Jared Taylor
2009-11-10 21:17:22
WESLACO — Mario Salinas Jr. didn't say much as investigators questioned him about a fatal house fire, court documents show.
The 29-year-old didn’t deny starting the blaze that killed a mother and her son before dawn on Oct. 10.
“I understand,” he responded as investigators prodded him about what happened that morning.
On Tuesday, Salinas stood in Weslaco Municipal Court, facing capital murder charges for the deaths of Melva Martinez and her 12-year-old son, A.J. Olivo, in what investigators described as an arson carried out in a vengeful rage over a broken relationship.
Authorities initially suspected the fatal fire was an accident. But further investigation led Weslaco fire marshals to arrest Salinas on suspicion of setting the fire intentionally and to the filing of capital murder charges against him.
Fire marshals revealed few details after Salinas’ arraignment Tuesday, but court documents released afterward shed some light on the investigation.
Police responded to a call of loud music in the early morning of Oct. 10 at 1203 Valley View Drive. When the officer arrived, he found the house in flames and Martinez’s crying 7-year-old son in the backyard.
The boy, Andre Olivo, told the officer his mom and brother pushed him out a bathroom window. He told police to call his older sister, Leah Lerma.
Close family friend Robert Lugo, the father of one of Martinez’s teenage daughters, said he showed up at Knapp Medical Center early that morning after paramedics rushed the woman and her son to the hospital.
Salinas showed up at the emergency room shortly after he did, Lugo said.
Lugo told his daughter and Salinas he didn’t think Martinez and A.J. would survive.
“He had a look of bewilderment, a look of just total shock, and didn’t say much,” Lugo said of Salinas. “I think he was just numb at the occurrences.”
Five days after the fire, authorities interviewed Salinas. This is what happened, according to the criminal complaint filed in the case:
Salinas said he saw Lerma, his ex-girlfriend, at the Paradise Roadhouse Bar and Grill, 3700 E. Expressway 83, just hours before the deadly fire. He said he went home about 3 a.m. — about 90 minutes before police discovered the blaze.
Authorities traced the loud music call that would lead them to the fire to a house at the 2300 block of East 11th Street. The man living there said he used to be Salinas’ neighbor.
Another neighbor called police when the fire broke out and said he saw a light-colored Honda speed away from the burning house.
Investigators learned that Salinas owns and drives a light-colored 1994 Honda Accord. His cell phone records show he called Martinez’s house at 4:27 a.m. — the time police said they discovered the fire — and called the Weslaco Police Department.
During a second interview, Salinas told police he was mad at Lerma because she kicked him out of the house — a point his attorney disputes — about 10 days before the fire. Salinas told investigators he called police and reported the loud music, saying he wanted to get Lerma “in trouble,” and gave police a fake name and phone number.
He also said he was parked in his car in front of a neighbor’s house when he made the call to police. Investigators asked if he went into Martinez’s house and started the fire.
“Salinas never denied going into the residence and starting the fire,” investigators wrote in the criminal complaint, adding that he kept moving his hands and looking down when asked about the blaze.
Salinas’ attorney, Lily Gutierrez, said his arrest came as a surprise. He hired her to accompany him to a polygraph interview scheduled for Tuesday.
Instead, Salinas was arrested and charged with capital murder.
“It was interesting to me that he would get arrested at this time, when he was in position that he would be cooperating,” said Gutierrez, who added that she had not seen the criminal complaint against her client as of Wednesday afternoon.
Weslaco Municipal Judge Carlos Garza charged Salinas with two counts of capital murder and one count of attempted capital murder.
The judge set his bond at $2.5 million. If convicted, Salinas could face the death penalty.
The deaths of the mother and her son are at least the 34th and 35th homicides in Hidalgo County this year and the second and third homicides in Weslaco this year.
Lugo, the close friend of the Martinez family, said the possibility that the deaths of Martinez, a social worker, and her 12-year-old son were murder — instead of an accident — doesn’t offer much closure. Rather, it only creates new questions for his daughter.
“Unfortunately to her it opens up a wound again — a very unpleasant one,” he said.
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