Ex-Girlfriend Who Helped Killer Gets Probation

A Glendale woman who hid the clothing her boyfriend wore when he murdered his father has been sentenced to two years probation and fined $715.

Deputy Public Defender Steven E. Kaplan said Theresa K. DeBurger, 21, “had no criminal intent at all” when she put clothing that her boyfriend gave her into a closet and returned a friend’s gun that was used in the Feb. 19, 1986, killing of Oscar Salvatierra, a Filipino-American newspaper executive.

The victim’s son, Arnel Salvatierra, 20, was found guilty in December of voluntary manslaughter and is awaiting sentencing following a psychologist’s report. Salvatierra was 17 at the time of the shooting.

Kaplan said DeBurger “didn’t realize there was a murder” until she heard news reports. The younger Salvatierra had asked her to wash the clothes. Kaplan said DeBurger put Salvatierra’s clothes in a closet “because she didn’t want to look at them.”

DeBurger, who volunteered as a prosecution witness in Salvatierra’s trial, pleaded no contest to a charge of being an accessory after the fact to the slaying. The sentence was handed down Wednesday by Pasadena Superior Court Judge Lillian M. Stevens.