Carmina Salcido pleads for personal treasures lost at storage auction

Carmina Salcido had little left to lose when an auction at a storage warehouse this past weekend sold off the cookbook she’d received from her slain mother and grandmother, family photos of loved ones lost to her father’s 1989 rampage and other items of sentimental value.

“There were diaries I had been writing in since I was 7 years old,” said Salcido, 29.

She was just short of 3 when Ramon Salcido, now on San Quentin’s Death Row, cut her throat and killed her mother, both of her sisters, her grandmother, her two school-aged aunts and a Sonoma Valley winery co-worker in a massacre that stunned Sonoma County and much of the world nearly 27 years ago.

Among the items Salcido lost in Saturday’s storage-lot auction is the first lock of hair clipped from her daughter, Zophia, who is almost 4. Salcido lost physical custody of Zophia to the child’s father nearly two years ago. She said she is currently living in a car in Santa Rosa with her boyfriend and her dog.

Salcido said she received a phone call Saturday from a friend who was at an auction of unpaid or unclaimed storage lots at Alexander’s Van & Storage on West Ninth Street in Santa Rosa. At the auction, her friend spotted five storage containers with Salcido’s name on them.

Salcido said she had placed her furniture, much of her clothing and most of her other possessions in storage at Alexander’s last August, when she moved out of a rental in Cotati that she had occupied for three years.

By the time she got to the moving-and-storage firm on Saturday, the five storage boxes had been taken away by the man who placed the highest bid for them. Salcido said she was told only that his first name is Juan.

Salcido said she would like very much to speak with him about the return of several items that hold great personal value to her. Those include a Bible; the cookbook her late mother, Angela Richards Salcido, had received from her late grandmother, Marian Richards; a DVD of her mother practicing to be a model; some family jewelry and a pair of horse-head bookends that belonged to her mother.

There also are legal documents and “family photos, letters from my grandfather, stuff like that,” Salcido said.

She told of extenuating circumstances that left Alexander’s Van & Storage unpaid for the property she had stored there.

An employee of the company said Alexander’s tried to work with Salcido before placing her possessions up for auction. The employee said the man who bought Salcido’s lots is aware that she seeks the return of some items, but he makes a living buying and selling such possessions and he has told of having unsatisfying experiences dealing with people in Salcido’s situation.

Salcido said she hopes the buyer will contact her at carmina.salcido@gmail.com. She does not expect the man to return the items for free, she said.

“I would gladly reimburse him what he paid.”

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD.