An Inglewood man was sentenced Wednesday to three consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering three people and trying to kill two others, including his pregnant girlfriend, in two separate shootings in Gardena and Lynwood on the same day.
Selvin Fabian Salazar, 32, was convicted last month of the July 31, 2018, shootings of 28-year-old Dolores Sanchez; his friend, 28-year-old Francisco Montes; and Saith Pedraza, who died just over two years later at age 39 after a gunshot wound to his neck that left him a paraplegic.
“You’re a cold-blooded killer,” Superior Court Judge Scott T. Millington told the defendant during the sentencing hearing, adding that he believed Salazar “should never, never, never get out” of state prison.
Millington called it one of the most gruesome and unjustified crimes he had seen in 20 years as a judge.
In her closing argument during the trial, Deputy District Attorney Kendra Carman told the Torrance jury that the defendant believed his pregnant girlfriend was “setting him up” with a rival gang to kill him.
The prosecutor told jurors the only issue in question was whether Salazar had an altered mental state at the time of the shootings due to his use of methamphetamine, while defense attorney Nancy Sperber countered that Salazar’s brain “has been fried” because of his methamphetamine use and that her client acted “rashly and impulsively.”
Jurors convicted Salazar of three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder and single counts of intimidation of a witness, carjacking and possession of a firearm by a felon. He was acquitted of a single count of kidnapping.
Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders.
In a statement shortly before being sentenced, Salazar said, “I apologize to the families involved.”
“You guys look at me like I’m evil,” he said, telling them that they “can look at me however you want.”
The judge told Salazar that “you keep telling this family there are reasons we haven’t heard” and that he hadn’t expressed remorse, with the defendant again repeating that he had apologized.
“It wasn’t a full apology …,” the judge said, with the defendant also interrupting the judge when he referred to Montes’ as Salazar’s best friend.
During the hearing, Salazar looked toward one of Pedraza’s nieces as she asked him, “How could you? How could you? I still don’t understand why.”
“He made my family suffer with pain … heartache that will never go away,” Jazlyn Pedraza told the judge.
Another of Pedraza’s nieces, Clarissa Pedraza, said her uncle was “like a second dad to me.”
Pedraza’s sister, Olga, told the defendant that she forgives him because that’s what her brother would want.
But she added, “What you did I will never, never forget because it’s a nightmare that lives in my mind.”
During Salazar’s trial, the prosecutor told jurors, “The issue before you is did the defendant intend to kill … or did he only intend to shoot.”
The prosecutor said the defendant waited to open fire until Sanchez and Pedraza were “trapped,” and that he only missed his target once.
Salazar then shot his own girlfriend in the neck before running to Montes’ car and telling him to drive him to a friend’s house, Carman said.
The defendant subsequently took phones belonging to Montes and Montes’ girlfriend when she said she was going to call police, and then shot his friend and tried to shoot his friend’s girlfriend because he believed they were going to take him to a police station, the prosecutor told jurors.
Salazar’s attorney had urged jurors to acquit her client of the most serious charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder.
“Is it second-degree murder? Is it voluntary manslaughter? That’s your decision,” Sperber told the panel.
She said he was “irrational at that time” and that his thinking was “not normal” given his drug use.
Salazar’s lawyer told jurors that her client was shooting at people he believed were plotting to kill him and didn’t realize Pedraza was at the mobile home park in Gardena to fix a car stereo.
“He sees the enemy and the enemy might not be there,” Sperber said. “Did he perceive the threat to be imminent and real? Of course.”
She called the gunfire “lucky shots,” and argued that they were “not well-aimed.”
Salazar — who has had a series of run-ins with the law that included a state prison stint involving his 2011 conviction for assault with a firearm — was arrested by Los Angeles County sheriff’s homicide detectives the day after the shootings and has remained behind bars since then, jail records show.