Posted on 07/19/2002 6:32:07 PM PDT by Partisan Hack
The Sherriff just said that he is 100% certain that Alejandro Avila is the man that kidnapped, raped, and murdered Samantha.
I'd be comfortable with that kid watching my back anytime.
Defense trial tactics are absolutely brutal to these kids. Few parents desire to have their children attacked and traumatized on the witness stand in the fashion that has become the norm in child sex abuse trials.
Kids older than 12 are typically subjected to particularly savage cross-examinations. The goal is to rattle the kid so badly that he or she appears confused and unsure. That's all a good defense attorney needs to cobble together enough reasonable doubt to get an acquittal.
That is why so many of these cases never make it to trial or are dealt out at reduced sentences.
In this case, Samantha Runnion is dead and cannot be further brutalized. The miscreant has few places remaining to hide.
Why are we as parents being taught that we "deserve" this to be done to our children?
Don't we have the "right" to just a bit of peace of mind?
I mean, I'm actually considering buying one of those locator bracelets for my son.
I feel like we and our children are being imprisoned while the loonies are free.
Do you have a link for us? Or do you know what agency handles that database? I'd love to have a look at my community.
When is society going to learn, that it is almost never that those perverts don't reoffend and remolest???
Church or no church I believe ANY parent would have dialed 911 before anything not run around the neighborhood and calling bishops and all. I realize mormons are deeply into all this but it's their child. Call them after but before? Also there's the matter of all the "people" in the home before the police arrives and I cannot believe that one of those people didn't say.. Wait.. we shouldn't be here now.
Then there's the matter of a kidnapper knowing exactly where the childs bedroom is (I know 14 is not a child but it is to me) having to pass the parents bedroom not once but twice.. allowing her to put her sneakers/shoes on. Would you waste that precious time? And then there's the matter of the 9 year old waiting two hours before notifying the parents. Tell me did she really look at the clock? I doubt it. Apparently she was going to the parents but saw the kidnapper in the house. Where did she see the kidnapper for the second time? Why did he linger in the house with his victim?
We have not heard of anything being taken from the home as in a burglary.. where are the fingerprints? We dot even know if there are any. How did the perp enter the home? If the doors were locked he either had a key or the door was unlocked. I find an unlocked door hard to believe. What was the exit route?
Now as for the child, the 9 year old seeing the perp. She can see he's wearing a "polo" shirt, that he was wearing a jacket, she can see hair on his hands, a hat all this while pretending to be asleep. And but no composite? Why wasn't that done? I have also read that she was in fact questioned by the authorities three times and each time in the presence of her mother.
Any and all information that the public has been fed was contradicted after the fact. Mr Smart himself can not answer a straight question because he doesnt want to jeopardize the case but yet.. he goes on a Press Conf. and tells us about a letter that was recieved. A letter the police were, at the time, unaware of. A letter that Uncle Tom FAXED to the police department and today we hear about an E-mail he "accidently" deleted. Again, the police knew nothing.
Now you can laugh about the Enquirer being a rag magazine but they have no fear of anything especially law suits and have, believe it or not, award winning journalists working for them. This "gay" porn found on the computers.. this journal of supposed sexual perversion would destroy them in the Mormon community if proven to be true and when Mr Smart was questioned on it his answer was not something a "normal" people would say, in my opinion anyway. He said something like.. it's irrelevant or nothing to be concerned with where someone else would say that's absurd or yeah so what I had porn on my computer.
It seems to me that this whole ordeal is either a total sham for money or notoriety or he knows exactly where his daughter is and always has but it's gone beyond his control and now has to play his own game.
In my own opinion and I stress this as I have no solid proof to back it up but I think this child is alive and now with the 5th wife. I think Smart got himself into severe financial trouble or he was being blackmailed because of his sexual preferences.
These are just a few thoughts of mine so tear it apart if you will but these are my opinions and thanks for asking.
Right, I am sure if you were there you would have solved the case in three minutes before the witnessing girl had even been interviewed and a sketch of the perp made. I'm sure he was the only guy who fit the description in the whole freaking country and you could have just pulled his home address right out of a hat like a rabbit without actually having to investigate. Ah! If only the police were as gifted and experienced in crime solving as you! Show us the link to the post where you solved the case within 4 minutes of the abduction- you had as much info as the cops did within 4 minutes, after all, and you should have had the case solved. Save your criticism for the panel of other 'brilliant' American citizen-detectives who will let the guy off because some lawyer can convince them that his "bloody glove" didn't fit, and save it for the bleeding hearts who will whine and complain about tough sentencing, the death penalty, the unnatractive color of the prison uniforms, police brutality or whatever.
This is a poignant and very true statement. Don't expect the average poster to agree with you or to see the connection, however. The average poster is much too much into himself and his own greedy self-obsessions to face this ugly truth.
Children became disposable commodities in our culture beginning with Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade and the Samantha Runnion kidnap-rape-murder are related in a fundamental, powerful sense.
We now return to the regularly scheduled programming of denial and moral compartmentalization.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.