Mexico Prepares to ‘Deport’ Salcido to Stand Trial in U.S. Murder Spree

MEXICO CITY —  Mexican authorities Thursday brought fugitive Ramon Salcido to Mexico City and prepared to “deport” him to stand trial in California in last week’s bloody slaying of six family members and his boss.

Although the Mexican-born Salcido apparently is still a citizen of Mexico, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office said he would be deported for illegal entry into the country.

“He is a resident of the United States, and he entered Mexico illegally,” said the spokesman, Fernando Arias.

“The United States has asked for him, and we understand that he has lived there for the last nine years. . . . If I am a U.S. resident, I renounce my rights as a Mexican citizen, and my obligation is to live under the laws of the United States,” he said.

Foreign Ministry sources disagreed, saying it is impossible for a Mexican citizen to enter his own country illegally and that Mexican residents of the United States do not give up their rights in Mexico.

Some Foreign Ministry officials argued that Salcido, 28, should be tried for the California killings in Mexico, which has no death penalty.

‘I Don’t See How . . .’

“I don’t see how the Mexican government can hand over a Mexican citizen to be killed, no matter how much of a criminal he is,” one source said.

Gene Tunney, district attorney in Sonoma County, where the killings occurred, has said he will seek the death penalty for Salcido. So far, Salcido faces four murder charges there in the deaths of his wife, Angela, 24; daughters, Sofia, 4, and Teresa, 1, and his boss at Grand Cru Vineyards, Tracey Toovey, 35. He faces two other charges of attempted murder in attacks on his daughter Carmina, 3, and another co-worker, Kenneth Butti, 33.

Authorities in Sonoma County said Salcido will also be charged with the slayings of his mother-in-law, Marian Louise Richards, 42, and Angela’s two sisters, Ruth, 12, and Maria, 8.

Salcido fled to Mexico after the killing spree last Friday and was arrested Tuesday night in Sinaloa state, near his grandmother’s home in the town of Guasave. In police custody, he confessed to the killings on Mexican television.

“I’m guilty. I killed them in the United States, and I expect to be tried there,” he said.

In the brief interview, parts of which were shown on U.S. television, Salcido also said he returned to Mexico to see his parents one last time.

Authorities attributed his rampage to jealousy, saying that Salcido believed that his wife was cheating on him with Toovey. A few days before the killings, Salcido’s wife was told that her husband had a child by a previous wife in Fresno and informed friends that she planned to seek an annulment of their 4-year-old marriage.

On Thursday, Federal Judicial Police accompanied Salcido from the Gulf of California seaport of Mazatlan aboard a Mexicana Airlines flight to Mexico City, where Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies were waiting to take him back to the United States.

Chewing gum and seemingly calm, Salcido said, “No, not really,” when a reporter for San Francisco television station KRON asked him during the flight if he had any remorse for the crime spree.

Dozens of agents surrounded Salcido, dressed in a blue shirt and casual slacks, as he was led from the airport terminal to a waiting car and taken to the attorney general’s office in Mexico City.

Salcido was shackled to another, unidentified prisoner at the rear of the Mexicana plane, said George Ramirez, a KRON producer who was on the flight.

“He was very tense. He was always moving his head around, looking,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez said he had a brief conversation in English with Salcido. When asked if he had anything to say to his surviving 3-year-old daughter, Salcido said, “No,” Ramirez said. Asked if he had any regrets, Salcido also said, “No.”

Asked about his motive, Salcido replied, “I’ll do all my explaining to U.S. authorities.”

Donald and Laurel Benson of Loveland, Colo., tourists who were aboard the flight, said they had no idea what the airport commotion was about.

“We thought that the president or somebody important was on the plane with all the FBI-looking types. It was exciting,” Laurel Benson said.

All day Thursday, U.S. and Mexican officials were optimistic that Salcido would soon be returned to the United States. Mexican officials insisted there were no legal obstacles to deportation and brushed off the controversy such a move is expected to generate.

A spokesman for President Carlos Salinas de Gortari said Salcido had “expressed his desire to be tried in the United States.” He also saw no problem with a deportation.

Mexican officials are opting for deportation to avoid a lengthy extradition hearing and prolonged controversy, sources from both countries said. An extradition treaty between the two countries does not obligate Mexico to turn over one of its own citizens.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman said the countries normally try to avoid the “long and cumbersome process” and, instead, law enforcement officials exchange wanted people at the border.

Asked about Salcido’s citizenship, the spokesman, who declined to be identified, said, “It’s up to them (Mexican officials) to decide his citizenship. The feeling is that they are going to consider his initiative to become a U.S. citizen.”

Salcido, who was born in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, became a permanent resident of the United States on Jan. 25, 1986, after marrying an American citizen. U.S. officials say they have no record of Salcido becoming an American citizen.

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Kevin Roderick in Los Angeles, Dan Morain and Norma Kaufman in San Francisco and Ronald B. Taylor in Santa Rosa.