In murder retrial, Lynnwood man gets 20-year sentence, again

Published 3:50 pm Wednesday, September 25, 2019

EVERETT — For the second time, a Snohomish County judge sentenced Encarnacion “EJ” Salas to 20⅓ years in prison for stabbing a friend to death, while the dying man’s mother tried to fight him off.

Superior Court Judge Bruce Weiss oversaw Salas’ first murder trial in 2015. It ended in a verdict of guilty to second-degree murder, but the state Court of Appeals tossed out the conviction because of technical errors by the state and the defense.

Weiss presided over a retrial this month, where attorneys were careful to avoid repeating the same legal miscues.

Salas stabbed Jesus “Jesse” Cardenas Lopez to death while visiting him on the night of Oct. 24, 2014, at an apartment off 164th Street SW near Lynnwood. The men were neighbors in the early stages of a gay relationship.

According to Salas’ statements in court records, he’d told Cardenas Lopez he did not feel ready for sex. That night Cardenas Lopez drunkenly touched Salas in an intimate way, according to Salas.

The men fought on a third-floor balcony. Salas stabbed Cardenas Lopez over and over when the scuffle ended up in the kitchen. This month Cardenas Lopez’s mother testified through a Spanish interpreter that she tried to pry away the attacker. Her son bled to death from many wounds, in spite of efforts of neighbors who rushed to help.

The jury in the second trial reached the same verdict: guilty of second-degree murder with a deadly weapon, but deadlocked on first-degree murder.

On Wednesday, the judge handed down the same sentence as before. Weiss said he was struck by testimony in the second trial that had not been elicited before.

“In the first trial,” the judge said, “the medical examiner did not testify the way he did this time, that essentially every single wound that Mr. Lopez had — two on his chest, the four down his side, two in his throat — all occurred at the time when Mr. Lopez was incapable of moving, or physically restrained.”

It suggested Cardenas Lopez was defenseless. Salas’ attorneys argued self-defense in both trials. In the first trial, Salas testified Cardenas Lopez attacked him with the knife, and that he managed to wrestle it away from him. He didn’t take the witness stand in the second trial, but a jury heard from the earlier transcript. Jurors did not believe the self-defense claim.

On Wednesday, the judge said the evidence was inconsistent with that assertion.

After killing his friend, Salas jumped from a balcony and hitched a ride from the scene.

“He was in shock, he was scared, he took off,” defense attorney Phil Sayles told the judge.

Sheriff’s deputies caught Salas when he returned to his apartment the next day. He’d packed survival gear into a bag.

“The statement was that Mr. Salas was scared, and that’s true,” Weiss said Wednesday.

He wasn’t scared for his physical safety, though. The jury found he was scared because he’d just committed murder, and he was afraid of being caught. Deputy prosecutor Tyler Scott argued the defendant showed an “egregious lack of remorse.”

At the second trial, prosecutors weren’t allowed to present testimony that Salas chuckled at the hospital when he told medical staff he’d killed someone.

In prison, Sayles said, the defendant has been a model citizen. He asked the judge to consider his good conduct since 2014, in handing down his sentence. The defense suggested a prison term of 12½ years. Instead the judge sentenced Salas to the maximum allowed under state guidelines.

Afterward, Sayles asked the judge to sign a notice that Salas would appeal again.

Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.