By Juan Montoya
Part 2
Wence Lerma's life took a turn for the worse on a cool, sunny day August 8, 1977 in Salinas California.
Part 2
Wence Lerma's life took a turn for the worse on a cool, sunny day August 8, 1977 in Salinas California.
Raised in Brownsville, Lerma and his family had migrated to California in 1968 to work in the fields and had joined Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers Association to organize and strike for better working conditions and higher wages. He was only 16 then.
After years of struggle, Chavez's union brought the ranchers and agribusiness corporations to the negotiating table and workers' conditions improved. The union not only got them better wages, but also some basic rights like fresh water in the fields, portable toilets, and 15-minute breaks from their toil.
And the men and women who had been forced to use the short hoe to thin and weed the crops could now use the long-handle hoes to lessen the strain of stooping all day long in the half-mile long rows of crops.
(That's Wence Lerma at right as a UFWA organizer in Washington D.C. celebrating union victories in Salinas and elsewhere.)
On that cool sunny day, Lerma had a dental appointment and was allowed to leave his job cutting celery so he could go to his house on 531 E. Roosevelt Street to pick up his 20-year-old wife Martina and their three-year old daughter Martha. Martina Lerma was also allowed time off work to take care of the child.
When he got home, Wence did not have a key and no one answered the door. He looked around for a way in and climbed in through a bathroom window. When he walked into the bedroom he found his wife lying in a blood-soaked bed and his baby near her trying to wake her up.
Police later found that she had been raped and stabbed to death in the heart as the baby watched. Martha told Wence and police that "el cucuy" had come in through a window and hurt her mother.
She described him as a man much bigger than her father. Police found that the house had not been ransacked, but that several items, including some music eight-track tapes had been taken. Police – aside from the blood-soaked blankets and semen samples from the bed and vaginal swabs taken from Martina during the autopsy – had no leads on her killer.
Two months later, a relative called Wence and told him that a man was selling the stolen eight-track tapes at a garage sale.
"We had written both our names on the eight-tracks," Lerma recalled. "If police had followed up on the man selling them, this case could have been solved right then and there."
But police who questioned the man, identified as Art Saldivar, were told that he had purchased them at the Castroville Artichoke Festival held each May. That should have alerted them since the murder occurred two months later and the tapes could not have been there at the time. But unable to pin anything on Saldivar, who refused to take a polygraph test, they took some items from his home and the case went cold.
Since that day, Martina's relatives began to suspect that Wence Lerma might have had something to do with his wife's murder. With no one else to blame, they began to ostracize him and his family. Salinas' population then was about 70,000 and just about everyone knew each other.
After years of struggle, Chavez's union brought the ranchers and agribusiness corporations to the negotiating table and workers' conditions improved. The union not only got them better wages, but also some basic rights like fresh water in the fields, portable toilets, and 15-minute breaks from their toil.
And the men and women who had been forced to use the short hoe to thin and weed the crops could now use the long-handle hoes to lessen the strain of stooping all day long in the half-mile long rows of crops.
(That's Wence Lerma at right as a UFWA organizer in Washington D.C. celebrating union victories in Salinas and elsewhere.)
On that cool sunny day, Lerma had a dental appointment and was allowed to leave his job cutting celery so he could go to his house on 531 E. Roosevelt Street to pick up his 20-year-old wife Martina and their three-year old daughter Martha. Martina Lerma was also allowed time off work to take care of the child.
When he got home, Wence did not have a key and no one answered the door. He looked around for a way in and climbed in through a bathroom window. When he walked into the bedroom he found his wife lying in a blood-soaked bed and his baby near her trying to wake her up.
Police later found that she had been raped and stabbed to death in the heart as the baby watched. Martha told Wence and police that "el cucuy" had come in through a window and hurt her mother.
She described him as a man much bigger than her father. Police found that the house had not been ransacked, but that several items, including some music eight-track tapes had been taken. Police – aside from the blood-soaked blankets and semen samples from the bed and vaginal swabs taken from Martina during the autopsy – had no leads on her killer.
Two months later, a relative called Wence and told him that a man was selling the stolen eight-track tapes at a garage sale.
"We had written both our names on the eight-tracks," Lerma recalled. "If police had followed up on the man selling them, this case could have been solved right then and there."
But police who questioned the man, identified as Art Saldivar, were told that he had purchased them at the Castroville Artichoke Festival held each May. That should have alerted them since the murder occurred two months later and the tapes could not have been there at the time. But unable to pin anything on Saldivar, who refused to take a polygraph test, they took some items from his home and the case went cold.
Since that day, Martina's relatives began to suspect that Wence Lerma might have had something to do with his wife's murder. With no one else to blame, they began to ostracize him and his family. Salinas' population then was about 70,000 and just about everyone knew each other.
"My in-laws would see me on the street and they would turn away," Lerma recalled. "I even had a compadre – Martha's godfather, one of Martina's brothers – who wouldn't even talk to me. They suspected I had killed my wife."
Wence's niece Anel recalls that dark period vividly.
"Wence changed perceptively," she said. "Before that he was always happy, and fun to be around. After that, he grew very quiet. He was the favorite uncle. After that happened, it really changed him."
His daughter Martha was also changed. At three, she had been fully aware that someone had hurt her mother and raped her as she watched. Over time, she was plagued by manic depression and schizophrenia.
"I have a three-year-old," Anel said. "They absorb everything. Martha was traumatized for life."
"She never got over it," Wence said. "She couldn't sleep near windows because she was afraid the cucuy would come in and hurt her."
After more than 20 years, Salinas Police Detective Michael Groves was going over the department's cold cases when property manager Walt Hayes mentioned that that the evidence that had been gathered in the Lerma murder was still in the locker. Intrigued, Groves retrieved the bags. DNA testing in 1977 was still in its infancy and it was not done at the time. Grovers sent the samples to the California Department of Justice and executed a warrant for Saldivar, the man who was selling the tapes taken from the Lerma murder scene.
Among the items originally taken from Saldivar's house was a notebook with a calendar with an X written on August 8, 1977, the day Martina was murdered.
Groves also called in Wence Lerma to take blood samples. The results eliminated him as a suspect and came back positive on Saldivar. The detective also executed warrants on all the surviving Saldivar family members to eliminate them as suspects.
However, the suspect Art Saldivar had a twin brother who had died years before, and – to preempt Saldivar's attorney from blaming the dead brother for Martina's murder – Groves had the dead brother's body exhumed and samples taken from the bones and teeth. The results confirmed that the donor of blood and semen found on the victim and bed sheets was Art Saldivar.
On August 5, 2001, nearly 24 years later, Saldivar pleaded guilty to the murder and, rather than leaving it up to a jury to decide, agreed to serve a 36-year sentence that could be cut in half for good behavior.
Monterey County Deputy District Attorney Ann Hill said she agreed to the settlement to ensure that Saldivar will stay behind bars until he's at least 70 years old. Saldivar waived his right to appeal the case and to seek a shorter sentence.
"It's not enough time, but I understand the system," Wence Lerma told a reporter as he left the courthouse.
Lerma said he always believed people thought he had murdered his wife. Most of his in-laws have avoided him since Martina Lerma's funeral. Even after Saldivar had been caught, Wence Lerma's sister admitted even she "had my doubts."
"What this man did was cowardly", Irma Gonzales, the Lerma daughter's (Martha) cousin told a reporter. "We used to talk about all the fears she had. She talked about the bad man. For what he did to my cousin and my uncle, it's unfair."
Now remarried, in 2005, Wence Lerma came back to Brownsville with his daughter Martha. She died in 2011 after suffering a life filled with the dark memories of seeing her mother killed when she was a three-year child. Lerma now owns a landscaping business and has settled to live out his remaining years in the community that he left so long ago.
"I never imagined in my life when I left Brownsville that these things would happen to me," he said. "But now I just want to make a living at my work and live my life in peace. It's been a long road back home."
"Wence changed perceptively," she said. "Before that he was always happy, and fun to be around. After that, he grew very quiet. He was the favorite uncle. After that happened, it really changed him."
His daughter Martha was also changed. At three, she had been fully aware that someone had hurt her mother and raped her as she watched. Over time, she was plagued by manic depression and schizophrenia.
"I have a three-year-old," Anel said. "They absorb everything. Martha was traumatized for life."
"She never got over it," Wence said. "She couldn't sleep near windows because she was afraid the cucuy would come in and hurt her."
After more than 20 years, Salinas Police Detective Michael Groves was going over the department's cold cases when property manager Walt Hayes mentioned that that the evidence that had been gathered in the Lerma murder was still in the locker. Intrigued, Groves retrieved the bags. DNA testing in 1977 was still in its infancy and it was not done at the time. Grovers sent the samples to the California Department of Justice and executed a warrant for Saldivar, the man who was selling the tapes taken from the Lerma murder scene.
Among the items originally taken from Saldivar's house was a notebook with a calendar with an X written on August 8, 1977, the day Martina was murdered.
Groves also called in Wence Lerma to take blood samples. The results eliminated him as a suspect and came back positive on Saldivar. The detective also executed warrants on all the surviving Saldivar family members to eliminate them as suspects.
However, the suspect Art Saldivar had a twin brother who had died years before, and – to preempt Saldivar's attorney from blaming the dead brother for Martina's murder – Groves had the dead brother's body exhumed and samples taken from the bones and teeth. The results confirmed that the donor of blood and semen found on the victim and bed sheets was Art Saldivar.
On August 5, 2001, nearly 24 years later, Saldivar pleaded guilty to the murder and, rather than leaving it up to a jury to decide, agreed to serve a 36-year sentence that could be cut in half for good behavior.
Monterey County Deputy District Attorney Ann Hill said she agreed to the settlement to ensure that Saldivar will stay behind bars until he's at least 70 years old. Saldivar waived his right to appeal the case and to seek a shorter sentence.
"It's not enough time, but I understand the system," Wence Lerma told a reporter as he left the courthouse.
Lerma said he always believed people thought he had murdered his wife. Most of his in-laws have avoided him since Martina Lerma's funeral. Even after Saldivar had been caught, Wence Lerma's sister admitted even she "had my doubts."
"What this man did was cowardly", Irma Gonzales, the Lerma daughter's (Martha) cousin told a reporter. "We used to talk about all the fears she had. She talked about the bad man. For what he did to my cousin and my uncle, it's unfair."
Now remarried, in 2005, Wence Lerma came back to Brownsville with his daughter Martha. She died in 2011 after suffering a life filled with the dark memories of seeing her mother killed when she was a three-year child. Lerma now owns a landscaping business and has settled to live out his remaining years in the community that he left so long ago.
"I never imagined in my life when I left Brownsville that these things would happen to me," he said. "But now I just want to make a living at my work and live my life in peace. It's been a long road back home."
7 comments:
This is my uncle,aunt and cuzen Martha. Thank you to the officers who took time on the case and putting this murderer and rapest behind bars he should be there for life. This monster. May you rest in peace now Martina knowing justice was served and RIP Martha I love you miss you and forever you will be in my heart.
I remember this. I was 9 and remember my parents talking about this. They knew the family and said no way he killed his wife. God bless the Detective for bringing closure to this innocent family.
Well did they ever confirm there was a dentist appt. No. Also what a coincidence that he forgot his house key and had to climb through the bathroom window and the daughter said, the monster climbed through the window as well. Also if she was such and alert 3year old trying to wake her mother why didn't he have her open the door. Also why would the killer climb back out the bathroom window and not leave in a hurry through the front door. Also the DNA was never an exact match. Also the tapes and notebook why would a man who never had a terminate home be able to keep a calender and notebook for 20 years.
I remember when Lupita Martina’s mother told me she never blame wence, for the murder.
And Enrique Salas Martina’s brother was very mad when one of our co workers mentioned maybe Wance was guilty, I was close to Martina’s family and never hear any of them blame Wence for the crime, this is the first time I heard Martina’s family was giving bad time to Wence.
I remember exactly this awful day, and this wasn’t the first time somebody go to that apartment trough the window, my frien lived there before Martina’s murder and she call the cops because a man was trying to go in to the aparment
It’s sad how they depict the Salas family, this story is not accurate and there was never blame put on Wence. It’s a shame that after all of these years they do not let her Rest In Peace. The last annonomous blogger is correct. No one ever put blame on Wence. This story is more of Wence and it’s sad they had to use this tragedy to give him more attention.
Martina, the daughter suffered so much from all this. She was incapable to live her life, stuck in fear and even thought she had two beautiful daughters , she still never came out of that situation, I remember her really trying. The many times she came over my house to talk and try to be normal and be back from that tragedy, breaks my heart,,, that man didn’t just kill her mother, he took her as well and a mother to those girls,,, he should have been hung!
Wence is my uncle. My uncle was speaking on his experience. The Salas did stop talking to him either because of time or whatever the reason was. But he said it just how it was. Martha would visit the Salas here and there. They never until said it might of been him but he felt that was the reason they stayed away. The Salas are great people all our parents are compadres over a few of us. No negativity was meant for the Salas family.He was just speaking what he felt on his side. Yes Saldivar should have been hung he was a peeping Tom. While he was raping my aunt his wife was at the hospital in labor with their son.
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