Department.”
They must have found her. They wouldn’t phone if they hadn’t.
“We think we may have found your daughter, Mrs Runnion.”
I exhaled. I didn’t realise that I’d been holding my breath. I closed my eyes
and felt my legs buckle underneath me. Relief.
“We’re going to need you to come down to the station. We need you to
identify the body.”
 Ellen Thompson

July 26, 2003 - District Attorney Tony Rackauckas

The courtroom was silent as I stood up to give my closing statement. My heart

pounded in my chest. This was my opportunity to make sure justice was served – to
society, to the Runnion family and most importantly, to Samantha.
I turned to face the Jury.
“Samantha Runnion was a beautiful, bright and joyful little girl. She loved to
read for fun, write stories, paint, play her guitar, sing and dance. Most of all she loved
to play games with her family and friends. She approached each day as a new
adventure, eager to learn and play. She was a precious gift to all who knew her.” I
heard sobs from behind me, which I assumed were coming from Samantha’s mother.
“On July 15 2002, five year old Samantha was snatched from her front yard by
Mr Alejandro Avila. She was then driven seventy miles away, sexually assaulted,
beaten upside the head and asphyxiated via pressure to the chest. Two days later,
Samantha’s body was found alongside a main road; nude, battered and lifeless.”
I looked to the jury and locked eyes with each and every member. Four
women and eight men. All I had to do was convince them that Mr Avila was the
poster child for the death penalty, that he had forfeited his right to life.
“This was the cruel, unjustified murder of a little girl who should have been
safe playing just steps away from her home. By deciding to fulfil his sick, selfish
perversion, Mr Avila heartlessly denied Samantha of so many things in life – riding a
bicycle, getting a driver’s licence, going to college, getting married, having a
beautiful child of her own. He denied her mum the opportunity to help her pick out a
prom dress. He denied her dad the chance to do the father-daughter dance at her
wedding.”
Every pair of eyes in the courtroom brimmed with tears. Everyone’s attention
was on me.
“And so, ladies and gentlemen, for that, Mr Avila deserves the ultimate
punishment. He no longer deserves to breathe our oxygen, feel the warmth of the sun
or get a restful night of sleep. There is no justification for what happened in this case.
The prosecution rests.”
No one moves as I take my seat. There is not a sound to be heard. I have done
all I can.
 Ellen Thompson

July 26, 2005 - Erin Runnion

Three years ago, I lost my daughter. I can still remember everything about the
hellish ordeal as if it was yesterday – her scream, the missing persons report, the
phone call from the sheriff’s department, the trial and the jury’s decision to put him to
death.
There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about what he did to her.
What causes someone to do something so purely evil? People have argued that the
‘destructive acts’ he witnessed as a child were the reason behind his attack but I can’t
accept that as a possible motive. Wrong is wrong and there are no excuses what so
ever. He murdered my little girl.
I haven’t touched her bedroom since the trial. Every time I walk down the hall
I catch a glimpse of her rainbow bedspread, her ballerina toy box, her over stacked
bookshelf. It’s a constant reminder of what should have been.
How do the other parents do it? How do they continue on with their lives
knowing that there’s a big, gaping hole where their child should have been? What do
they say when someone asks if they have any children? Do they still say yes?
Or maybe we’re all the same. Maybe we never get over what’s happened but
instead learn to live with the pain and conceal it from the world, letting everyone
think that we’re ok. We suffer in silence, continually reminded of the ones we have
lost by the littlest things: a little girl with similar brown curls, a laugh that sounds like
hers, a snakes and ladders game set, a date on the calendar...
Today would have been Samantha’s ninth birthday.