Gang member who killed best friend, 2 others in California shootings given life sentence
Olga Pedraza spoke in court Wednesday, Oct. 23, about the deaths of her longtime girlfriend and her brother and the impact they’ve had on her life when she asked the man convicted of killing them to face her.
Selvin Salazar, 32, of Inglewood, obliged, turning his head to the left.
“I forgive you for my own sanity,” Olga Pedraza said, adding that it was also what her brother would have wanted. “But I want you to know that I will never forget what you did.”
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A short time later, despite several interruptions from Salazar, Judge Scott T. Millington sentenced him to three consecutive terms of life without the possibility of parole, plus 20 years for fatally shooting three people, including his best friend, and injuring two others, including his pregnant girlfriend on July 31, 2018.
Salazar, in September, was convicted by a Torrance Superior Court jury of three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, carjacking, dissuading a witness by force or fear and felon in possession of a firearm for a pair of shootings in Gardena and Lynwood. They also found true a special circumstance of multiple murders.
Killed were 28-year-old Dolores Sanchez, who was Olga Pedraza’s longtime girlfriend; 39-year-old Saith Pedraza, who was left paralyzed and died two years later; and 28-year-old Francisco Montes, Salazar’s best friend. His girlfriend, Ana Ortiz, was four months pregnant at the time and survived a gunshot wound to the neck.
Prosecutors said Salazar committed the first shooting at a mobile home park in the 1200 block of 135th Street in Gardena because he thought Ortiz had set him up to be attacked by rival gang members. After shooting Saith Pedraza and Sanchez, Salazar turned the gun on Ortiz.
He then ordered Montes and Montes’ girlfriend into a car to drive him to a friend’s house, but told Montes to pull over and shot him in the back of the head on the southbound 710 Freeway on-ramp from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard because he thought Montes was taking him to a Los Angeles County sheriff’s station.
Salazar tried to shoot Montes’ girlfriend, but the gun malfunctioned, prosecutors said.
Salazar’s attorney, Nancy Sperber, argued against the most serious charges and said because he was high on crystal methamphetamine, he couldn’t have formed the specific intent needed to convict him of first-degree murder.
Olga Pedraza, who lived at the Gardena mobile home with Sanchez, witnessed the first shooting.
“A part of me is lost with them,” she told the court.
Millington called the case “one of the most gruesome, unjust, unjustified cases I’ve ever seen in my 20 years on the bench,” including the fact that one of the victims was Salazar’s best friend and another, Saith Pedraza, “did nothing to you.”
Salazar repeatedly attempted to talk over the judge, twice denying Montes was his best friend and then telling the judge “you can’t tell me who my best friend is.”
Millington said Salazar had shown no remorse and lied on the stand when he testified the shooting was in self defense and that he had seen a gun in the car where Sanchez and Saith Pedraza were seated fixing a car stereo when he shot them.
“You’re a cold-blooded killer,” Millington said. “This court believes you should never, never, never get out.”
Jazlyn and Clarissa Pedraza, nieces of Saith Pedraza, also addressed the court, calling Saith Pedraza a second father and Sanchez a best friend. Jazlyn Pedraza said she had just seen both Sanchez and Saith Pedraza in the hours before their deaths not knowing it would be the last time she’d see or talk to them.
“It changed our lives upside down,” Jazlyn Pedraza said, turning toward Salazar, “because of the person sitting across this room. How could you? How could you? They didn’t do nothing to you. Nothing at all.”
Clarissa Pedraza said Sanchez was “my best friend and my number one supporter” and said she still “has yet to come to terms with what he has done.”
Olga Pedraza said she is in fear every day, has nightmares and anxiety as a result of the shooting. Seeing photos of her brother bring back the memory of him being shot that night, she said.
Salazar, in a brief statement, apologized to the family, but said there were “some things left unsaid that you don’t know.
“You can look at me like I’m evil,” he added. “You can look at me however you want.”
Motions for a new trial and to remove prior strike convictions were denied.
After Salazar’s statement, Sperber stood and commended the Pedraza family.
“I don’t know how you’ve done this for six years,” Sperber said. “You’re very nice people.”