Carmina Salcido will get her auctioned possessions back

Carmina Salcido said Wednesday she expects to get back all of the crated photographs, letters, books and other prized personal possessions that were auctioned last weekend by the Santa Rosa warehousing firm she'd failed to pay for storing her belongings.

Juan Rodriquez, the Windsor resident who on Saturday paid $333 for five unopened boxes of Salcido's property, told her he would return the items she wanted - but she would have to reimburse his expenses and cover at least part of his lost potential profit. He told her that would add up to $500.

Rodriquez said he also spoke pointedly to Salcido about the imperative that she pull her life together nearly three decades after her father, Ramon Salcido, slit her throat and those of her two sisters and also murdered their mother, their grandmother, their two school-age aunts and a winemaker with whom the killer had worked. Ramon Salcido is now on San Quentin's Death Row.

“I have feelings,” Rodriquez said. But, he said, “I told her that my background has been tough but I chose to go to a good path. I tried to better myself. Now I own a little business.”

“You have options,” added Rodriquez, who buys unpaid storage lots at auction and sells what items he can. “Just because something happened doesn't mean you have to ruin your life.”

A Cotati man who read Wednesday's Press Democrat story about the auctioning of Salcido's possessions contacted her and offered to pay to get them returned to her, and to store them until she can find a place to put them.

He, Salcido and Rodriquez agreed on Wednesday to meet Friday to make the exchange. Among the items Salcido said are in the storage crates are photographs of the six family members her father murdered, the cookbook used by both her late mother and grandmother, a Bible, her diary, her letters from the maternal grandfather who lost nearly his entire family to Ramon Salcido's killing spree and other items of sentimental value.

Also on Wednesday, the president of the moving and storage company that had warehoused Salcido's property and auctioned it for unpaid storage fees objected that the Press Democrat story on Wednesday did not describe the lengths to which the firm went to help and extend special treatment to Salcido.

Tab McBride, president of Alexander's Van & Storage on West Ninth Street, wrote in an email that the company had assisted Salcido by moving her at no cost several times, including the move last year from the Cotati apartment that with the help of donors she had occupied for several years.

“However,” McBride wrote, “there are times when charitable behavior becomes enabling behavior.”

He said in the email that when Salcido left the apartment she stated she would place her furniture, clothes and other possessions in a storage unit.

“However, she did not,” McBride wrote. “Instead, she left the county and abandoned her goods. Against our will, we were forced to store her things.”

Groups of people who were making contributions to Salcido paid the storage fees for two months, McBride said.

“I was in contact with her prior to the expiration of that period and she assured me she would get her things out” he said. “She never did.”

McBride shared an email he sent to Salcido a week before last Saturday's auction of unpaid storage lots. In it he wrote, “The certified letter we mailed you was returned. So, I thought I'd make this last attempt to let you know your things are scheduled to go to auction on Saturday the 20th.”

Salcido is living at present in her boyfriend's car with him and her dog. Asked what she wants to do with her life, she replied, “I'm hoping to get some stability.”

She said she wants to be able to spend more time with her daughter, Zophia, who is nearly 4 and has lived with her father in Sonoma Valley since authorities granted him physical custody in 2014.

Carmina Salcido said she needed to drive Wednesday night to San Francisco to move her own car, which broke down days ago near the Golden Gate Bridge.

“There's a way out,” she said. “This is like the rock bottom.

“The only way to move is up.”

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.