Inglewood man receives three life sentences for 2018 triple murder

An Inglewood man was sentenced Wednesday to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for murdering three people and attempting to kill two others, including his pregnant girlfriend, in two shootings in Gardena and Lynwood on the same day.

Selvin Fabian Salazar, 32, was convicted last month in the July 31, 2018, shooting death 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 from a gunshot wound to the neck that left him a paraplegic.

“You are a cold-blooded murderer,” Supreme Court Justice Scott T. Millington told the defendant during sentencing, adding that in his opinion Salazar “should never, ever, ever get out of state prison.”

Millington called it one of the most cruel and unjustified crimes he has seen in 20 years as a judge.

In her closing argument during the trial, Assistant District Attorney Kendra Carman told jurors in Torrance that the defendant believed his pregnant girlfriend “set him up” with a rival gang to kill him.

The prosecutor told jurors that the only question at issue was whether Salazar had an altered mental state at the time of the shootings due to his methamphetamine use, while defense attorney Nancy Sperber countered that Salazar's brain had been “fried” due to his methamphetamine use Client acted “rashly and impulsively”.

The jury convicted Salazar of three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder and one count of intimidation of a witness, carjacking and possession of a firearm by a felon. He was acquitted of a single count of kidnapping.

The jury also found the allegation of special circumstances in several murders to be true.

In a statement shortly before his sentencing, Salazar said: “I apologize to the families affected.”

“You look at me like I’m evil,” he said, telling them they “can look at me however they want.”

The judge told Salazar that “you keep telling this family that there are reasons we haven't heard” and that he had expressed no remorse, with the defendant reiterating 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 at one of Pedraza's nieces when she asked him, “How could you?” How could you? I still don’t understand why.”

“He made my family suffer 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 father to me.”

Pedraza's sister Olga told the defendant that she was forgiving him because her brother wanted it that way.

But she added: “I will never forget what you did because it is a nightmare that lives on in my head.”

During Salazar's trial, the prosecutor told the jury, “The question before you is whether the defendant intended to kill … or whether he just intended to shoot.”

The prosecutor said the defendant waited until Sánchez and Pedraza were “trapped” to open fire, and 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 then took phones from Montes and Montes' girlfriend when she said she was calling the police, and then shot his friend and attempted to shoot his friend's girlfriend because he thought they were taking him to the police station, the prosecution told the jury.

Salazar's attorney had urged the jury to acquit her client of the most serious charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder.

“Is it second degree murder? Is it intentional homicide? That is your decision,” Sperber told the panel.

She said he was “irrational at the time” and his thinking was “not normal” given his drug use.

Salazar's attorney told jurors that her client shot people he believed were making plans to kill him and that he did not know Pedraza was at the mobile home park in Gardena repairing a car stereo .

“He sees the enemy and the enemy may not be there,” Sperber said. “Did he perceive the threat as immediate and real? Naturally.”

She called the shots “lucky shots” and argued that they were “not targeted.”

Salazar – who has a string of law-breaking records that included a stint in state prison where he was convicted of assault with a firearm in 2011 – was arrested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Unit the day after the shooting and has been behind bars ever since Bars Then prison records show.

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