Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What led to Evaristo Salas Jr.'s wrongful conviction?
Just answer this question for me as best you can. What were you doing September 13 of last year?
I can't remember.
It's not good enough. That is not good enough.
My name is Elristo Salas Jr. I was wrongly convicted of first degree permeditated murder when I was 15 years old. And I was sentenced to 32 years, nine months. What do you guys think of gangs?
They're awesome, man. They're awesome.
We dig that. I would say 94, 95, and 96 is when that's when they started kind of shooting at us. And then it became really serious. You know, these guys are actually trying to kill us.
Just because you wanted to get, you know, eyes off for you or whatever reason, you took his life away from him.
Hello and welcome back to One Minute Remaining. My name is Jack Lawrence, the host and creator of this show. Today is part two of my chat with Evaristo Salas Jr. Arrested at just 15 for murder, Evaristo grew up inside a US prison and now at 42, that is where he remains, serving time for a crime he says he's innocent of.
In our previous episode, Junior talked me through the area of Sunnyside in which he grew up, explaining that towards the end of the 80s and the early 90s, gangs started to become an ever-growing presence in the community. As a young man who came from a broken home, living with his stepfather, who was working 16-hour days, left him searching for belonging, essentially for another family.
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Chapter 2: How did gang involvement shape Junior's early life?
And then the second thing, you know, is... Did I think about leaving the gang? Yes, every day. There was even a time that I came to my friends, and this was the worst part about it because they had just killed one of my friends in front of me. They shot him in the back, and he died right there in front of me. We buried him. I carried his casket and everything.
And at that point in my life, I didn't want to be a part of the gang anymore. I stopped wearing the colors. I stopped hanging around with them. And the worst part about it is when they seen me doing that, instead of having sympathy, instead of saying, Well, we understand them. They looked at it and they became hostile to me. They started calling me weak. Oh, you're this or you're that.
Now, not only do I got all these other individuals from my rival gangs that dislike me and the things I did to them or the fights and all that stuff that are probably going to attack me anytime they see me, but now I got the people that are supposed to be my friends, and I say that in air quotes, now they're against me. Now what choices do I have? That was the dilemma.
And what hurt me most about it, because I didn't see that coming, I was like, I thought they would understand. Why are you guys calling me names now? Why are you guys threatening to jump? There was times where I thought I was going to jump by them because I had told them that I didn't want to be a part of this stuff anymore. I thought they would say, oh, it ain't no problem, man. You're a friend.
It's all right if you don't want to. It wasn't like that. It was like, oh, you're weak. You're scared. You ain't a part of us. You're turning your back on them. I'm going to jump you. Yeah, and they became hostile. It wasn't a mentality that, oh, you want to do better for yourself. It was a mentality that, oh, you're abandoning us. Yeah.
you're supposed to protect us too and you're abandoning us because you're scared, you know. And then you become almost ostracized by the people that are, the only people that you know. And that was the struggle and that was the dilemma. But I did make kind of attempts to try to push it away if I stopped wearing the colors.
But by then, it didn't matter because I didn't need the word of colors to be identified as that gang, you know. It was already my identity. And even if I would have left it, I can't go up to my rival and say, you know what, I left the gang. Sorry that I, you know, maybe I jumped you at this time with this other guy or we got in a fight over here.
And they're going to be like, oh, no, we're going to get ours. You ain't got no one to protect you now? So it's that kind of back and forth. And for people that don't live in that environment, it's easy for them to see it like that because the solution seems so simple. So simple. But it's not.
When you look at the details of everything, when you're in that moment, it's like you're almost so trapped.
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Chapter 3: What traumatic event changed Junior's perspective on gang life?
And it was just like, and when that happened, it became really real. And it was like, you know, this was my best friend. I was with him every single day for about three or four years. And not only that, but he only became a part of the gang because I was a part of it. So there was a guilt that came with it. And I know his dad. I know his sisters. And I had to look at him at the funeral.
And if they would have thought, well, you're responsible, they would have been right to a certain extent because they could have hated me. They didn't, but they could have hated me because I was the one that he started hanging around with. And then he became a part of the gang. And that's a guilt that I carry with me for my entire life, you know.
So what age were you guys when this happened?
I was 15 and he was 17.
Watching someone die is hopefully something that not many of us will ever have to experience. Let alone watching your best friend get shot in front of you and take his last breath. This was now a reality for a 15-year-old Evaristo. The perpetrator would be caught and charged and Junior would eventually bump into him in a jail cell. Was anyone arrested for his shooting?
And do you know if it was the actual person who shot him or...? Yeah, yeah, it was actually the one who did it, yeah.
Do we know what happened to him?
I guess he confessed or something. He got sentenced to, I actually ran into him a few times in prison, but he's already out now. He got sentenced to 30 years. He did 24, 24 years on it and got out, I think got 24 years and then got out on the juvenile parole. And this was, he got out like I think three or four years, four years ago he got out.
So you say you ran into him a couple of times inside prison. What was that like the first time you saw him?
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Chapter 4: How did Junior react to his best friend's murder?
You come across as a very calm individual. I'm assuming that's taken you a while to... Because were you... Would you consider you were an angry kid?
Oh, yeah, I was an angry and explosive kid, yeah.
Yeah, and I mean, that would be because of, you know, what you went through. So it wouldn't take much for you to get in a fight, I would imagine, when you were a kid.
No, it was... Yeah, it took very little, you know, back in the days and... You know, I was just so emotional about everything, you know. And I didn't really understand that until later on in life when I, you know, I had to force to look at myself and kind of reflect on the person I was and was becoming and how I wanted.
And that came as I grew older, you know, and it became like, wow, you know what I mean? I can be a little out there, you know. And it was just, like I said, all that was was just, it was just, It was bottled up trauma. That's all it was.
It was trauma that I hadn't dealt with, trauma with my mother, the traumatic events I dealt with as a child growing up, and the way I lived and the consequences that came with that lifestyle. And I just didn't know how to filter it in a positive way or how to release it. And so when I released it, I always released it on the wrong people, usually the ones closest to me.
I always said the wrong things, and I just didn't have the ability or the discipline not only to see my actions in real time, But to actually, you know, kind of discipline myself not to be that way. And that came later in life, a lot later in life, you know. And it was through a lot of bad choices I made, you know, so.
I think, you know, we all make bad choices when we're younger. I mean, I know I made plenty of bad choices when I was younger. I mean, I was drinking at the age of 13 and, you know, doing stupid stuff. And, you know, I've been behind the wheel of a car when I've been drunk and, you know, things that I'm certainly not proud of. And I'm just, the only difference between,
you know, me and someone like yourself who's in prison is luck, you know, that I didn't end up hurting someone by accident or, you know, and I know you will talk about the crime you were convicted of. But what I'm saying is that, you know, we all make stupid decisions when we're younger. I think most people would make stupid decisions when they're younger.
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Chapter 5: What were the circumstances surrounding the shooting incident?
So I wanted to put this to the test with others and see if put on the spot, they could recall where they were and what they were doing six months ago. So I spoke with three people, Dom, my audio genius, my wife, who prides herself on her memory, and my brother, a former police officer turned security expert, to see how they would get on. Just answer this question for me as best you can.
What were you doing September 13 of last year?
I can't remember.
It's not good enough. That is not good enough. If I was to say to you, what were you doing on this date six months ago, September 13?
Probably work. I have no notes or any real recollection of what I was doing on the 13th of September last year. Other than it being a weekday, I was likely at work. to some description in London. But as to what I was doing exactly, I would not have a clue.
I'll help you out. It was a Monday. I'll help you out. It's a Monday.
No idea.
Now, why I'm doing it is because this bloke that I'm talking to at the moment, he said he was pulled in six months after this crime had taken place and was told to tell them exactly where he was and what he was doing. And he's like, guys, it was six months ago.
Yeah. How are you supposed to remember?
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Chapter 6: How did police informants impact Junior's case?
Who can remember what they were doing six months ago?
So each person would need to turn to some form of technology, calendar, email, social media, which is fine for an adult in the 21st century. Text messages, even. But this is a 15-year-old boy in 1996. This is how he did it.
And so the way I did that was like, okay, on December 1st, my mom bought me some shoes because she was doing it for my birthday and that's the day she got her check. Okay, on October 31st, I went to a little Halloween thing that they had after one of the churches. Okay, what happened after that? And then I was like, and then I remembered, oh, okay, wait.
I remember we went to 7-Eleven, me and like two or three of my friends. And then the store clerk there was talking about, hey, somebody had just got killed somewhere on this side of town by this store or whatever. And I didn't pay much attention to it. She was just like, oh, my mom just called me or I just talked to my mom right now. And she just started sharing all this stuff.
I didn't know her personally, but I was in the store so much that she'd see me all the time, and she was nice to me and everything. And so we didn't really, like, I didn't talk to her a lot, you know, but she would see me. So she was like, oh, did you guys hear about it? I said, no, I didn't hear anything about it. I was like, who was it? Or something like that. She was like, well, I don't know.
My mom just said that the cops are there right now and all that kind of stuff. It's a small town, so that's kind of how, like, you know, things spread around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, oh, yeah, I just didn't pay much attention to it, you know what I mean? And I just, well, me and my friends were there. I think it was two or three of us.
We bought some burritos, and I think I bought a couple pops. And that was normal. That was the routine I did almost every day. And I went back to my house. And prior to that, if I look back on prior to that, we were there, and we were smoking weed. So that's why we were buying burritos. And we went and bought.
And pretty much the day I was home the whole time, because I remember I got kicked out of school because I got in a fight. I think it was late October. And my dad was pissed off about it. And so he grounded me and said I couldn't really go anywhere. He would let me go to the store and stuff, but he wouldn't let me go to my friend's house or kind of leave the block. So I think I'm not positive.
On November 14th, I might have been grounded at that time. But I'm not sure. Maybe it ended before that. But I'm positive we went to 7-Eleven and that store clerk said this kind of thing. I remember telling my lawyer that. Then he finds the store clerk and she confirms that, yeah, I remember telling you that. That was actually the day. But that's how I came to remember that day.
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Chapter 7: What challenges did Junior face during his interrogation?
And I heard people talk about him here and there, that kind of stuff. And so they were like, oh, this person. And they said his name. And I was like, who the hell is that? And then they said, oh, his gang name. And, oh, supposedly his gang name. And I was like, what are you guys talking about? I mean, I heard about that.
And then I was like, look, I'm telling you right now, I have nothing to do with this. And at first I was thinking they were just making up stuff. Because, you know, that's what they did. They always did. He snatched me up, took me to the police station, and interrogated me the same exact way. And it was always those two officers or another two. So it was almost routine. And at first I laughed.
I was like, what? I was like, come on, man. I mean, I told Rebar, I said, you know me my entire freaking life. Are you serious right now? And he didn't laugh. He goes, no, I'm serious. And then I got scared. I was like, oh, shoot. And he goes, and he looks at me and goes, I told him, look, I didn't have anything to do with this. I don't know who's saying what, but I'm telling you that right now.
And I'm already in tears because this is freaking me out because I can see By his demeanor, he's not playing, you know what I mean? And I'm like, oh, shoot. You know what I mean? I'm not. 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, I'm telling you right now. You know me my entire life. I didn't do it. I'm telling you.
And he just didn't even care. He just looked at me, and he goes, you didn't think we were ever going to catch you, huh? And I knew I was like, I'm speaking to a wall here.
You have one minute remaining.
And that's where we'll end it today. Coming up on our next episode, detectives have picked up Junior six months after this crime was committed. They had absolutely no leads to go on. No murder weapon was found and no key witnesses. Until, of course, the informant that we mentioned previously, who just so happens to name Junior.
The bizarre circumstances in which this happened would raise more than just a few eyebrows.
When I was already walking out, he just stops me out of nowhere. And he just, he don't really even say nothing. He just stopped right there, I gotta take pictures of you. And I said, for what? And he just took the picture, told me to turn to the side, took that picture, then took another one. And then I felt kind of weird, and he just walked away. He didn't say nothing else.
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