Victim’s Boss Is Arrested in Fatal 1996 Fall at Hotel

A Houston man who said he was having sex with a co-worker on a hotel balcony in 1996 when she accidentally fell to her death was arrested Friday on suspicion of murdering her.

Prosecutors hope that the arrest of Robert Salazar will resolve the bizarre, dormant case that began when the body of Sandra Lorena Orellana, 27, was found on a hotel patio 10 stories below her room in the city of Industry.

Salazar, 37, who had been her boss, was arrested in Baytown, Texas, when he was pulled over by local police on his way to work, said Michael Sydow, a Houston attorney representing the Orellana family. Salazar was extradited to Los Angeles late Friday. He is expected to appear in court Tuesday to face charges of first-degree murder, said Sandi Gibbons, representative of the district attorney’s office.

News of the arrest provided “an incredible sense of relief” to the dead woman’s family, said Katherine Orellana, Sandra’s sister. In the years since the incident, the family has sued both Salazar and Sandra’s former employer.

“It’s been five long years, an emotional roller-coaster,” said Katherine Orellana. “But it will be great to finally see the inside of a courtroom.”

Gibbons said the case has “been under investigation for several years.” The arrest “has to do with a decision by the deputy D.A. We thought it was the proper time to file a murder charge.”

Lt. Ray Peavy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Salazar has been the focus of the investigation.

“For the last 4 1/2 years, we worked to determine a great number of things, and we discovered a great number of facts that led to the arrest,” he said, shortly after Salazar was booked late Friday. Bail is expected to be $1 million.

Gibbons said a new deputy district attorney, Robert Foltz, was recently assigned to the case.

Paul Schiffer, a lawyer representing Salazar, said he was surprised that the district attorney’s office is pursuing charges.

“I think there has to be something behind it other than evidence. . . . I don’t know [what]; that’s the mystery,” he said. “I have spoken with the civil attorney who was representing Mr. Salazar in the pending civil litigation and, as far as he’s aware, there is no new evidence.”

The Orellanas’ lawyer said representatives from Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley’s office began calling him about the case in late December. “We were surprised,” Sydow said.

Cooley took office earlier that month, but Peavy said it was a coincidence that the evidence became sufficient after the new district attorney was sworn in.

The case began when Salazar and Orellana traveled to Southern California on Nov. 12, 1996, to meet with new business partners of SkillMaster Staffing Services, a Houston employment agency for which Salazar was a vice president and Orellana was a workers’ compensation claims manager.

The two checked in to adjoining rooms at the Sheraton Industry Hills Resort, had dinner with a client and then drinks in the hotel’s bar. Witnesses described the two as acting very friendly toward each other, if not as a couple, a sheriff’s investigator said at the time.

The next morning, Orellana’s half-naked body, covered with bruises and scratches, was found on a veranda.

The case was investigated as a suicide until Salazar soon came forward with his story.

About midnight, he said, they had gone to Orellana’s room and were on the balcony, where they had sex and from which she fell.

Salazar told sheriff’s deputies he returned to his room.

He was arrested on suspicion of murder after making “inconsistent statements,” a sheriff’s sergeant said, but was released two days later when the district attorney’s office said there was insufficient evidence.

In Houston, friends and relatives of Orellana refused to believe Salazar’s account, saying Orellana had intended to file sexual harassment charges against him.

A few months after the death, investigators ruled it a homicide, concluding that the body had been found in a position indicating that Orellana did not fall in the way Salazar described.

An autopsy showed that many of the bruises, scratches and cuts came neither from the fall nor from hitting the balcony’s railing, a coroner’s spokesman said at the time. Additionally, the height of the railing and Orellana’s short stature make it unlikely that she simply toppled over it, he said.

Salazar, who is married with two children, is a manager at another personnel/placement company in the Houston area.

The Orellana family’s suit against him has been put on hold until the murder charges are resolved, Sydow said. The family settled its suit against SkillMaster Personnel for an undisclosed amount, he said.

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The Houston Chronicle contributed to this story.