Death In Dayton
For six years, we’ve been investigating a DEATH IN DAYTON. A mother is fighting to get justice that’s eluded her because of an incompetent police department. We want justice for Allyssa Salazar.
The wheels of justice often turn slowly, but a criminal case can often be compromised, jeopardized, even out right destroyed in the very few moments after someone is killed because of police misconduct or simple incompetence. For one mom, justice has been literal dead end in Dayton, Texas. She hasn’t forgotten and neither have we.
“Got one occupant, looks like his head is pinned underneath the car,” said Officer Chowns.
A lifeless young woman, pinned underneath a car.
“Got no signs of life I can’t check the pulse without climbing in the car. and I don’t want to do that because the car is on his head,” said Officer Chowns.
Her name was Allyssa Salazar, and she was left for dead.
“They left the car on top of her. My daughter was crushed to death. She broke every bone in her body. I couldn’t even have a funeral,” said Amanda Morales.
Allyssa’s story made headlines years ago when it happened.
But 6 years later, Allyssa’s mom Amanda Morales is still fighting to get justice, and she deserves it.
“If you could call heaven right now, what would you say to Allyssa?” asked Peyton Heussner.
“That I love her, that my heart is broken, that I miss her so much. I want her, I want her to come back,” Morales said.
In July of 2020, Amanda’s 27-year-old daughter, Allyssa Salazar went drinking with friends and never returned home.
She had been at bombshells with her boyfriend and this woman, Bernice Montano.
Snapchat videos from that night show they were drinking heavily, beer, mixed drinks, shots. Look at how many drinks Bernice had.
Allyssa started to leave with her boyfriend, but Bernice chased after her, and said stay a little longer, I’ll take you home.
Allyssa agreed. After a couple of more drinks, Allyssa got into Bernice’s car. It was a fatal decision.
“How couldn’t she not be drunk? If all the witnesses said she was doing shots, they were going outside smoking a joint,” Morales said.
Bernice was driving north on 146 when she lost control. The car that flew over a ditch, and flipped multiple times.
Allyssa was ejected through the sunroof. The car landed on top of her.
Body camera footage shows Dayton police arriving but the driver missing. Bernice didn’t show up until about seven minutes later, and her absence was never questioned.
She starts to tell her story to police.
“I was going to brake really hard because I didn’t expect them to be as close as they were. And when I braked, it braked for maybe a mile and a half and then it just started flipping,” Montano said.
Despite seeing Bernice throwing up and liquor bottles scattered all over her car, Dayton police didn’t question her story, and they never even gave her a sobriety test.
Listen to the lies she tells officers about where she was before the crash.
“She was drinking with some guy. and she called me to pick her up because he left her. And then I picked her up,” Montano said.
But this Snapchat video, it proves otherwise.
Bernice had ignored our phone calls. So we made an unscheduled visit.
“I’m sorry. You’re making me, like, you’re bringing this old stuff up,” Montano said.
Avoiding responsibility for killing her own friend.
“I went back on the video and he’s like you didn’t have not one drink he was like so I can’t do nothing about it,” Montano said.
“Yeah, because there’s a video of y’all drinking at, I think it was at Bombshells,” said Peyton Heussner.
The police report also states one of the men they were drinking with was this guy, Eric Bonilla. He would later confirm with police that “the two girls showed up together, drinking shots of alcohol before the bar was closing.”
“It hurts, the way she’s lying to the police, and the way she threw up everywhere, and they’re just walking over the throw up, how they were spitting at the crime scene. Nothing was picked up. It’s just a horrible, horrible situation,” said Amanda Morales.
Grey Goose, Fireball bottles, weed, a gun, and $1000 in cash were all found scattered around Bernice’s crashed car, but Dayton PD never collected the evidence and they clearly saw it. The body camera proves it. They even took pictures of the evidence.
Bernice was never asked to do a breath test. And despite having an active warrant, she was never arrested.
“She didn’t go to jail. She hasn’t not even spent one day in jail. She had an active warrant. She had drugs, alcohol. She had a bag full of money, thousands of dollars. She was unlawfully carrying of a weapon. She was intoxicated,” Morales said.
Instead of a cop car, Bernice got in an ambulance headed to the hospital, where she fled before getting checked out.
“I want Bernice in jail. You took a human life. You lying about everything. You know you killed her. You killed her,” Morales said.
“It was an accident. I mean, if you get in a car wreck, should you be in trouble because it was an accident,” Montano said.
The answer is yes, especially if you’ve been drinking.
In body camera footage from that night, A Dayton police Sergeant Head can be seen spitting tobacco around the car. That, Sergeant Head, contaminated the crime scene.
And because officers didn’t collect enough evidence, the Dayton PD investigation for criminally negligent homicide was doomed from the start.
Detective Terry Hughes was assigned to the case too. Read his report after he didn’t obtain the black box on the car which could have verifies how fast the car was driving. The car was then destroyed.
The former city manager in Dayton wrote this complaint listing the “failures of the Salazar case” by Dayton police chief Robert Vine.
The failure to use professional training, properly investigate, collect evidence. Today, Vine is a city manager in Mount Pleasant, Texas
The complaint also states officers treated Ms. Morales, the mother of the dead girl, poorly during the investigation.
“I was treated very disrespectful. I was lied too. I was yelled at. I was belittled. All because I want justice for my daughter. All because I wanted to know what happened. Why didn’t they do anything?” Morales said.
And Amanda believes it was because her daughter was Hispanic.
At our press conference in Dayton five years ago Amanda joined another mother whose daughter Maddie Quiroz had been paralyzed from the waist down in another crash totally botched by Dayton police.
“Quite frankly what that police department has done to these mothers is just disgusting and there’s really no other word for it,” said Wayne Dolcefino.
“Dayton is very racist. They really don’t like Hispanics. They’re, the population is mostly white, which it doesn’t matter to me what color you are, but they seem to treat us different,” Morales said.
The Dayton police chief lost his title at the time, his pay reduced and he was put on probation.
But that didn’t last long. Just 10 days later, Vine filed this official complaint against Melancon.
As a result, the interim city manager, David Willard, reinstated Chief Vine’s position with no reduction in pay.
“It’s not right what they’re doing. It’s not right that nobody’s been held accountable. How?” Morales said.
A death investigation was presented to a Liberty County grand jury, but it was no billed, essentially eradicating all chances for accountability.
“How can you kill a person and get away with it? With all the evidence,” Morales said.
Shane Burleigh is now the Dayton police chief. He was also on the scene of the crash that night seix years ago, as a lieutenant, the highest-ranking Dayton officer on the scene.
“Do you think that this investigation was handled properly?” said Peyton Heussner.
“No ma’am, it was not,” said Shane Burleigh.
But Officer Chowns was on the scene too. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with how it was handled.
“Do you think that the case was handled properly?” said Peyton Heussner.
“To the best of our abilities on that night, yes,” said Officer Chowns.
“Why wasn’t she given a sobriety test after she had killed somebody?” said Peyton Heussner.
“You know what? I don’t think I’m going to answer your questions,” Chowns said.
But there was another chance for accountability after this botched police investigation. It was in the hands of this guy, Jesse Prado of JPPI Investigations.
“Why won’t you answer our questions?”
Prado is notoriously known for his report on the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Despite the clear evidence of a gross failure of police to react, attack the shooter, Prado said the officers acted in “good faith” and recommended that all officers should be exonerated and cleared of all wrongdoing for their obvious lack of proper response in the shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers.
“Her son’s birthday should’ve been Tuesday. Answer her! His name was Xavier Lopez. You’re not going to talk to his mother, Felisha?”
“He ruined it for me. He ruined for me, he wrote a malicious, harmful and false report,” Morales said.
In his report on the Dayton crash, Prado states he did not see any evidence Sergeant Head picked up a liquor bottle, even though he’s captured doing just that on body camera video.
Prado was paid more than 12,000 dollars to investigate complaints made against officers as a third-party independent investigator.
“Prado’s only recommendation for the Dayton police officers was more training. He didn’t even mention investigating the alleged Hispanic discrimination,” Heussner said.
No one lost their job. No one was even demoted. And the record of their incompetencies was eventually erased from their records.
No justice for Allyssa Salazar. No justice for Amanda Morales.
“Who do I believe with all this corruption? Who do I turn to? I don’t know. I don’t know, but by the grace of God, I’m going to keep fighting,” Morales said.
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