Room 813, Part 2: The Trial

As the years went by, Det. Ray Rodriguez kept working on the Orellana case. Bill Lagattuta reports on what came of his work.

To understand the physics of the fall, or the push, detectives configured a fire hose dummy to drop from the hotel balcony. They also consulted Hollywood stuntmen and biomechanical engineers.

Their conclusion: "Some force had to be applied beyond the railing to allow that body to go from where he said that she went over to where she landed… a good 13 feet beyond." Orellana's body was found directly below the left end of her 8th floor balcony.

The lack of fingerprints or any disturbances on the rail that would support Salazar's version of events that Sandra Orellana had positioned herself on the balcony was more proof for Rodriguez: "The rail was completely covered with dust. And there was only two spots of disturbances. And it was what you did when you first walked out. You came out here and you just instinctively put your hands on the railing and you looked over, which anybody would do that comes out here."

Then the district attorney who refused to press charges against Salazar was voted out of office. Rodriguez seized the moment. The new DA agreed to file charges. In March 2001, Rodriguez went to Houston and arrested Salazar.

In an exclusive interview while out on bail, Salazar talked with 48 Hours, his wife looking on, to explain what happened that night. Then as now, Salazar was married to Beth and has two children.

"I was with another woman. I was… I was in a room I shouldn't have been in. But I didn't cause her to fall off that balcony," he says.

He denies accusations that he harassed Sandra: "I wasn't attracted to her. I mean, I was a married man. I had just gotten married and recently had a baby."

The fateful night in L.A. began with a business dinner at a nearby restaurant: it also happened to be Sandra's 27th birthday.

Salazar says they each had four drinks over dinner, and some champagne when they checked in. "She was intoxicated. I mean, she had several drinks, just like me. I was intoxicated, I had several drinks." Sandra's blood alcohol level was .22, four times the legal limit.

A business colleague, who had been with them at dinner, drove them back to their hotel and dropped them off. Salazar says they went into the bar and ordered some drinks. After ordering a few drinks, they began dancing, he says. "Started hugging, started laughing, started having a good time. Started kissing," he says.

William Boone was also a guest in the hotel that night. He says he saw the couple together twice. "Both times they looked, they looked happy, to be in each other's company," Boone says.

"We're talking about two adult people who were intoxicated and doing thing they weren't supposed to be doing," Salazar says.

When they got back to the 8th floor, Salazar says, she was the sexual aggressor. At the door to her room, he says, she opened the door and pulled him into the room.

They moved to the bed, where they were "becoming intimate," he says. "Then she says, 'It's hot.' and she gets up and goes out to the balcony. And I get up and I follow her." He says the time was just after midnight.

"We get out on the balcony. She's facing outside, I come out behind her and, and she says, 'Hold on.' And she turns around, she lifts her leg and turns around, put it on the railing, and lifts herself up. As she lifts herself up, she goes over, in one balance… she falls over."

"I stood there probably for, 15 seconds and said, 'This just didn't happen.' And, I said, 'I have to get out of here.' And I grabbed all my clothes, and I ran to my room." He says he prayed and cried over the next nine hours.

But he didn't call 911. Rodriguez thinks not making that call shows Salazar's guilt. "There's no doubt in my mind that Sandra Orellana did not go over that balcony on her own."

Last October, Salazar's trial began. If convicted, he would face a sentence of 25 years to life.

Prosecutor Bob Foltz said that making the case against Salazar was a challenge. "He's the only witness. We have no one to say exactly what happened."

The prosecution theory is that Salazar carefully orchestrated his move on Sandra Orellana that night: First he got her drunk, then he got her into the room. But when he tried to have sex with her, she fought back and scratched his face. Salazar became angry and retaliated.

"Then he simply decided to make it look like a suicide by taking her out and putting her over the rail."

Defense Attorney Mike Coughlan said both Sandra and Robert were drunk that night, and that her death was a horrible accident. "Her own reckless actions led to her death," he says.

For the prosecution, the main witnesses were the investigators. Rodriguez came out of retirement to assist Foltz in the prosecution and to testify. Rodriguez told the jury about finding Salazar's underwear and shoe, and how he confronted Salazar.

The defense said the fall was an accident and that Orellana wasn't fighting Salazar at all. Boone testified that the pair seemed happy when he saw them that night.

Heidi Robbins, a county criminologist, who testified about the physical evidence, seemed to help the defense under cross-examination. Coughlin got her to admit that nothing she found in Room 813 indicated that a struggle had taken place.

Using computer graphics, biomechanical engineer Carley Ward made the argument for the defense, that because Sandra's body ended up so close to the hotel, she couldn't have been pushed or thrown…if she had, she would have ended farther out on the terrace.

But the star witness was Salazar. He answered questions, sometimes emotionally, sometimes not. Observers in the court remarked how easily Salazar seemed to be able to shift emotional gears. "Mr. Foults, as God as my witness, I did not murder her," he told the DA at one point.

The jury took nine hours to reach a verdict: not guilty

For Salazar there was happiness mixed with sorrow: "We pray for her family. We pray for our family. And it was just a tragic accident and we're real sorry about what happened."

One juror summed up the difficulty of the case. "We didn't necessarily believe him, but we didn't have the evidence to prove a crime," he said.

The Orellana family was left in pain. And for Rodriguez, it was a bitter end to a long battle. He thinks Salazar got away with murder. "I still feel that he is the one that is responsible for this death… He was found not guilty of murder by a jury. And I still think that he did it."