Filipino-American Executive’s Murder : Jury Ponders Fate of Son in Killing

Jury deliberations began Tuesday in the trial of a young Glendale man charged with killing his father, a Filipino-American newspaper executive, and trying to disguise the slaying as a political assassination.

In closing statements, an attorney for Arnel Salvatierra told the jury that the killing was justifiable because Salvatierra, now 20, had been abused by his father, Oscar.

Defense attorney Leslie Abramson said the younger Salvatierra shot his father because, “frightened by years of terror, driven by years of terror,” he was afraid his father would kill him because he was failing most of his classes at Glendale High School.

Arnel Salvatierra, who was 17 at the time of the killing, is being tried as an adult in Pasadena Superior Court. He is accused of killing his 41-year-old father, an executive of the San Francisco-based Philippine News, on Feb. 19, 1986.

International Attention

The slaying briefly attracted international attention when it was disclosed that, a day before his death, Oscar Salvatierra had received a letter threatening him with death because of the newspaper’s coverage of the political turmoil that marked the final days of Ferdinand E. Marcos’ Philippine presidency. The Philippine News was one of the leading Philippine newspapers in the United States opposed to Marcos.

But Arnel Salvatierra and his girlfriend, Teressa K. DeBurger, were arrested a day after the elder Salvatierra’s body was found in the bedroom of his north Glendale home.

Testifying in his own defense, Arnel Salvatierra admitted sending his father the death threat, and he described how he crept into his father’s bedroom and shot him three times in the head as he slept. He also told the jury that he had originally planned to kill his father Feb. 14 but was foiled when his father stayed late at his office.

In her closing statement Tuesday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Wondries told the jury that Arnel Salvatierra’s testimony demonstrated that his father’s killing was premeditated.

Issue of Anger

She also told the jury that Arnel Salvatierra did not act out of fear but out of anger over his father’s attempts to break off his son’s relationship with DeBurger.

“He shot his father not once, not twice, but three times,” Wondries said. “The coroner said both the first two shots were fatal. He was dead, absolutely, clinically, never-to-be-revived dead. . . . If you’re afraid, why shoot someone a third time? You shoot him a third time because you hate him.”

In his instructions to the jury, Superior Court Judge Gilbert Alston said that to convict Arnel Salvatierra of first-degree murder, the jury must find that the killing was premeditated and motivated by malice, not fear.

Arnel Salvatierra could be sentenced to 27 years to life in prison if convicted.

DeBurger, 21, faces a January trial on a charge of being an accessory after the fact to the slaying.