[1] On July 15, 2002, Runnion was playing with a friend in her front yard[2] when a man approached them asking for help in finding a lost dog.
A day later, her nude body was found 50 miles south in Cleveland National Forest.
Police said that the killer was "extremely sloppy" and had left behind "mountains of physical evidence connecting him to the crime".
Police found child pornography on Avila's laptop computer, and he had booked a motel room on the day of the murder, where it was believed that Samantha was killed.
Avila's public defender argued during the trial that he couldn't have kidnapped the girl, abused, murdered, and then dumped her body 50 miles away in one day as the prosecution believed.