Kathy and Katrina were robbed at gunpoint by Jesus Manuel Salgado in 2005. They are horrified that he's now accused of kidnapping and killing a Merced family.
www.latimes.com
A family describes being terrorized by man accused of kidnapping, killing 4 in Merced
When Kathy and her daughter Katrina first saw surveillance images of the man
accused of kidnapping and killing four members of a Merced family, they did not immediately recognize him.
Jesus Manuel Salgado, now 48, had aged significantly, and Kathy and Katrina weren’t sure he was the man who robbed them at gunpoint in their dark garage 17 years ago.
Nearly two decades ago, Salgado had worked for Kathy and Katrina’s family, which also owned a trucking company.
They noticed the methods in the two crimes seemed eerily similar: terrorize a family on their property at gunpoint and force them to follow orders under the threat of death.
“My heart is shattered for this family,” said Katrina, who asked that their last name not be used.
This week’s events took the women back to the night of Dec. 19, 2005.
Salgado had worked for their family’s trucking company but was fired in 2004 because the family suspected him of stealing money, she and her mother said.
Kathy and Katrina remembered Salgado as unfailingly polite, if quiet.
“It was always, ‘Yes, ma’am, no ma’am,’ ” Kathy said.
Katrina recalled mornings when he would come into their house before her father, Wade, drove Salgado to work.
“I never felt scared around him,” she said. “He was nice. I never put a fear with his face.”
Katrina was 16 and hanging out with a friend that night when she got a rare call from her father.
“Tell Mom to open the door ’cause I bought a rug,” Wade told her.
She didn’t know that Salgado had sneaked up behind her father as he arrived home and pulled a gun on him.
Salgado held the family at gunpoint, binding Katrina’s father’s hands with duct tape, she said. He rounded up the family as well as Katrina’s friend and took them to the garage, where the family kept a safe stocked with cash and jewelry, they said.
Kathy struggled with the safe’s lock, her fingers trembling as Salgado pointed the gun at the family, she said. Katrina lit the darkened room with the light from a phone, she said.
“I was so scared,” Kathy said. “And I expected to hear the shot as soon as [the safe] was open.”
The cash and jewels weren’t enough, though, Kathy said. Salgado wanted her wedding ring.
“You want my ring?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Katrina’s father had recognized his former employee, even though Salgado was wearing a mask, Katrina recalled.
“Don’t use his name,” he whispered to Kathy.
Salgado led the family to the backyard pool and made them jump in as he escaped, Kathy and Katrina said. He was caught a few days later after the family reported him to police.
Salgado was convicted in early 2007 of home invasion robbery with a gun, attempted false imprisonment and witness intimidation, Merced County prosecutors said. He served nearly 10 years in prison before getting paroled in 2015.
“Because of what he did to us, in his mind, he had to smarten up. He didn’t get away with it,” Katrina said.
This is just terrible. 
