Two Views of Salcido Emerge at Murder Trial

During opening statements Monday at his murder trial, two pictures of Ramon Salcido emerged--one of a cold-blooded killer who planned nine murders and succeeded with seven, the other of a heartbroken drunk in the midst of a “psychotic depression.”

Sonoma County Chief Deputy District Attorney Peter Bumerts told the eight-woman, four-man jury that Salcido had carefully planned the April 14, 1989 murders after a string of personal setbacks.

“The evidence will show that Ramon Salcido targeted nine people for death,” said Bumerts. “He had a reason why each should die and he then set about to kill them, and it was only happenstance that saved two of them.”

Salcido, wearing a gray suit, had tears in his eyes as his crimes were mentioned.

Salcido is accused of killing his wife, two of his three daughters, his mother-in-law and her two daughters and a co-worker. He also faces three counts of attempted murder for attacks on a third daughter and another co-worker.

Salcido was arrested near his birthplace in Mexico within a week of the massacre and confessed to authorities. That videotaped confession will play a major role in the case, Bumerts said.

Defense attorney Marteen Miller, who concedes his client committed the killings, says Salcido should not be convicted of first-degree murder because he was not capable of planning the crimes.

Instead, he argued, Salcido’s rage began simmering a year after his 1985 marriage when his wife, Angela, told him Sofia, the daughter she was carrying at the wedding, was not his.

“Though he remained with her and fathered her two subsequent children, the anger and humiliation . . . stayed with him and surfaced later on,” Miller said.

After receiving a demand for child support from his previous wife, he returned home early the day the murders were committed, drunk and high on cocaine. Angela either was gone or left shortly after he arrived.

In his confession, Salcido said he drove around for a while, his daughters in the car with him, while he looked for his wife and decided to kill the children.