DNA Helped Spark Arrest After Fatal Hotel Plunge

DNA tests performed years after the crime played a key part in prosecutors’ recent decision to charge a Houston man with the murder of a co-worker who he said accidentally fell to her death from an Industry hotel balcony in 1996.

Robert Lee Salazar, 37, was arrested March 2 in Texas in the death of Sandra Lorena Orellana, 27, at the Industry Hills Sheraton. He was extradited to Los Angeles County. His arrest came four years after prosecutors opted not to charge him in the Nov. 12, 1996, death.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert B. Foltz Jr. said he was asked by his supervisors six weeks ago to review the case and found DNA test results from 1999, along with other evidence, that he contended were more than enough to charge Salazar.

Foltz said Orellana’s blood was found on one of Salazar’s T-shirts in his hotel room and on a bed sheet in her adjacent room. Human tissue found beneath Orellana’s fingernails was also tested, and prosecutors say it points to Salazar, who detectives say had scratches on his face immediately after her death.

Salazar had said Orellana fell from an 11th-story balcony while they were having consensual sex. But Foltz said that the evidence “will show there was no sex on the balcony and this is a case of guy kills girl.”

In 1996, he said, no Southern California lab could conduct the required tests and so the samples were sent to Northern California. Some tests were not done until 1999, a delay for which officials say they have been given no clear explanation.

The 1996 decision not to prosecute was made despite protests from the victim’s family and a coroner’s determination Orellana’s fall was “an assisted drop.”

Attorneys for Salazar could not be reached for comment Monday.

In December, prosecutors for Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley contacted Orellana’s relatives to inquire about the family’s ongoing civil case against Salazar. And not long afterward, the case was reexamined.

Orellana and Salazar were in the Los Angeles area in 1996 on a business trip for Skillmaster Staffing Services, a Houston-based employment agency for which he was a vice president and she a worker’s compensation claims manager.

The two checked into adjoining rooms, had dinner with a client and then drinks in the hotel bar.

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

Authorities arrested Salazar but released him days later.

After Salazar returned to Houston, Orellana’s family and friends contacted Los Angeles authorities and alleged that she had planned to file a sexual harassment complaint against Salazar. Her family subsequently sued Salazar and Skillmaster, which made an undisclosed settlement with her family.