(CBS) LOS ANGELES A 26-year-old man was in custody Monday for his alleged role in the fatal shooting of a 3-year-old girl in Baldwin Hills two weeks ago, but the 17-year-old suspected gunman remains at large, Los Angeles police said.

Laron Lee Larrimore was arrested Friday afternoon at a motel in the 3500 block of Slauson Avenue, police said.

Larrimore is accused of driving the getaway car following the attack that claimed the life of Kaitlyn Avila and left her father, Cesar Avila, wounded, according to Deputy Chief Charles Beck of the Los Angeles Police Department.

The suspected gunman, Jonathan Durrell Banks, remained at large and is believed to be hiding somewhere in Los Angeles, Beck said.

A $50,000 reward was offered for information leading to the arrest of Banks, who was described by police as African American, 6 feet tall and weighing about 200 pounds.

"We are actively requesting the public's help to find this vicious criminal, this vicious murderer of a child before he escapes the net of justice," Beck said during a news conference at the LAPD's downtown dispatch center.

The attack happened about 2:45 p.m. on Sept. 24.

Cesar Avila and his two daughters had just arrived at their home in the 4500 block of Pinafore Street after lunching at a McDonald's when a gunman walked up, shouted a gang slogan and opened fire, authorities said.

Kaitlyn was killed and her father was critically wounded, according to police. Kaitlyn's 6-year-old sister, Kassey, witnessed the shooting, but was not hurt.

The suspects allegedly sped away in a gray Chevrolet Pacifica.

"We're heartbroken, we're very heartbroken for the death of my daughter," Avila said, his voice breaking.

"We ask the suspect to turn himself in," he said. "Even though it won't bring my daughter back, at least we know more innocent people won't get hurt. I don't care so much for what he did to me, but for what he did to my daughter."

Beck said that detectives from the LAPD's Southwest Division "worked 24 hours a day" for the last two weeks to solve the crime, and that several witnesses came forward with critical information.

"We found several reasons for the cooperation, one being the universal tragedy of the death of a 3-year-old, and two, the callous nature in which this was instituted," Beck said. "This was not an accident."

The motive for the attack remains under investigation. Both suspects are known gang-members and may have mistaken Avila for a rival, according to Beck.

It was unclear whether the attack was racially motivated, but police held community meetings with Latino and black residents in South Los Angeles to keep tensions from rising.

"Obviously there's a racial difference between the suspects and the victims in this case, but we believe it is the monster of gang activity in South Los Angeles that is that cause of this shooting," Beck said.

"It's very hard going home," Avila said. "Walking around my house and knowing I won't see my daughter again, it's too much."

Anyone with information about the shooting was asked to call police at (213) 485-2417 or (877) LAWFULL.

GEORGETOWN, Pa. (Oct. 7) - Under a cold, steady drizzle, the Amish drove in horse and buggy to a farmland cemetery Friday to bury the fifth of five girls shot to death by a school intruder. The death toll could grow, however, as one of the five girls wounded was reportedly near death.








More than 40 buggies splashed along country roads behind a funeral-home car, two mounted state troopers and a carriage with the body of 12-year-old Anna Mae Stoltzfus in a hand-sawn wooden coffin.

Four other girls killed during Monday's shootings, two of them sisters, were laid to rest Thursday at the same hilltop graveyard.

All roads into Nickel Mines village were again blocked, and the funeral procession, like those Thursday, passed the home of Charles Carl Roberts IV, the 32-year-old milk truck driver who took the 10 girls, ages 6 to 13, hostage, tied them up and shot them before killing himself.

One of the surviving girls was reported to be in grave condition. The county coroner said he had been told she was being taken off life support, but her location was not known Friday. The four other girls remain hospitalized.

Funerals for Marian Fisher, 13, Naomi Rose Ebersol, 7, and sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lena Miller, 7, were held Thursday.

The families of the slain girls and the children who survived the schoolhouse siege will endure the same deep grief as would anyone outside their insular, 19th-century world, experts said.

"(Outsiders) think these people don't embrace each other, they don't cry. That's not true," said Jonas Beiler, a counselor who was raised Amish and has visited with some of the victims' families this week.

Beiler, 59, and his wife, Anne, who founded the Auntie Anne's Inc. pretzel chain, lost an 18-month-old daughter to a farm accident years ago, a tragedy he says nearly destroyed them. They now use some of their fortune to fund a counseling center in nearby Paradise.

"You never get done wondering how things might have been had this not happened, especially when children are involved," Beiler said. "Years later, it's not deep grief. But it hangs there."

Beiler's staff will make house calls in the next week to families affected by the West Nickel Mines Amish School shootings.

There were about 15 boys, ages 6 to 13, in the school. The gunman released all of them.

"They're still in shock. ... They have this glazed look in their eyes," woodworker Daniel Esh, whose three grandnephews were in the school, said earlier this week. "They'll heal, but it will affect them their whole lives."

Richard J. Gelles, a childhood violence expert and a University of Pennsylvania dean, said the importance of forgiveness in Amish culture should help survivors heal.

"Nobody has to accept that behavior. But forgiveness is a whole lot easier than seeking revenge," he said.

Many Amish have embraced the gunman's wife, Marie Roberts, and their three young children.





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NICKEL MINES, Pa. -- The black, horse-drawn buggies glided past police roadblocks Thursday morning as the Amish gathered to bury four of the five young girls who were shot to death inside their schoolhouse on Monday.

All roads leading into the village of Nickel Mines, the site of the shooting, were blocked off so the Amish could meet quietly in three homes for the funerals.

Naomi Ebersol, 7; Marian Fisher, 13; and sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lena Miller, 7, were laid to rest.


The funeral for the fifth girl, 12-year-old Anna Mae Stoltzfus, will be Friday.

The news media were kept at a church in the village of Georgetown, away from the homes but along the route where the buggies drove to the cemetery for a short graveside service. Even airspace was restricted so that TV news helicopters could not get video from above.

The funerals were held at the families' homes and lasted about two hours. They were spread throughout the day to allow families to attend each service. The girls were dressed in white to symbolize the purity of heaven. There was no singing or eulogizing at the services.

Rita Rhoads, a friend of the victims who has been sharing information with the media, said she did not attend Thursday's services.

"I have already been there and visited more than once. I've had my chance to view the bodies. I've had my chance to grieve with the families. I feel today needs just to be the family," Rhoads said.

Rhoads said that while the families are grieving, they believe their children are in heaven.

"Even if they're crying, there's a calmness. It's not desperation. They really are just hanging onto their faith in God," said Rhoads.

Meanwhile, an official at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said three of the five schoolgirls who survived the school shooting in Lancaster County, Pa., are showing progress but have an arduous road to recovery.

An 8-year-old girl with gunshot wounds to her neck and arm was in critical condition and remained on a ventilator. Hospital vice president and Chief Operating Officer Gavin Kerr said she is making "encouraging progress."

A 12-year-old girl with arm and leg injuries is in serious condition. Kerr said she can communicate with her family and caregivers and continues to make "very positive progress."



AP Image
An Amish man drives a bench wagon, used in funerals, along Mines Road in Nickel Mines, Pa.


A 10-year-old girl who has a gunshot wound to her head was in critical condition and on life support.

Kerr said the girls' families have asked that no further information on the girls be given.

Penn State Children's Hospital in Hershey, Pa., where the other two girls were being treated, also stopped releasing condition updates at the parents' request.

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — A packed courtroom silently watched Tuesday as a video revealed the final seconds of flower girl Katie Flynn's life: the sudden sight of oncoming headlights and the crunch of a pickup truck striking her limousine head-on.

Family members cried and wiped away tears as prosecutors played the clip for the jury before resting their murder case against Martin Heidgen, who is charged with killing 7-year-old Katie and the limousine's driver in the July 2005 crash.

Prosecutors said Heidgen, with his blood alcohol level more than triple the legal limit, drove the wrong way down a highway and plowed into the limousine, as Stanley Rabinowitz drove the little girl and her relatives home from a wedding reception.

The clip was made on a dashboard security camera that faced the road.

"I just watched my entire existence in five seconds," said Katie's father, Neil Flynn, after the video was played. "That's the definition of my life now."

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The video, played a single time on a large screen, showed the limousine traveling south in the left lane at about 2 a.m., when headlights are seen also in the left lane in the distance.

As the two vehicles moved perilously close to each other, it appeared as though both drivers veered slightly into the center lane before the sound of crumpling metal and screeching tires can be heard. Four other members of the Flynn family were injured.

Once the prosecution rested its case, acting state Supreme Court Justice Alan Honorof denied a request from defense attorney Stephen LaMagna to dismiss the charge of murder by depraved indifference.

The defense called Heidgen's mother, Margot Aponte, who told jurors about his move from Arkansas to Long Island and of his work as an insurance salesman.

Heidgen, 25, of Valley Stream, was charged with murder, DWI and other charges in an unusual move by prosecutors. Most drunken driver cases involving fatalities result in lesser charges; Heidgen faces 25 years to life if convicted of murder.

The jury may also consider a conviction of second-degree manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide, which carry lesser sentences.

Authorities say Heidgen had a blood alcohol level of 0.28 at the time of the fatal crash, while the legal limit in New York state is 0.08.

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — A man pleaded guilty Wednesday to criminally negligent homicide for beating to death a 77-year-old man he believed had molested his young daughter.

Robert Fontanez Jr., 27, had faced the more serious charge of second-degree murder in the April death of Bismark Vasquez before agreeing to the plea. He faces up to five years in prison at sentencing, expected early next year.

According to police, Fontanez became enraged when his 5-year-old daughter told him that Vasquez had touched her inappropriately.

He went to Vasquez's home and punched him so hard that the older man went through the back door, police said. Investigators said Fontanez continued to beat Vasquez as he lay bleeding on the concrete outside. Vasquez died in a hospital three days later.

Police detective Scott Chaffin said there was no physical evidence to support the molestation allegation, though he said the child's comments to police were consistent with what she had told her mother.

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In a similar case in Fairfield, Conn., a man was charged with stabbing to death a 58-year-old neighbor in August whom he had suspected of molesting his 2-year-old daughter. Jonathon Edington, 29, is free on $1 million bond and due back in court next week. Police have said they do not know if the abuse claim against the neighbor was true.