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The Case of Evaristo Salas
📻 Episode #436
🎙️ Hosted by Maggie Freleng
📅 Mar 18, 2024
About This Episode
Jose Arreola was shot to death inside a pickup truck on November 14, 1995, in Sunnyside, WA. Five months later, a police informant identified a local teenager, Evaristo Salas, as the shooter. He was arrested and taken to the adult jail. “I'm 15 years old, I look like I'm 12. I weigh about a hundred…
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The Case
Jose Arreola was shot to death inside a pickup truck on November 14, 1995, in Sunnyside, WA. Five months later, a police informant identified a local teenager, Evaristo Salas, as the shooter. He was arrested and taken to the adult jail. “I'm 15 years old, I look like I'm 12. I weigh about a hundred pounds,” Evaristo remembers. “I'm five foot and I'm just surrounded. And I'm scared as hell.” Despite the fact that there was no physical evidence tying Evaristo to the crime, he was convicted and sentenced to 32 years and nine months in prison.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/v47qe2-a-new-beginning
https://wainnocenceproject.org
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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:06:15“Speaker 2: and the neighborhood started kind of dividing, and the town Speaker 2: started dividing into little small sections of different gangs, and Speaker 2: it wasn't safe to walk around anymore. That warm feeling Speaker 2: that you had kind of went away and it was Speaker 2: replaced with fear, and it became almost a struggle each”
00:21:05“Speaker 3: I talk y'all? Now, it's not for reals, you know. Speaker 3: We were just in shock. And then I was the Speaker 3: one that got the lawyer. A sixteen year old looking Speaker 3: for a lawyer, come on, you know what I mean. Speaker 3: I did the best that I could, and I thought”
00:36:17“Speaker 4: The hypnosis yeah, I mean it would have. It would Speaker 4: totally have changed the case. The Washington law at that Speaker 4: time was that if you were hypnotized, anything from the Speaker 4: hypnosis on was not admissible, and so her identification of Speaker 4: Junior would have been tossed and then their only evidence”
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