Suspect in Georgia girl's slaying in court

Suspect in Georgia girl's slaying in court

Suspect in Georgia girl's slaying due in court

Canton, Georgia (CNN) -- Ryan Brunn, the suspect in the slaying of a 7-year-old Georgia girl who lived in the apartment complex where he worked, is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday.

Authorities arrested the 20-year-old maintenance worker Wednesday afternoon and have charged him with killing Jorelys Rivera, who was last seen alive Friday near a playground at the apartment complex in Canton. Investigators found her body in a trash compactor there three days later.

The arraignment comes after the little girl's mother called for capital punishment for the suspect.

"I don't want any charges brought against him," Joseline Rivera told CNN affiliate WSB. "What I want is the death penalty. He's an animal. He killed my little angel."

Kelly Knight, who lives in the same apartment complex, told HLN that she had not seen Brunn very often, "but the few times I did he struck me as very strange."

The killing shocked residents of the community and quickly drew headlines throughout the country.

When police took Brunn away, a crowd had gathered and was shouting at him.

"I heard someone call him a scumbucket, a monster," Knight said.

Brunn has not made a public statement. Authorities said he has no known criminal history.

His adopted brother, Connor, told CNN affiliate WXIA-TV that the arrest was a "big mistake."

"I honestly think he is innocent. There's just no way he would do something like this. He's just a kind-hearted person," Connor Brunn said.

He added that he had spoken with his brother since the killing.

"He just told me he wouldn't touch a girl like that, he wouldn't ever do something like that. ... This is just all bogus. ... He knew that he was suspected but he never, like, thought that it would go to him. He was asked to help to go look for this little girl. And then he got brought into this," Connor Brunn said.

Tips from the public led investigators to Ryan Brunn, who had been working at the complex since November 7, authorities said.

"We believe that this horrendous crime was planned and calculated," Vernon Keenan, the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, told reporters.

Jorelys was abducted "in the immediate vicinity" of the apartment complex's playground, then taken to an empty apartment nearby, Keenan said.

Investigators found blood in the empty apartment, he said.

"We have evidence that the murder occurred in that vacant apartment," he said. "At some point, the child's body was then disposed of in the Dumpster and compacted into trash."

Authorities have said Jorelys died of blunt force trauma to the head, was stabbed and had been sexually assaulted.

Neighbor Heather Johnson-Coker said residents were suspicious of Brunn after investigators found Jorelys' body in the trash compactor, which can only be operated with a key that employees at the complex have.

She said the maintenance worker had mentioned the large number of vacant apartments in the complex when a boy from the area went missing for a few hours recently.

"He said, and I quote, 'It would be really easy for someone to break in and do something to one of these children,'" Johnson-Coker said Wednesday.

"I did talk to him on a daily basis, and he seemed like a relatively nice guy. He wasn't socially awkward. He didn't seem to have any type of anger issue. He seemed like a regular, decent person who worked there to make a living just like anybody else," she said. "The statement at the time did not shock me. I did not think anything odd about it."

 Suspect in Georgia girl's slaying in court