New murder trial reopens six-year-old wounds for Delray widow

September 12, 2013|By Ben Wolford, Sun Sentinel

DELRAY BEACH — — Samuel Salomon died so abruptly, shot mistakenly in his van by bandits fleeing a robbery, that even today his widow still can't believe what happened.

"I saw a crack in the window," Yvonne Chava Salomon said. "I thought somebody threw a rock. I looked over at my husband, but he was already gone."

That was six years ago. The couple had been driving home from Hanukkah shopping. Seven men were eventually implicated in the Nov. 30, 2007, convenience store heist that led to the shooting. Five of them are serving life sentences.

But an appeals court recently decided to give one of the defendants a new trial, opening old wounds for Salomon, who lives in a 55-and-over community in a home filled with pictures of her only husband. In a black-and-white one, he's wearing the Army uniform from when they met in Casablanca. In another, he's carrying a loaf of bread from the bakery he owned.

Salomon spoke Wednesday after prosecutors called to say a new trial would happen. Attorneys do not expect her to have to testify, but she said she would if necessary.

The defendant is Geovany J. Ortiz Zuniga, 35, who allegedly helped arrange the robbery. Under the state's felony murder statute, anyone who participates in a felony that results in a homicide can be implicated in the death.

He was sentenced to several consecutive life sentences and also has other life sentences for other robberies. So even if he is found not guilty of first-degree murder this time, he will likely never walk free, Assistant State Attorney Cheryl Caracuzzo said.

On that Friday morning in November 2007, Ortiz Zuniga and the others drove up from Miami. Out where West Boynton Beach Boulevard turns to rural horse country, a man named Sian Kiat Koh managed his ex-wife's check cashing and convenience store, Three Amigos.

Koh was working that afternoon. Other customers were in the store. Four men drove up in a red Dodge Magnum and walked in with revolvers and semi-automatic pistols. They ordered everyone on the ground and zip tied two of the customers and took their wallets.

They stole $24,800 from the store and left.

Koh decided to follow them. He got into his Mercedes and chased the getaway car onto Florida's Turnpike. The robbers weren't expecting that, prosecutors said. They drove faster. Koh hit 90 mph trying to keep up.

The robbers exited at Atlantic Avenue but quickly hit bumper-to-bumper traffic. The Salomons were stuck in the same backup.

The Dodge Magnum swerved left and cut a wide U-turn. Someone in the back seat lowered a tinted window and squeezed off four bullets in Koh's direction. One flew harmlessly into the ground. Another hit a building. Another hit Koh's car. Another pierced the driver's side window of the Salomon's Ford Windstar, entered Samuel Salomon's armpit and halted in his spine.

Months later, Ortiz Zuniga was sitting in an interview room in Immokalee, a farming outpost in Collier County. A sheriff's deputy interpreted his Spanish for the Delray Beach police detective who asked the questions. Ortiz Zuniga admitted to having committed robberies with the other defendants, but much of the conversation was unclear.

In the ruling from the Fourth District Court of Appeal, the judges said they read the translated statements several times and found them "extremely difficult to follow."

"That really was the main evidence that tied Mr. Zuniga to the homicide," said Bernard Fernandez, the court-appointed attorney representing Ortiz Zuniga in his appeal.

Ortiz Zuniga's confession to previous robberies was admitted into evidence even though they had nothing to do with the charges he was facing in the robbery that led to Samule Salomon's death. The court decided Wednesday those statements must be stricken and the case retried.

"Zuniga's defense was that he did not know that a robbery was to take place," the judges wrote. "That defense was severely impacted by his admission that he had been involved in three other store robberies."

Caracuzzo, the prosecutor, says the new trial should begin within the next couple of months and shouldn't last more than a few days. Even with the statements about past robberies stricken from the evidence, she said Ortiz Zuniga's link to the crime remains clear.

"He knew what they were doing," she said.

The son of Polish Holocaust survivors, Samuel Salomon grew up in Cuba and moved to the U.S. at 14. He joined the Army and went to Morocco, where he met his bride. They lived in Paris and Brooklyn. He learned to bake and opened shops, but constantly gave away his cakes, his wife said. They had four boys.

"He was always helping people," Yvonne Chava Salomon said.

Time hasn't dulled the vivid memory of the crack in the window and the chaos that followed. When she talks about him, her voice falters. She has not remarried, she said. Who could make her as happy?

"I just had a dream with him last night," she said. "Every night.", 561-243-6602 or Twitter @benwolford

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