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Chapter 1: What led to Evaristo Salas's wrongful conviction?
Hello, this is a call from Junior. An incarcerated individual at Airway Heights Correction Center. This call is not private. It will be recorded and may be monitored.
My name's Jack Lawrence. I'm a former radio presenter who spent 15 years on the Australian radio before I gave up that career to tell people's stories. I launched this show, What I Survived, just four months ago. But in reality, I've been telling human survival stories for almost four years.
You see, what I initially gave up my career for was to tell the stories of men and women incarcerated across the United States. Men and women serving incredible sentences.
I'm serving 174 years plus six life sentences for the crime of attempted murder.
That's one hell of a sentence, mate. For a range of different crimes.
I was convicted of first-degree murder and was originally sent to death row. I have been locked up since 1986.
And today, I want to introduce you to one of those people. A man who at the age of just 15 would be arrested for a murder, a shooting that happened in his hometown of Spokane, Washington. It was a crime that he had always maintained he was innocent of. But almost 27 years after the crime, he was still fighting to prove his innocence.
And I'm like, oh, shoot. I mean, I'm not. I don't have nothing to do with it. I don't know what you guys are talking about. And by then, I'm in tears. And he looks at me, and I'm telling him over and over, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. You know me my entire life. I didn't do it. I'm telling you. He just didn't even care.
He looked at me, and he goes, you didn't think we were ever going to catch you, huh?
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Chapter 2: How did Junior's childhood environment influence his life choices?
An incarcerated individual at Airway Heights Correction Center. This call is not private. It will be recorded and may be monitored.
Hello and welcome back to One Minute Remaining. My name is Jack Lawrence, the host and creator of this show. If this is your first time listening, welcome and thank you for stopping by to check us out. Today is the start of a brand new case. However, we already have over 30 episodes for you to binge right now. Today is part one of my chat with Evaristo Salas, or Junior as he's known.
A man who was incarcerated as a child.
Well, my name is Elristo Salas, Jr. I was wrongly convicted of first degree premeditated murder when I was 15 years old. And I was sentenced to 32 years, nine months.
How long have you currently been incarcerated for?
I've been incarcerated for 26 years and six months.
And that would make you how old, sir?
I'm going to be 42 on the 17th of December, so in about a week, a week and a half, I'll be 42.
The story of Evaristo Salas has been covered in multiple TV shows, but not your normal shows about evil killers and murderers. Shows where victims and detectives are interviewed about the vicious crimes committed by the individual. No. Junior's case has been covered by a number of crime shows dedicated to investigating wrongful convictions.
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Chapter 3: What role did gang violence play in Junior's upbringing?
We didn't really have any clothes to wear. The water was always shut off. I remember us going to food banks. I remember us going to churches and asking for money, those kind of things. And it's not that she didn't have these things or the government didn't provide it for her because they had a welfare program that did provide the money for her.
It's just that she took that money and spent it on her bad habits, you know, drugs and drinking, those kind of things. And so it was very chaotic, you know, and my mother had a tendency to have boyfriends that were the worst kind. Not only were they addicted to drugs just like her, But they were abusive to her. They were abusive to me, sometimes to my sisters.
But they seemed mainly to focus on me. I don't know if it was because I was the boy, you know, and my two sisters were there. My little brother was born a little bit later, but he was still a baby. So there seemed to be almost, you know, I took the brunt of everything when it came to that. And I had really vivid memories of my mother, you know, of being with these abusive people.
You know, there was times that I tried to protect her. But I was too young. I was just a child, and they would toss me aside. And what bothered me the most about her is that she would always take them back. I mean, they would leave her. I have one real vivid memory of being alone in the house. Me and my sisters were alone for two or three days. Nobody knew where our mother was.
We didn't say anything. And then she just... I think my dad came over, and we couldn't find her. And two days later, she shows up, and she's beaten so bad. I mean, her... I couldn't even recognize her. And I'd just seen her and I just kind of broke down. And apparently one of her boyfriends had beat her so bad that he thought he had killed her.
And threw her out on one of the farms out there in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Sunnyside. And she kind of crawled away and kind of found her way back to the house. And it took her a day or two. I don't remember how long it took her, but it took her that long to actually get back to the house that we lived in. And she had dirt all over her and that kind of stuff. And
Three or four days later, I remember kind of trying to nurse her wound. She wouldn't go to the hospital. She wouldn't call the cops. She was just trying to protect this, you know, her boyfriend and everything. And two or three days later, he comes back and she just welcomes him like as if, you know, everything was good. And for me, after that, I had nothing to hatred towards him.
Prior to that, you know, I kind of, he was with my mother and he was kind of really kind of nice or, you know, he kind of treated us a certain way. And then when he started kind of becoming abusive, and that's when I just kind of, I just disliked him, you know.
So the situation in Junior's home would gradually get worse and more disruptive until he tells me that one day his mother decides she can't handle him anymore and has him sent off to care, where luckily the man, who wasn't his biological father, but the only father he's ever known, comes to his rescue.
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Chapter 4: How did Junior's family dynamics affect his experiences?
Go ahead.
How old were you at the time?
I must have been about, I think I was about seven. Wow. Six or seven, around that age. And, you know, the cops, I mean, they didn't seem to have any kind of sympathy. They were just, like, there to remove me. And I didn't know where I was going. They didn't just tell me you're going to foster care. You know, I figured that out later on in life, you know. But so they took me to the police station.
I wouldn't say anything. And somehow my dad, who lived in the same town as my stepfather, who was my father, you know, heard about it, found out about it. And they ended up taking me to my father's house. You know, he lived, you know, on the other side of town. And, you know, and I'm kind of unconsolable. I'm crying. And my dad comes into that room and I'm coming to the back of the cop car.
And he takes one look at me, and he sees me, and he just almost starts to cry, but he tries to hold it in, and he tries to grab me, and he says that, you know, it's going to be all right, you know, and, you know, don't worry about it. I can't really speak. I'm just saying my mom, my mom.
And he tells me, he's like, you know, your mom's in a bad place, you know, and his voice is breaking up at the time. And he's trying basically to explain to a 7-year-old kid, you know, that your mother still loves you, You know, but, you know, this is what's going to happen. But he took me in, you know, so I didn't have to go to foster care.
And I lived with my dad all the way up until the time that I was wrongfully convicted.
Junior tells me life with his father was more stable. He didn't drink and he certainly did not do drugs. He was a hardworking man who did his best to teach Junior right from wrong and to teach him to always work hard for his money. However, Junior tells me this hard work meant lots of time spent alone.
But he did his best, and I spent probably about a year with my dad. It was just us, and he had a four-bedroom house. It was just us two, and he had to work 12 hours, sometimes 16-hour days. So I spent a lot of time alone there at the house.
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Chapter 5: What events led to Junior being taken into foster care?
And that's when, you know, all the gang stuff kind of came in. You know, it came later when I was about 11 or 12 when the gangs kind of started hitting, you know, this small town, the sunny side of the Hispanic gangs.
Sunnyside may be a small rural farming community, but it wouldn't be long before the gangs would start moving into town. Gangs like the Eastside Rivada and Norteños would begin to gain a foothold.
Prior to that, the town was kind of, you know, you could... We all got along, we all went to school together, we all knew each other. But when the gangs came in, like, it was like maybe 87 or 88 or 89, around that time...
Everything, you can see the splits already happening, and the gang violence started kind of taking hold of the community and that kind of stuff, and we kind of just followed all the kids of that era starting to just fall into these different gangs, and it kind of just split and fragmented the community.
Before I knew it, because I hung out with these guys, I had these other guys that were already, and who I knew and went to school with became my enemies almost overnight.
When you say that the gangs arrived, so what happens there? So there's no gangs in town and then did certain people move into that town who were gang members and then they started basically creating their own smaller gangs, as it were?
Yeah, that's kind of exactly what happened. There was like an influx of individuals that came from southern and northern California. They were escaping the gang violence in the community over there. They ended up bringing it down to these small communities in Washington State.
And what they did is when they got there is they started just recruiting everybody that would come along into these new gangs. All these gangs are from California. But they just started recruiting anybody that would come along. And then within maybe a couple years, you know, it was fragmented and it was already starting to take root.
And like I said, I grew up with almost all the individuals in that town. We all knew each other and went to school together. And within...
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Chapter 6: How did Junior describe his life after moving in with his father?
Why do you think the gang problem has been on the rise in this community? Where are these guys coming from? We have a real big migrant population here. We also have a lot of folks coming up from California and Texas, and they're bringing a lot of knowledge and a lot of that activity with them. It's scary. It's real scary.
What frightens many people in Sunnyside is the age of some of these gang members. 9, 10, 11 years old. These kids idolize gangsters in the big cities. And they've brought a crime wave to this small farming town.
Yeah. And then you were like, okay, well, then that's what I'm a part of because these guys are attacking me now, so I might as well. And so it was a little bit mixture of those two things. And I got kind of, it was strange because what happened was that my dad, you know, he ended up, he got with some woman and they were together for a number of years.
Well, her kids were a part of kind of that gang. And I had known them since we were kids and everything. So, you know, I just started hanging around with them. And that's how kind of it started, you know what I mean? And I just started hanging around with them, and then other individuals started disliking me and said, well, you're this, you're that. And then eventually I just became a part of it.
And then that's kind of, it's a subtle, it's weird because when you're that young, I think I was 12 at the time or 11, you don't really understand, you know, the magnitude of the decision you're actually making, you know.
Yeah, of course.
And, you know, you just kind of just, well, these are my friends, you know, and I'm going to, you know, you know, protect them, they're going to protect me. Anyways, we're getting jumped by these guys over here. We need protection. This seems like, in your youthful mind, it's a logical step, you know, to ask for protection.
It's only later that you kind of realize, you know, what is, you know, the course that's going to take you on. But that's kind of how it was, kind of just a subtle approach. And, you know, I ended up being a part of the gang. And it was a small gang. It was never more than maybe 30 people at a time, you know. And so it was very small.
and uh we kind of just protected each other and that kind of stuff you know but at the same time it's strange because when you're that young you're not really it's not really you're going out there committing crimes or you're doing this you're doing that literally you're just hanging out doing stupid things you know and being a delinquent you know yeah and so it was we wore certain colors you know we wore just the gang attire and all that kind of stuff you know but we didn't really actually know what these things meant you know and that's the bad part about it because it's not like they sit there and explain that to you they
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Chapter 7: What were the consequences of gang involvement in Junior's life?
They're just like, you join and we'll be your family and all this stuff. We'll be your best friends. You got problems, we'll solve them for you.
Was there drugs involved with the gangs? Were they selling drugs or dealing drugs?
I remember there was drug use, but it was mainly like, you know, marijuana and drinking here and there if you can get someone to buy you. It wasn't really kind of established as that. Nobody was really making money. We all were kind of probably poor.
You know, even the clothes that we wore were kind of pretty, they weren't up to par with the, you know, the kind of style that you would want, you know, that kind of stuff. Now, when you look back at things, you know, those are the seeds of what grew into what is now. It's different now. But back then,
You would come across certain individuals that had money, that kind of stuff, and were selling drugs, but they weren't close to us and they weren't giving us anything. So if you were elected, say you were to go to California, those gangs have been established for decades. And so they have kind of a hierarchy of how things are to be.
But since it was so new in our community, there was none of that there. And to a certain extent, it was not only a free fall, but there was... There was nothing really established there at that time.
So there was no sort of older people that were using you guys to sell it so that they didn't get in trouble?
I think that came probably years after I was already in prison. But those things were so new that everybody was almost like we're all around the same age. There was no really hierarchy or structure. We argued with each other more than anything too.
So it was almost like you would look at them as just a bunch of kids getting together, doing stupid things and fighting each other for no reason because at that time they were just like we were actually fighting. And then the guns and all that came later when I started, you know, towards the, when I turned 14 and 15, that's when things got really serious.
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Chapter 8: What ultimately led to the police targeting Junior?
It's probably a lot different now than it was back then.
You know, all these things that you're saying about how you get chased and jumped. When I was a kid, there was a gang and for somehow, some reason, some rumour got around that I'd said something about them anyway. It was ridiculous, stupid kid stuff.
But I remember one night when I was at home, my parents were away and I had some friends over and they turned up at my house and tapped on my window with a knife and they were trying to break into the house. And I have never been more scared in my entire life than that particular night. And that was just one night. And it never happened again.
And I heard that if they broke in, they were going to apparently like chuck me in the boot of the car or something, beat me up and all the rest of it. But I've never been more terrified in my life. And that was one night. And you essentially went through that every single day of your life.
Yeah. And it wasn't just me. It was like everybody apart. And It was everybody that was part of the community, and it was... The worst part about it is, in a sense, we were kind of doing it to ourselves, you know what I mean? We were fighting for unknown reasons, and then it just perpetuated into something violent. And then it was an everyday thing.
I literally could not walk anywhere in any direction. I was either going to get jumped, I was going to get shot. And so what I would do, I would have to come up with a strategy on how to get from point A to point B. And I'd say, okay, well, I know this person lives here, so I'm going to cut this way, and I'm going to cut through this yard and go that way. And it was a constant.
Sometimes you feel a little more secure if you have three of your buddies with you or your supposed gang members with you. You feel a little more secure. But someone can just drive up and start shooting at you, or they come up with more people, and then you're fighting.
I mean, I went down not even two blocks from my house and went to a store, which we know we shouldn't go to because that area is kind of, I wouldn't say controlled, but I'd say there's a bunch of other gang members that live there, rival gang members, We came out of the store and they were waiting for us, five of them. And one of them tried to stab me and literally almost stabbed me.
And if it wasn't for one of my friends throwing a pop in his face, he prevented him from actually stabbing me. And that was an everyday thing. And it almost became a norm. And it's like we lived with almost this fear inside of us every single day that we had to fight or we had to run. There was one time I came out of a... And this is not even...
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