LILY BURK - 17 yo - North Hollywood CA

She was
set to star this week in her high school's production of David Mamet's
"The Boston Marriage." And she planned to volunteer helping the
homeless this summer. Seventeen-year-old Lily Burk had a knack for
writing and being funny, and while classmates at Oakwood School in
North Hollywood carried backpacks, she lugged two canvas bags
overstuffed with books, papers and binders.

This girl was "cute and getting cuter," her mother said. Lily was going places.
Instead, she left her Los Feliz home Friday afternoon on an errand and
never returned. Early Saturday her black Volvo was found parked in a
lot surrounded by warehouses and lofts near downtown Los Angeles.
Lily's body was found on the front passenger seat, and police are
investigating her death as a homicide.

"She was my best friend," Deborah Drooz, 54, said of her only child.
"She was warm and funny and incredibly gifted verbally. We read books
together. We loved each other very much. She was looking forward to her
life."

Sgt. Miguel Arana of the Los Angeles Police Department said there
were signs of a struggle inside the car. Lily appeared to have head
injuries from striking the passenger side of the front windshield, but
the car did not show signs of having been in a crash, he said.

Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz said that the cause of death appeared to be
blunt force trauma and that there was "strong evidence" that Lily was
killed by 5 p.m. Friday. He declined to disclose more details.

Drooz and her husband, Gregory Burk, 59, said their daughter left home
about 2:30 p.m. Friday to pick up exams for her mother, an attorney and
an adjunct professor at Southwestern University School of Law on
Wilshire Boulevard, near downtown.

Lily picked up the papers and, more than an hour later, made separate
calls to each of her parents, asking them how to get cash using her
credit card at an ATM, police said.

Lily seemed in a rush, her father said, but not frightened. She said
she needed money to buy shoes. Her parents said they told her to come
home.

When she had not returned by 5 p.m., her parents became worried.

"I called the police when I got home from work and she wasn't there. It
took them forever to come," Drooz said. "I called about 5 or 6 p.m.
They didn't get here until after 8," Drooz said. "They said she might
have run away. I said, 'This is a kidnapping.' They said, 'We're going
to write it up as a missing person.' "

The parents were upset, believing that police were handling the case as a missing-person investigation rather than an abduction.

The girl's parents said they told police that they had contacted the
cellphone and credit card companies. Their information showed repeated
attempts to withdraw money from an ATM using the credit card, they
said. Drooz said she told police that their daughter's cellphone calls
were moving farther east.

The parents also were upset that they were not notified that their
daughter's body had been found until hours after police arrived at the
crime scene Saturday.

"It pains me to contradict a grief-stricken mother," Diaz said. "But
this case was always taken very seriously, and if they are implying
that we dismissed it as a runaway, they would be mistaken."

He said police records show that the first call from the parents came
in at 7 p.m. Friday and that a night watch detective from the Northeast
Station went to the family home about an hour later. The detective
remained in contact with the family throughout the night to gather
information that he had asked the parents to obtain from Verizon.

The parents, Diaz said, could have been under the mistaken impression
that it was being treated as a runaway case because the detective
requested that they keep contacting the girl's friends to ask about her
possible whereabouts. Detectives worked through the night on the case,
he said, searching for her in the Little Tokyo and skid row area.

Diaz said that when the Volvo was discovered at 6:15 a.m. Saturday it
"almost immediately" was connected to Lily Burk. The detective handling
the case was notified and began working with homicide detectives.

Diaz said the delay in notification was an unfortunate but unavoidable
result of the work detectives had to do at the crime scene before they
could contact the parents. Detectives notified the family a few hours
after the car was discovered.

On Saturday night, the couple could not keep from crying as they recalled their child.

"She's dead, she's dead," Drooz sobbed on the telephone to a caller on the other line. "They found her. . . . She was only 17."

Lily's SAT scores sat on her bed. She was a National Merit Scholar, which came naturally to her, her mother said.

She did not lack for friends. They went to the
Coachella Music and Arts Festival together and planned surprise parties
for each other.

"She was dearly loved by a great group of kids," her mother said. "It's going to be hard to watch them grow up."

Lily wanted to be a writer. She would carry around a tiny notebook and
pen, constantly pulling them out to write thoughts or draw pictures.
She especially enjoyed writing short stories.

She wrote a cheeky review for an animated movie for L.A. Weekly --
where her father, a journalist, used to work -- while she was in middle
school. "If your child forces you to go to 'Yu-Gi-Oh!,' remember that
there's no law against iPods in movie theaters," she wrote.

The teen had a soft spot for sick birds, which she would take in
whenever she found them. With her mother's help, she would nurse them
back to health.

"She was a really beautiful young woman, full of energy, just really
smart," said Rick Wartzman, 44, whose daughter was one of Lily's best
friends. "She was the kind of kid who walked into a room and lit it up."

The death of a 17 year old girl whose body was found in her vehicle in
a parking lot near Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles is being
investigated as a homicide.

Lily Burk, a 17 year old soon-to-be senior at Oakwood School in North
Hollywood, left on an errand to the Southwestern University School of
Law on Friday afternoon but never came home, family friends said.

Her parents, Deborah Drooz, 54, and Gregory Burk, 59, said their
daughter left home about 2:30 p.m. Friday to pick up exams for her
mother, an attorney and an adjunct professor at Southwestern University.

She was found dead around 6:30 a.m. Saturday in the passenger seat of
her black Volvo at the corner of Alameda and Fifth streets, in a
parking lot surrounded by warehouses on the fringe of downtown Los
Angeles, said police officials.

According to Sgt. Miguel Arana of the Los Angeles Police Department,
there were signs of a struggle inside her car, and the girl appeared to
have head injuries after striking the passenger side of the front
windshield.

Arana said her car showed no sign of having been in an accident.

Burk's preliminary cause of death appears to be blunt force trauma, said LAPD Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz.

Burk picked up the papers for her mother, and then made separate phone
calls to each of her parents asking how to get cash advances using her
credit card at an ATM, said Diaz.

Diaz said he believes the information suggests Burk was killed early Friday evening.

She was not heard from again, and her parents reported her missing around 5 or 6 p.m.

Drooz said police didn't arrive at their home until after 8 p.m., and
said they were going to write the case up as a missing person. Drooz
and her husband believed their daughter had been abducted.

Diaz said the case was always taken very seriously, and was not
dismissed as a runaway. He said detectives worked through the night on
the case, searching for Lily in the Little Tokyo and Skid Row areas.

Burk's parents said they told police that they had contacted the
cellphone and credit card companies. Their information showed repeated
attempts to withdraw money from an ATM using the credit card, they
said. Drooz said she told police that their daughter's cellphone calls
were moving farther east.

The death investigation is ongoing.

Family friends described Burk as smart and full of energy, and said she enjoyed theater and short-story writing.

She wrote a review for an animated movie for L.A. Weekly -- where her
father, a journalist, used to work -- while she was in middle school.

The National Merit Scholar enjoyed throwing surprise parties for friends and nursing sick birds back to health.

Anyone with information on her death was asked to call police at (213) 485-3294.

Fingerprints
recovered from inside the car where 17-year-old Lily Burk was found
slain match those of a transient accused of killing the girl, police
said today.

Charlie Samuel, 50, encountered the girl near the Southwestern
University School of Law on Wilshire Boulevard. Lily had gone to the
campus at the old Bullock's Wilshire building Friday to collect some
papers for her mother, an attorney who worked there.

Charlie Samuel was arrested at 5:30 p.m. Friday
on suspicion of possessing drugs and drug paraphernalia on 3rd Street
in downtown Los Angeles -- at least 12 hours before Lily's body was
discovered nearby in her black Volvo at 5th and Alameda streets. Law
enforcement sources said Samuel has a history of violent crime and drug
abuse.

"This case strikes close to home for all of us with children," said
LAPD Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz. "This is really a parent's worst
nightmare."

Police said Lily left her Los Feliz home at about 2:30 p.m. Friday to
run an errand for her mother. She had gone to the Southwestern
University school.

At a press conference, Diaz offered a chronology of what followed:

3 p.m Friday: Samuel allegedly approached Lily at her car, which was
parked near the law school at the corner of Wilshire Place, north of
7th Street. Samuel abducted Lily.

3:35 p.m.: Samuel attempted to withdraw money from at least one
location in downtown L.A. using Lily's credit card. But the girl's
credit car was not set up to be used at an ATM.

3:35 to 4 p.m. Lily called both her mother and father, asking how to
withdraw money using her credit card. She did not say she was in
distress, police said.

4:52 p.m.: Samuel exited the driver's-side door of Burk's Volvo at 458 Alameda St. in downtown L.A.

5:25 p.m.: LAPD officers saw Samuel on 3rd Street drinking beer and in possession of a coke pipe. He was arrested.

Friday evening: Lily's parents reported her missing. A missing persons report was filed and detectives began searching for her.

6:15 a.m. Saturday: Lily's body was found by local workers inside her
car at 458 Alameda St. They called 911, and police arrived.

A law enforcement source said Samuel had a previous history of assault with a deadly weapon, robbery and kidnapping.

According to law enforcement records, Samuel also had been arrested
April 23 on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood on a parole
violation.

He listed his occupation to police as a recycler. According to a law
enforcement source, Samuel entered a drug treatment program after that
arrest. He had been released from state prison in February, where he
was serving time after an arrest for petty theft with a prior
conviction, law enforcement sources said.

He was booked on suspicion of murder and was being held without bail.

Over the weekend, Lily's classmates and family friends gathered at a Los Angeles home to mourn her death and remember her life.

"The thing we want people to know about Lily is that she was a
beautiful person and that she was looking forward to her life. She was
funny, warm, kind and empathetic. She was deeply and widely loved,"
read the statement from Deborah Drooz and Gregory Burk, a Times
freelancer who writes about pop music.

Lily was supposed to begin her senior year at Oakwood School in North Hollywood in the fall.

She was set to star in her high school's production of David Mamet's
"The Boston Marriage" and planned to volunteer helping the homeless
this summer

Lily Burk and Charles Samuel walked in separate worlds.

Burk was a bright, bookish 17-year-old, whose future was ahead of her. After
a summer in which she was to appear on stage as the lead in a play and
volunteer at a skid row needle exchange program, she was to have
started her final year of high school.

Samuel, 50, had been in and out of prisons for
decades. He was a transient with a long record of criminal activities
and drug abuse.

Friday, on a hot, bright afternoon, chance brought the two together on a quiet, tree-lined street.

Burk walked down Wilshire Place about 3 p.m., leaving the former Bullock's
Wilshire department store that today is home to Southwestern University
School of Law. Under her arm, she carried a box of paperwork that her
mother, who taught at the school, had asked her to pick up.

Samuel had walked out of a nearby residential
drug treatment program earlier in the afternoon. He had been ordered
there after a recent arrest but had been given permission to leave for
the day.

As Burk approached her Volvo sedan near 7th Street,
Samuel confronted her. Moments later the car drove off -- a security
video shows Samuel behind the wheel and Burk in the passenger seat, but
it does not capture the exact moment of the alleged abduction.

By dusk, Burk was dead, her body left in her car in a downtown parking lot
-- her head beaten and her neck slashed, according to Los Angeles
police and other law enforcement officials. Samuel killed her, police
suspect, during a botched robbery. He was arrested within 90 minutes of
her death on an unrelated charge and was held in custody.

On Sunday, fingerprints linked him to the young woman's death, and he was
arrested again late that night on suspicion of murder and is being held
without bail.

The alleged abduction and killing of a teenage
girl, rare for its apparent randomness even in a metropolis like Los
Angeles, jolted the city over the weekend, leaving parents to
second-guess when they can ever fully trust that their children are
safe.

"This could have been you, it could have been your
daughter, and that is what drives it home," said Los Angeles Police
Department First Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell. Veteran LAPD homicide
detectives could not recall the last time a teen in the city was
abducted by a stranger and killed.

Police detectives pieced together their preliminary account of Burk's slaying from security
camera footage that captured the teenager and man at several points as
they moved from the law school into the maze of streets in downtown's
Little Tokyo and skid row.

With Samuel standing by her side "and in control of her body," Burk tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully
to withdraw cash at a downtown ATM using a credit card. The attempts
began a little more than 30 minutes after she was abducted, said Det.
Thayer Lake, one of the investigators on the case.

Over the next 25 minutes, Burk made a call to her mother and then to her father,
telling them she needed money to buy a pair of shoes. After her father
told Burk that the credit card was not set up for cash withdrawals, she
told him she would come home soon. The parents did not hear panic or
fear in their daughter's voice, a spokesman for the family and police
said.

Sometime over the next 50 minutes Samuel killed the
girl, police allege. They do not know where the killing took place or
how exactly, but at 4:52 p.m., Samuel pulled the Volvo into a parking
lot surrounded by industrial buildings near Alameda and 5th streets.
Because he left the car immediately, detectives believe Burk was
already dead.

Samuel walked for nearly a mile through the heart
of skid row, gripping a beer can partly concealed in a brown paper bag.
As he approached 3rd and Los Angeles streets, two officers patrolling
on horseback stopped him for drinking in public.

Samuel told them that he was on parole for a previous offense and agreed to be
searched, police said. When a search revealed a pipe for smoking crack
cocaine in his pocket, the officers arrested him.

At a news conference Monday, one of the officers described the arrest as "routine
as routine could be." Law enforcement sources involved in the case, who
spoke on the condition that their names not be used because of the
continuing investigation, confirmed that the officers found a key to a
Volvo and a cellphone on Samuel. They turned out to be Burk's. The
officers thought it suspicious, and they searched the area for the car.

Blood was also visible on Samuel's clothing when he was detained, the sources
said, although it was unclear whether the arresting officers saw it.

Burk's parents, meanwhile, grew increasingly concerned and frantic Friday
evening when their daughter did not return home. They placed calls to
the girl's friends, hoping she had stopped for a visit. About 7 p.m.,
they contacted police to report her missing.

A detective reviewed Burk's cellphone use and ATM activity, then
searched in the skid row area for her until 3 the next morning, while
family friends conducted their own search in the area of her last phone
call.

At dawn Saturday, a worker from a business on Alameda
Street approached the Volvo to tell the driver to move the car. He
found Burk's body, and a co-worker called 911.

By Sunday morning, fingerprints lifted from the
car were matched to Samuel. Authorities checked his name against law
enforcement databases and were surprised to see he was already in
custody on drug charges. Police declined to release a photo of Samuel,
citing concerns it could taint interviews with possible witnesses.

The charges, if true, would mark a serious escalation in violence for a man
who has had several run-ins with the law, mostly in the Inland Empire.

In July 1987, Samuel was sentenced to six years in prison for robbing a
residence in San Bernardino County, according to the California
Department of Corrections. In the years that followed, Samuel was
paroled several times and repeatedly returned to prison when he
committed other crimes or otherwise violated the terms of his release,
records show.

Most recently, in late April he was rearrested
in North Hollywood for an unspecified parole violation. In early June
he was released from prison and entered the court-ordered drug
treatment program on Menlo Avenue, a mile and a half from the law
school where he allegedly abducted Burk.

As the legal case against Samuel took shape, family and friends of Burk continued to
mourn her. A production of a David Mamet play that was to have opened
this week with her as one of the stars was canceled. And the staff at
Homeless Health Care Los Angeles in downtown, where Burk worked last
summer in the group's drug outreach and needle exchange program,
struggled to come to grips with her death. Burk planned to return to
work at the program.

"Loving," said James Hundley, the program
coordinator, when asked to recall the girl. "When I'd look at her,
that's what came to mind. That was just her."

The man charged in the slaying of
17-year-old Lily Burk has 10 criminal convictions in the last 30 years
including felony burglary and home invasion, according to information
from the L.A. Dist. Atty.'s Office.
Most of the convictions were for misdemeanor crimes such as DUI and
theft, according to the information, which The Times requested.
Charles Samuel, 50, was charged Tuesday with murder, kidnapping and
robbery -- charges that could make him subject to the death penalty.
Burk never returned to her family's Los Feliz home Friday after
running an errand for her mother at Southwestern Law School in the
city's Mid-Wilshire area. In the afternoon, she made two odd calls to
her parents asking how to use a credit card to withdraw cash at an ATM.
About 7 p.m., they contacted police to report her missing. Later that
night, police tracked Burk's cellphone and ATM activity to the skid row
and Little Tokyo areas, but a search into the early hours of Saturday
morning turned up nothing.
At dawn, however, Burk's lifeless body was discovered in the
passenger seat of her Volvo in a downtown parking lot. She had been
beaten about the head and her neck was slashed.

Here is the list of the suspect's convictions:
1978: Misdemeanor grand theft in San Bernardino County.
1981: Misdemeanor petty theft in San Bernardino.
1985: Misdemeanor providing false information to a peace office in San Bernardino.
1985: Misdemeanor under the influence of a controlled substance in San Bernardino.
1986: Misdemeanor under the influence of a controlled substance in San Bernardino.
1987: Felony home invasion robbery, felony burglary, unlawful taking of vehicle in San Bernardino.
1997: Felony burglary in San Bernardino.
2003: Misdemeanor driving on a suspended license in Los Angeles County.
2006: Felony petty theft with prior theft in Los Angeles.
2009: Misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia in Los Angeles.
Samuel has not entered a plea in Burk's slaying.
Police said they have collected footage from surveillance cameras
showing Samuel driving away from the area of the law school in Burk's
car with her in the passenger seat, with Burk at a downtown ATM machine
and then abandoning the car late Friday afternoon in the parking lot
where Burk's body was found.

Fingerprints lifted from the inside
of the car have been matched to Samuel, who reportedly made
incriminating statements to detectives after his arrest. They believe
that Burk was killed within about 45 minutes of her last call to her
parents and hours before she was reported missing.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office said a 17-year-old girl who was kidnapped and killed in her own car had a slashed neck.

Assistant Chief Ed Winter said that wound killed Lily Burk on July 24.

Police said Burk was running an errand for her mother at Southwestern
Law School in Los Angeles when she was abducted and driven to an ATM
but was unable to withdraw money. Investigators said she made two calls
to her parents asking how to obtain the cash.

Police contend she finally was killed and left in the car by a man who
was later arrested for possessing a crack cocaine pipe and drinking
beer in public.

Investigators said fingerprints in the car linked 50-year-old parolee
Charlie Samuel to the crime. He's been charged with murder.

On a hill overlooking a misty downtown skyline, hundreds gathered in the
afternoon sun today to celebrate the life of Lily Burk, cut short by a
brutal murder last month.

Students from Oakwood School, where the 17-year-old Burk was a
fun-loving and academically successful senior, spread blankets beside a
white canopy shading hundreds of folding chairs in Bardsdall Art Park.

Programs were handed out with a photo of Lily, the only child of Los
Feliz attorney Deborah Drooz and music journalist Greg Burk. They
planned the ceremony as "something to honor such a creative soul -- a
budding actress and phenomenal writer," said Rick Wartzman, a friend of
the family.

On the back of the program was a quote from a journal that Lily kept on a trip to Chiapas, Mexico. It said, in part:

Here we know
When we die; we lived
When we die, we go back
When we die, we become something greater...

Some mourners wore black, while others were in colorful dresses and
shorts. Tables were set up with books where people wrote messages such
as "Lily's life will be eternal." And "I will never forget wonderful
Lily."

Burk's slaying has touched off widespread concern in the city and an outpouring of grief from those who knew her.

The young woman had left her Los Feliz home the afternoon of July 24 to
pick up some papers at Southwestern Law School in the mid-Wilshire area
for her mother, who teaches at the school. Shortly afterward, she made
separate calls to her mother and father asking for the PIN number of a
credit card in order to get money from an ATM machine.

When she did not return that evening, her parents called the police.
Burk's body was found the next morning in the passenger seat of her
black Volvo in a downtown parking lot.

Charles Samuel, a 50-year-old transient and parolee who was enrolled in
a residential drug-treatment program, was arrested the same day. He has
been charged with murder, kidnapping to commit robbery, robbery and
attempted robbery from an ATM.

Police said they have collected footage from surveillance cameras
showing Samuel, 50, driving away from the law school area in Burk's car
with her in the passenger seat. He also appears standing with Burk at a
downtown ATM machine and later abandoning the car in the parking lot
where the body was found, police said.

Samuel had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse and crime. In 1987,
he pleaded guilty to robbery and residential burglary after abducting
an elderly man from his home and driving in the man's car to an ATM
where he demanded that the man withdraw money.

When none appeared, Samuel struck the man using the victim's cane and
threatened to kill him if he reported the crime. He was sentenced to
six years in prison.

In the years since, he has been convicted of several misdemeanors
including theft, driving on a suspended license and being under the
influence of drugs or alcohol.

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.

Murder suspect Charles Samuel is flanked by defense attorneys Ben Pesta
II, left,
and Albert DeBlanc Jr. at Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal
Justice Center in Los Angeles.


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.

A transient with a
long criminal history pleaded guilty to murder Friday and was
sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and killing a 17-year-old
girl after she failed to withdraw cash from an automated teller machine
with a credit card.The plea agreement with prosecutors spared
Charlie Samuel a possible death sentence for the killing of Lily Burk,
whose body was found last year inside her car in a downtown Los Angeles
parking lot. Her neck had been slashed and her head beaten. Wearing orange jail scrubs and shackled to a waist chain, Samuel,
50, stood in court and said he hoped Burk's family would forgive him.
Friends and family of the girl — including her parents — sat quietly in
the front row. "I'd like to deeply, truly apologize to the family
for the grief I've caused them for the loss of their child," Samuel
said. "I pray to God that you may forgive me one day."
Immediately after Samuel finished, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge
David S. Wesley sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility
of parole. "There are no words that you can say that can
substitute for the loss you've created," Wesley told him. The
5-foot-2 Burk went missing July 24 while visiting Southwestern Law
School in the Westlake area of the city as she ran an errand for her
mother, a lawyer who taught at the school.‪ ‬ Samuel was on
parole and enrolled in a residential drug treatment center south of
Koreatown. On the same day, he obtained permission to leave the facility
so that he could visit a Department of Motor Vehicles office, even
though the office was closed.‬ Authorities said surveillance
cameras showed Samuel driving Burk's black Volvo away from the area of
the law school with the high school student in the front passenger
seat.‪ Surveillance images from a downtown ATM later showed
Samuel, a burly bald man, with an arm tightly around Burk, a petite
teenager in a sundress. Burk made two calls to her parents asking how to
use a credit card to withdraw money from an ATM but never mentioned the
abduction and did not sound panicked. About an hour later, video
footage showed Samuel walking away from a parked black Volvo, where
authorities later found Burk's body.‬‪ ‬A fingerprint found on a soda
can in the Volvo matched Samuel's. A bloodstain on the shirt he was
wearing at the time of his arrest contained DNA that matched Burk's.‬‪