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Haunted: The Murder of Sylvia Salinas · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener discretion
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is advised. Located on the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston, Texas, remained
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unsettled by Europeans for a couple hundred years after Spanish explorer Cabeza Devaca became shipwrecked
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there sometime around the year fifteen twenty eight. The area's rightful inhabitants, the
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Accoquisa and Caroncua Native American peoples, were left alone for well over one hundred
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years after Devaca's stranding, until the late sixteen hundreds, when Robert Caballer LaSalle
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claimed this area for his sovereign king King Louis, naming it Saint Louis or
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perhaps Saint Louis. But the area later known as Galveston City and Galveston County,
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remained unsettled and unoccupied by anyone else other than the Caronkoua for another one
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hundred years, when troops of Louisiana's Spanish governor Bernardo de Galvez occupied the area
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for a brief period in seventeen seventy seven. It was named Galveston in honor
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of De Galvez, but the area was once again left alone by outsiders,
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then famous pirate Jean Lafitte became the first such outsider to occupy Galveston for an
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extended period. He and about a thousand of his men set up shop there
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after being given a full pardon by United States Army General Andrew Jackson for all
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past crimes of smuggling and privateering in exchange for fighting alongside the United States in
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eighteen fifteen's bloody Battle of New Orleans, the last remnant of the War of
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eighteen twelve. Lafitte and his men, the Barratarians, indeed fought, and
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in fact are thought by some to be the reason the United States defeated the
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Brits in this month long struggle. Jean Lafitte and the Barratarians couldn't help themselves,
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however, and returned to their lawless ways as privateers and smugglers for the
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Mexican Army. After settling Galveston for years. The relationship between Lafitte, his
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men and the Caronkua people was amicable and even cooperative. The natives even helped
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repair damages to Lafitte's fort in September of eighteen eighteen, after a hurricane devastated
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much of it. They were paid back in supplies and modern conveniences, but
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this was still their territory. Lafitte and his men still guests essentially, and
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the Caronqua took it upon themselves to take what they wanted from the visitors.
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Lafitte ultimately decided he couldn't let the Kronkua get away with that, and after
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kidnapping some of their women tribespeople in retaliation, fighting between the rightful inhabitants of
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Galveston Island and the intruder privateers began. On top of that. Around that
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time, a ship captain of Lafitte's decided to raid a United States merchant ship,
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resulting in the US government coming in to remove the pirates from Galveston themselves.
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Even if the US hadn't come, the French pirate and his fight for
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profit buccaneers were likely no match for the Caronkua natives. Lafitte and the Barratarians
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boarded his ship, named the Pride, and sailed out of the Gulf city.
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But this was Jean Lafitte and he wasn't just going to abandon shop that
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easily. Before sailing away, he and his men burned down the town they'd
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created, leaving little behind but soot, smoke, and the stone remnants of
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some of the structures. But that's hardly the last time Galveston would be virtually
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destroyed. An actual city began to emerge on Galveston Island the year Texas gained
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its independence from Mexico. In eighteen thirty six, Michel B. Menard purchased
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seven square miles in the area, and, against all odds tropical storms,
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hurricanes, and pandemics, Galveston was imagined as some sort of West New Orleans
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and quickly became the most sophisticated and economically robust city in Texas. The population
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boomed from this point on until it hit near forty thousand residents at the beginning
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of the twentieth century. Mother Nature had other ideas for Galveson, however,
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perhaps room for only one big easy. On September eighth, nineteen hundred,
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came the Great Storm. This deadly hurricane killed around eight thousand women, men,
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and children, around twenty percent of the city's population. Folks drowned were
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crushed or pierced by objects made into projectiles by the extreme winds. Traditional burials
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for such a large number of the dead were out. When attempts to bury
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them at sea failed, the tides brought the bodies back ashore for two months
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funeral pyres burning the victims of the Great Storm burned. The thick smoke was
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inescapable and choked the survivors, even some, it is said on boats sailing
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in the Gulf. Although the city remained prosperous because of the idea of Galveston
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as a center for high society, culture and sophistication was over. Instead,
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seedy saloons, gambling dens, and brothels or body houses took over. No
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doubt, Galveston's reputation as a sort of city of sin grew fast, since
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folks came from hundreds of miles away for a taste of sweet debauchery and lawlessness.
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Prohibition only exacerbated it, and by the early nineteen twenties organized crime had
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a bigger presence in the city than it did one hundred years before, when
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it was a camp for nothing but pirates. Though Galveston as a kind of
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Las Vegas of Texas lasted well beyond prohibition, it all came to an end
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when, on June tenth, nineteen fifty seven, Texas Rangers came in and
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virtually raided the entire town to destroyed Galveston as it was then known, just
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not physically. Injunctions were given to more than fifty major establishments, and the
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famed and infamous Balinese Room became the example to any other such illegal gambling,
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liquor sales, or prostitution operations across the state, catching the front page headlines
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of just about every Texas newspaper sporadically for the next few months. After that,
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Galveston finally began the transformation into what it is today, a beach town,
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a family destination spot. Tourism instead of organized crime, drives the city's
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economy. However, little can be done about the sometimes cruel reign of Mother
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Nature, and Galveston is often at least partially devastated by hurricanes. There were
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plenty between nineteen hundreds of the Great Storm and two thousand and eight's Hurricane Ike.
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Beyond the expected aftermath of Ike, it too left immeasurable destruction to something
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completely unforeseen. Documents, files, and physical evidence housed in the storage room
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of the Galveston Police Department. There's no definitive list of the unsolved and cold
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cases, or even an attempt at such that can be found publicly, of
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course, but it is known that crucial evidence, once awaiting the technological advances
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in DNA science we are seeing realized today, has been both lost and destroyed
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at the destructive hands of Hurricane Ike. For many years, this was thought
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to include evidence in the Halloween nineteen eighty nine murder of thirty year old Sylvia
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Salinas. You know, I just always wonder, you know, how she'd
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be, where she'd be at you know. I remember asking her when I
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was a little girl, because she was so fun loving and played around and
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joked around all the time. I asked her what she was going to do
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when she got old, because I couldn't picture her being old, like you
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know per se my grandma and grandpa. I just could not picture it because
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she was so fun and fun loving and you know, always playing around and
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stuff. I just could not picture her old. And I asked her,
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I said, what do you and two when you get old? Aunt Sylvia?
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And I remember she bent down to my level and she got white in
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my face and smiled real big, and she said, I'm never gonna get
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old. She didn't, she will Forever, be Young, Forever. Born
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to parents dear Lise and Maria Elena and Galveston on January seventh, nineteen fifty
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nine, Sylvia Seleinas lived in the area her whole life, alongside her sister
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Nara, and brothers Reuben and dear LESE. Junior. Selena's food store was
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located at thirty first Street and Avenue Q, just a few blocks north of
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the Sea Wall. Her brother dear LESE. Junior, had owned the store
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for eighteen years, beginning when he was a very young man. He gave
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it to his folks to operate so he can move to Hawaii and manage at
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Johannolulu Grocery Store. In nineteen eighty eight, Sylvia officially purchased it from him.
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My name is Serika and I am Sylvia Selina's niece. She's my dad's
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sister, and my name is Christine. Aunt Sylvia would have been my great
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aunt, my mom's aunt. I was what probably six months old when she
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passed away, so I never really got a chance to know who she was
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other than three stories. Okay, Well, I grew up in the store.
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My sister and I basically grew up there. You know. We were
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kids. We'd hang out in the store with you know, Grandma, with
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Aunt Sylvia. There was a lot of times I'd go hang with my Aunt
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Sylvia by myself because we only lived a couple of blocks from where the store
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was located. You know, we were all always up at the store.
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My dad had it for a while before my aunt bought it, so I
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kind of grew up there. As far as I can remember, that store
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was, you know in our family. Yeah. I spent a lot of
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time in that store, my sister and I, so like we knew it
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like the back of our hands. My sister and I would go up to
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the store. We'd walk to the store from Grandma's house, which was a
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couple of blocks away, and Aunt Sylvia would be up there working and I'd
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go in and get a bag of chips or whatever, and She's like,
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hey, why are you always up here taking my chips? He would say,
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you need to bring some money next time. You tell Grandma to give
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you money because you don't get them for free. But she'd always give them
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to me anyway. That was just how she was. She was so fun
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and loving. She was a life of the party, so everyone loved her.
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She was awesome. The store was a midtown Salveston's staple, and so
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was Sylvia. Close friends called Silvia Sill or Anti Sill or Tsil, perhaps
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because her genuine kindness mixed with her razor sharp wit made her seem like your
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cool aunt. Selena's food store was small but packed full of just about anything
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you can imagine, from fresh fish at the meat counter to candy and other
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snacks, and from cigarettes and cigarillos to various sizes of batteries, greeting cards,
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and what have been called the cheapest but coolest sunglasses on Galveston Island.
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Too. If Sylvia didn't sell it, you didn't need it. Even before
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Sylvia Salinas owned the place, customers were familiar with her since she long worked
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the counter there. Whether you were in and out of Selina's Food Store or
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stop to chat for a while, Sylvia made it crystal clear you were welcome
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there. She was cool to teenagers or perhaps simply tolerated them, helpful to
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her elderly customers, and sweet to children who would stop by. If a
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kid wanted some gum or candy but was short a few cents, Auntie Sill
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wouldn't let it slide. But if you came into Selina's food store acting a
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fool or being rowdy, Sylvia had no problem putting you right back in your
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place. Sylvia was hospitable and friendly, but she didn't take a lot of
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shit. I remember one instance as a child, I was hanging out with
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her up there, and there was a man that had come in and I
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saw him get a bottle of wine and put it down the front of his
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pants, and I told my Aunt Sylvia. I said, Aunt Sylvia,
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that guy just took a wine bottle down his pants. And she was like,
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okay, okay. She said, will you stay here? And he
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was walking out the door. She said stay right here, and of course
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I didn't listen, and I walked outside because I wanted to see what was
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going on. She followed him out, and she had him up against the
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side of the store, and she like decked him a couple times in the
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face. She stuck her hand down in his pants, pulled her wine bottle
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out, and told them, don't you ever come back to my store again.
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But my aunt everybody knew her, and everybody knew not to mess with
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her. Still, she trusted people, perhaps too much, and believed that
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everyone was basically good, especially her beloved clientele like old timey mom and pop
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grocer's. Sylvia advanced credit to her customers when they needed it, allowing them
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to get her back when their paychecks came in. You know, if they
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didn't have the money for something, maybe they didn't have money for their kids
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diapers or whatever, she would let them go ahead and take them and then
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pay her back when they got their paycheck. She'd give advice or just listen
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to whatever someone needed to get off their chest. Folks loved Sylvia for all
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these reasons, but it was her wit and rapid fire jokes that kept a
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lot of customers coming back. Sylvia Selenas was focused and driven to succeed,
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a natural business person who helped Selena's Food Store realize its potential as an important
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part of the neighborhood. According to a uniform crime report released in nineteen ninety,
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the city of Galveston in nineteen eighty nine saw a few interesting shifts in
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crime statistics. Auto theft had increased dramatically, and theft of property other than
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auto saw about an eight percent increase. Burglaries were significantly down, but robberies
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and assaults both up. The murder rate in nineteen eighty nine was more or
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less the same as the year before. Like nineteen eighty eight, there were
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thirteen murders in nineteen eighty nine, and with approximately sixty thousand residents on Galveston
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Island that year, the murder rate stood at around twenty two murders per one
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hundred thousand citizens. That put Galveston way out of the top ten US cities
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with the highest murder rate, or even on par with Dallas's thirty six murder
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victims per one hundred thousand residents. But the Gulf City was up there as
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far as the state of Texas is concerned, with a higher rate than cities
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like Austin and San Antonio, and around the same rate as cities like Fort
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Worth. In other words, just like many cities in Texas in the nineteen
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eighties and nineteen nineties, Galveston wasn't exist was actually a safe place to live.
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There was a different time back then, and like, there's no way
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I would have let my kids when they were a little walk to the store
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by themselves. That's how it was back then. And you know, I
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would go and I'd have my three year old sister's hand and we'd walk up
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to the store and go get candy or whatever. And so I don't remember
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the neighborhood being like with a lot of crime or anything like that. I
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do know my grandma was robbed a couple of times. One time I was
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there, one time I was not there, but my sister was there.
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But nobody ever robbed Aunt Sylvia. They knew better, everyone knew not the
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mess with her, you know, So they they'd hit my grandmother because Grandma
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was just an easier target than Aunt Sylvia. On the morning of Tuesday,
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October thirty first, nineteen eighty nine, how Sylvia Salinas's parents, Maria Elena
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and dear Lese Senior, hung around Selena's food store visiting with their daughter.
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It was a day like any other day, nothing unusual about it. It
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was Halloween, but being a week day, the kids were all in school
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and most parents at work. Galveston residential neighborhoods were relatively quiet. It was
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too early for tricks and treats. At some time around noon, deaar Lese
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Senior and Maria Elena left the store to eat lunch at home. Which was
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about two blocks away. Sylvia spent her lunch break restocking the shelves, likely
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dreaming of the life she might soon have with her brother, dear LESE.
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Junior. Sylvia planned not to continue the lease on the food store when it
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came up for renewal in nineteen ninety, and instead planned to move to Hawaii
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to be near her brother, not to mention the tropical beauty of the Islands.
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At one twenty three pm that day, the private security firm that handled
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the small grocery and convenience store received and alert the silent alarm had been triggered.
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The Galveston Police were notified and Patrolman John Lopez was sent to the scene
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in response. At one twenty seven pm, Officer Lopez arrived at Selena's food
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store. It was almost immediately apparent to the policeman that something terrible had occurred.
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The store was quiet and no greeting was offered Lopez as he passed through
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the front door. As he approached the counter, he saw blood, a
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lot of blood, and then the still body of the store's owner, thirty
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year old Sylvia Salinas. It was clear she was dead. Officer Lopez quickly
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called for backup. In no time, yellow crime scene tape sealed off the
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scene, keeping potential customers from entering. As the police processed the store for
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evidence, Galveston County District Attorney Mike Guarino sent out assistant DA Brent rich Book
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to surveil. Galveston Police Identification Bureau Sergeant James Kitchen preserved the crime scene on
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video, carefully documenting the four bloody shoe or boot prints found in the store,
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also the open cash register, bloodied and emptied of everything besides some coins
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and food stamps, the body of Sylvia Salinas lying behind the counter in a
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pool of blood, an overturned stool beside her, and the murder weapon found
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near the victim. The knife used to kill Sylvia had also been used to
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pry open the cash register. It's often described by reporters and police as a
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butcher knife, though in the video footage of the crime scene, the bloodied
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knife is clearly a filet knife or boning knife. As police processed the scene,
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they began to theorize what happened. Someone entered the small grocery store at
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approximately one twenty pm. As Sylvia sat behind the counter, relaxed on her
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stool, this person thrust a knife into her chest, just above her left
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breast, piercing both her heart and long and causing her to fall backward.
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After pulling the knife from her chest, the cops ascertained Sylvia's killer pried open
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the cash register using the murder weapon, setting off the silent alarm in the
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process. Sylvia, they said, never got the chance to sound the alarm
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herself. A machete and loaded revolver sitting on a shelf just under the cash
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register completely undisturbed, and the fact that no defensive wounds were found on Sylvia's
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hands or arms suggested that the store owner hadn't had time to react at all.
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Police were unable to determine how much money had been taken from the cash
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registered drawer, likely thirty year old Sylvia Salinas was killed for far less than
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a thousand bucks. As Galveston PID documented with video and scoured the crime scene
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for clues, a crowd of bystanders gathered outside. They watched in disbelief as
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a gurney carrying a covered by was wheeled out and loaded onto an ambulance.
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Multiple folks said both aloud and as whispers is that Sylvia is that Tasil.
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Many didn't find out that it was until it was confirmed on the evening news.
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One of the images that I will never get out of my head is
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my grandmother standing in front of the store hugging one of her friends, and
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she is crying and her mouth is wide open, crying, And it was
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put in the paper, and that image of my grandmother has stuck with me.
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And also my grandfather standing outside of the store looking down and just with
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the saddest look on its face. You know, I can't even imagine as
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a parent what they went through losing their daughters. Sylvia was their youngest child.
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She was baby and we all loved her so much. The slang of
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Sylvia Salinas happened in the middle of the day, in broad daylight, yet
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no one in the neighborhood reported seeing anything suspicious. However, some folks who
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lived nearby did see something, and the Galveston Police were soon pleading for other
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people to come forward. Sometime around when the silent alarm was triggered, witnesses
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saw a white male with sandy blonde or brown hair running through the alley next
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to Selena's Food store. The cops assured the public that the man wasn't necessarily
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a person of interest and that they were just seeking him in an attempt to
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gather more information. Thought to be about ten minutes before the silent alarm was
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triggered to a black male wearing dark clothing was seen using the payphone outside the
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store. It was a stretch, but perhaps, police said this unidentified man
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saw Sylvia's killer enter the small grocery store. Whatever these potential witnesses saw,
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or in the case of the running white guy, what he might have done,
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the police had absolutely no idea the direction they should steer the investigation.
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We don't know if it was somebody next door or somebody from out of town.
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Galveston Police Chief Bob Pierce commented, adding, anybody with information concerning possible
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suspects or vehicles, please notify police. We need all the help we can
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get with this one. The investigation was cold just as soon as it began,
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and the day following the senseless murder of Sylvia Salinas, an arrangement of
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blue carnations hung on Slena's food stores entry, partially covering a closed sign hanging
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inside the double glass door at six PM on Thursday, November two, nineteen
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eighty nine, at Galveston's Broadway Funeral Home. Sylvia Salinas's parents and siblings spoke
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of her love of life and compassion for others. We pray for her soul.
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Her brother, de Lise Salinas Junior said, my parents ask forgiveness for
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the person responsible. They pray for his soul. Her funeral was like standing
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room only there were so many people there. She impacted a lot of people.
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The next day, a mass was held at Sylvia's lifelong place of worship,
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Mission Rena de la Pace Catholic Church. Four hundred mourners attended, and
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services were held in both Spanish and English. When the mass moved to the
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cemetery, standing over his sister's ground, der Leise Junior said he, like
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his parents, prayed for the soul of his sister's killer, but dear Lese
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added he also asked for the capital punishment of the murderer, that he be
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executed. Der Leise Junior felt a sense of guilt forever selling his sister Selena's
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food store. If he hadn't, he said, she wouldn't have been there
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alone to be murdered in cold blood friends too, spoke at the Catholic ritual
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to honor Sylvia, including Cynthia Marsh, who said she couldn't think of a
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soul who would want to harm her dearest and closest friend. It just didn't
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make any sense. Sylvia Sealinas was buried at Lakeview Cemetery, and the mass
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in her honor continued for years to come on the anniversary of her senseless murder.
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Meanwhile, Galveston homicide detectives attempted to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
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They had lifted prints from all over the Salina's food store, and along
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with forensic identification experts, were busy sorting through them, checking the prince against
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their own files and comparing them against others, including family friends of the slain
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woman and regular customers. The faster they could eliminate some fingerprints at the scene
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as one of those. The faster they might identify persons of interest, but
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it was an incredibly time consuming process. There were a ton of prints to
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go over. The department received a substantial number of phone calls about the murder
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of Sylvia Selenas in the first few days of their investigation, but Galveston police
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Sergeant George Powell said none offered any real value. None of these tips at
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all panned out. Neither the man seen running near the small grocery about the
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time the alarm was triggered, nor the man seen using the payphone outside the
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store about ten minutes before that came forward, Sergeant Powell said days after the
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terrible crime. Other than that, the policeman wouldn't elaborate or discuss the investigation
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with the press. No member of Sylvia's family recognized the knife used to kill
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her. We don't ever remember that knife being in the store, so this
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person came with the intent of using it. Though Selena's food store had a
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meat and fish counter, they didn't do their own butchering in house, so
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it seemed unlikely the knife came from within, but still detectives could not be
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sure. Smuggling the approximately ten inch long knife into the store inconspicuously isn't impossible,
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of course, but still it seemed like a difficult task. The murder
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weapon resembled a filet or boning knife, and a large one that is likely
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uncommon in the typical home, perhaps suggesting that the person who killed Sylvia worked
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for area fish and seafood markets, or at least had in the past.
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It's unknown if that particular avenue of investigation was ever followed. It's constantly said
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in reports that the Galveston police theorize that Sylvia knew and trusted the person who
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attacked her, and the media tagged right along on that notion, never offering
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up the possibility that the murderer simply took the beloved store owner by surprise,
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leaving her no time to react to the attack before the weapon was thrust into
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her heart. While both scenarios seem identically plausible to me, the theory that
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Sylvia indeed knew her attacker perhaps is easier to reason with. Galveston police detectives
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point out that Sylvia Salinus never reached for her loaded revolver or machete, both
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of which sat on a shelf underneath the cash register. She hadn't sounded the
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store's silent alarm. Now these facts work for both theories, of course,
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but police feel they work better alongside the notion Sylvia was familiar and comfortable with
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the person who killed her. She likely even invited the person behind the counter,
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police believe before they struck the victim's brother, de Lise Selinus Junior,
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certainly agreed that his sister would never have let anyone behind the counter unless she
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knew them well and fully trusted them. Cynthia Marsh also believes that whoever killed
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her closest friend was someone she knew. In Perhaps what is the best argument
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for the theory, Cynthia describes Sylvia as an astute and alert individual. Selena's
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food store was her business, something she took incredibly seriously, and Cynthia said,
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if there was ever potential danger, her friend was always aware, with
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a seemingly natural ability at assessing and handling potential threats before they occurred. Considering
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the reasoning of the Galveston Police, the slain woman's brother, dear Lise Selinus
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Junior, and her dearest friend Cynthia Marsh, it's difficult not to lean toward
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the theory that Sylvia Salinus knew the person who took her life. However,
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it's just as difficult to totally discount the theory that she did not know her
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killer at all, or that her acquaintance with them was a passing one and
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they simply took her completely by surprise, a reaction an impossibility. Speaking with
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Sylvia's niece Sherika and great niece Christine, the entire family's opinion about Sylvia knowing
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her killer was perfectly clear. It doesn't make sense because she was tough from
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what I've heard, and for her not to fight back and just allow that
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to happen, I don't know it just right since right it doesn't he'll never
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let anyone back behind the counter, and that's a big thing. She never
34:47
let anyone back there, you know. So for somebody to get back behind
34:52
the counter with her, it was someone she really really trusted and was close
34:58
to. I remember being up there when her friends would come up to visit
35:02
or whatever, and they would stay on the other side of the counter.
35:06
She didn't invite them back behind the counter. They just sit there and shit
35:09
chat with her on the other side of the counter, you know. So
35:14
I just it was someone really close to her. It had to be,
35:19
and the counter had stopped sitting on it, so it couldn't even been that
35:23
someone jumped over the counter because they would have knocked things over getting across it.
35:30
So they literally had to walk around and there was a little swinging door
35:36
that came up to about your waist area or upper legs. It would swing
35:40
back and forth, and they had to come in that way. There was
35:45
no other way enter out unless you wanted to jump across the counter. But
35:49
there was much meaning though that she would. They had time to walk around
35:54
the counter and to the back before being able to reach her, which have
36:00
given her ample time. Oh yes, grab one of the two weapons that
36:05
were sitting within arms reached, she wouldn't have even had to get up.
36:08
Remember Sylvia kept a loaded gun and a machete behind the counter, so if
36:15
somebody was going to go back there, she would have had time. Somebody
36:21
that was not supposed to be back there, at least she would have had
36:23
time to reach for one of those weapons to at least defend herself. Oh
36:30
yeah, and she did not. She would have been on guard. If
36:35
it was someone that you know, she wasn't familiar with, or if they
36:39
gave her a bad vibe. That had to be someone she knew and trusted
36:46
very well, because I can tell you right now I know her and I
36:52
know Aunt Sylvia wouldn't let that happen like it was someone she trusted. They
36:58
wanted to make it look like a robbery. I would almost set my life
37:01
on that. It was something personal. It had nothing to do with Robin
37:06
the store. They knew what they were going to do. They took that
37:09
knife in there, and they knew what they were going to do when they
37:12
walked through that door. Cynthia Marsh again makes one of the best points,
37:17
perhaps as she completed her thoughts on what she thinks happened, she said,
37:22
when the murder of her friend occurred, it was a busy time, lunchtime.
37:29
Though it was an early weekday, there were still plenty of folks coming
37:32
in and out of the store around that time, and undoubtedly plenty of folks
37:37
hustling and bustling around the neighborhood. There were always people outside the direct vicinity
37:44
of Selena's food store anyway, some walking, others sitting around on their front
37:50
porches. Looking out in any direction. From any side of the grocery,
37:55
you'll see a residence. It's hard to believe that no one saw anything.
38:01
Yeah, it was broad daylight, so I would think that somebody had to
38:07
have seen something, you know. I really I almost want to say that
38:13
I don't feel like it was a male because I know how on guard she
38:17
was around them. But I just I don't know. I just don't know.
38:23
Somebody knows something. That's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping that someone
38:30
will come forward. Maybe they were scared back then, you know, and
38:36
maybe they'll come forward now and let us know something, you know. Just
38:43
I feel like it was someone she knew very very well, and I've always
38:47
felt that way for many years now. To our knowledge, the two men
38:52
police sought as witnesses, the man seen running and the man on the payphone,
38:58
both outside of seas food store, have never come forward. In the
39:04
initial investigation, about twenty men considered potential persons of interest were interviewed but later
39:12
eliminated by detectives. Although crime stoppers of Galveston all but immediately offered up a
39:19
one thousand dollars reward for information leading to the arrest of Sylvia's killer, friends
39:24
and family of the slain woman began collecting donations to grow that reward fund.
39:31
They pleaded with the community those who lost a part of themselves when Sylvia died,
39:37
to contribute so that justice could be done. By November twelfth, nineteen
39:43
eighty nine, twelve days after Sylvia was killed, they had collected two thousand
39:49
additional dollars. Still, no one came forward with the information the Galveston Police
39:55
needed to develop a strong lead, let alone make an a The murder of
40:01
Sylvia Salinas has been sitting cold for decades, and that's the sad thing about
40:08
it is that there is not a lot of information that was given. And
40:14
I think that plays a big role in why it hasn't been solved, because
40:22
there wasn't much given to the community about what happened. Whether that be because
40:30
they didn't have that information or because they held on to it or whatever it
40:36
may be, I don't know, but I just feel like there's got to
40:40
be more to it than what we're seeing. I know. I wish that
40:45
we had like celtones back then where we could look to see who she talked
40:51
to, or you know, who she was communicating with that morning, you
40:55
know, or where she had been or whatever. But we just don't.
41:00
And I wish there was some kind of video or something, you know,
41:05
surveillance video, but there wasn't. The family has also spent countless hours working
41:10
with what little evidence has been made public, primarily the police crime scene video,
41:16
in an attempt to answer their own questions. Another thing that we saw
41:22
in the video was the bloody footprints. And so with this footprint, my
41:29
sister and I have kind of narrowed it down to it being a converse shoe.
41:36
You can see where it gets real thin on the side, so it
41:39
had to be. We can't figure out exactly what shoe it was. That
41:45
it was some type of converse, we think, but that's what it looks
41:50
like to us because we have like searched the web for shoes back in you
41:54
know, eighty seven, eighty eight, eighty nine, you know, and
42:00
kind of looked at the different patterns on the bottom of them that there was
42:04
one that was really really close but not quite and it was a converse.
42:22
In the early morning hours of Saturday, September thirteenth, two thousand and eight,
42:27
at a little after two am, Hurricane Ike made landfall over Galveston,
42:31
Texas. The storm ravaged the island city long, crippling both habitation and the
42:39
economy. But what is most tragic and often overshadowed by the shocking structural damage,
42:47
is the lives I took. Though it's easier to find and agreed upon
42:52
some monetarily speaking, than a consensus on the cost to human life, both
43:00
directly and indirectly. Dozens of folks died in Galveston County alone as the result
43:06
of Hurricane Ike. The storm also damaged or destroyed the evidence in an unclear
43:13
amount of cold and unsolved cases too. When we first aired Sylvia's case in
43:20
twenty twenty, police in Galveston believed the evidence in her case was among the
43:25
destroyed. However, it appears it was simply misplaced. We were working with
43:32
my sister and I had talked to a detective at the Galveston County or Galveston
43:39
Police Department. Sorry, they thought that they lost all the evidence during Ike,
43:46
but they didn't. They still have the evidence. You know. I
43:52
don't know if something may come of that, but I've just got my fingers
43:57
crossed that one day will have answers, you know, I'm hoping and I
44:04
hope that that's the case too. Is that they that they do test and
44:10
you know that they don't put it on the back burner because it is such
44:14
an old case. Because although it's an old case, it's still fresh to
44:19
us, you know, like we still want answers, just like anyone else
44:24
out there who has been through something recently. You know. I just hope
44:30
that they don't, you know, put it aside because it's so old,
44:36
because there are people out there exactly, Yes, I don't want them to
44:40
forget about her, because there are people who still out here that think about
44:45
her and want answers. Doesn't matter how old the case gets, we still
44:52
we still want to know. You figure, if they were in their twenties
44:55
back then, or uh, you know, yeah about if I've ventured to
45:01
say, if they were in their twenties or early thirties, they'd be you
45:07
know, nearly sixty pears old now. Yeah, so they could still be
45:12
alive and just been living free all these years, knowing what they did,
45:17
you know, And if that's the case, I just don't understand how someone
45:22
can live with themselves for so long without feeling guilt or remorse, especially,
45:30
you know, surely if that person is still alive, and while surely they
45:37
see what we put out there, they see these documentaries about Aunt Sylvia,
45:44
and they see everything that her family has gone through and what we feel right,
45:52
and you know, they've got to feel something right. In twenty sixteen,
45:58
the city of Galveston still rebuilding and recovering from Ike's merciless destruction. Eight
46:04
years later, announced that the city would soon build a stronger and higher evidence
46:09
storage facility to protect against flooding. Sylvia's father, Delise Salinas Senior, died
46:19
in April of twenty ten, and her mother, Maria Elena Salinas in April
46:24
of twenty twenty one. That day that she was killed, when my grandparents
46:30
went up to the store. The alarm company had called them and told them
46:35
that the silent alarm had went off at the store, So they had went
46:39
up there and my grandfather, I guess when they told them, you know
46:44
what had happened. My grandfather begged them to let him go in and see
46:52
his daughter because he didn't believe them, and they told him no, but
46:57
he was insistent that he wanted to her. He had to make sure that
47:00
it was her, and so they let him in. And just to know
47:07
that that was the last image that he had of her is just so sad.
47:14
My grandma, like wore black for over a year every single day,
47:21
and she hated black. She hated black. Sylvia's senseless murder, of course,
47:29
had a huge impact on her family, the ripple effects of which are
47:32
still being felt generations later. I think that's what bothers me the most is
47:39
that the people that I did grow up with and that I love, I
47:44
had to watch them for years suffer because of this. And then I,
47:50
you know, I hear all these great stories about her, and like I
47:53
was robbed of getting to know her and getting to have these experiences myself her.
48:00
You know, oh, you would have loved her. She would have
48:04
loved you. I know, you tell me all the time. I tay
48:09
from me not too long ago, and it felt so real. I dreamed
48:20
that we were at the store and I walked in and she was there,
48:25
and I was like, wow, I can't believe you're here. And I
48:30
kept saying aunt Sylvia, this, Aunt Sylvia that, and she looked at
48:34
me and she said, quit calling me Aunt Sylvia. You're older than I
48:37
am. Now. It felt really real to me. You know, I
48:43
miss her a lot. We all do. If you have any information about
48:51
the murder of Sylvia Salinas, please contact Crime Stoppers of Galveston at four zero
48:57
nine seven sixty three eight four seven seven. Remember, you can remain anonymous.
49:05
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49:10
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49:15
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49:22
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49:25
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49:47
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50:00
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50:06
Thanks for listening, y'all,