The Neighbor Across The Street

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1:19My dad passed away in 2013. His last words to me were, whatever it takes, you protect your mom and you fight to keep Steve in prison.

1:34Katina Salerno was only 18 years old when she was shot in the head and killed by her boyfriend. With the flash of a gun, my whole world just got turned upside down. Stephen Burns was convicted of murdering Katina Salerno in 1979. He just looks dangerous. It's like a killer face. If you looked at his eyes, there is nothing behind him. He has no soul. My name is Nina Salarno and I am the sister of Katina. Stephen Burns was sentenced to 17 years to life. In 1990, after just 10 years, Stephen Burns came up for parole. My parents, my sister Regina, myself, and friends and family traveled to Vacaville State Prison to protest his release.

2:23As a father, I closed her casket and buried my 18-year-old child who was murdered by this animal. Oh, God damn it.

2:36This is a body bag of my daughter. This is what you did to her, Steve.

2:4546 years since Katina's death has not diminished one ounce of that pain.

2:54Where are we going? We are heading to the San Joaquin County district attorney's office. I am shaky. Very shaky. You are right now? How many parole hearings have you attended? This will be number 13. You've been at every single one of these? Yes. Every single one. As Steve Burns heads into his 13th parole hearing, what are you thinking? I'm thinking that he's no longer a risk to commit the kind of crime he committed coming into prison. I've known Steve Burns for over two decades. You don't think he's a danger. I don't think he's a serious danger if he were to be released. If somebody looked at this and said, it's been 45 years, is this now just about vengeance?

3:48No, it's not. Keeping Steve in jail is not about vengeance. For me, it's fear. Fear for my family. I think he has a very good chance of being found suitable. Isn't it likely at one of these hearings he's going to get out? That's my biggest fear, is him getting out.

4:17Aaron Moriarty reports, the boy across the street. It shook the entire campus at the University of the Pacific. A freshman on her first day of college in 1979, found unconscious, bleeding from her head, in a remote area of the school. Her name was Katina Salarno. Harriet and Mike Salarno were getting ready for bed when the phone rang at their San Francisco home. Mike answered it. His tone signaled the news. And I said, what's wrong? He says, Katina's been shot. And she's in the emergency room. The Solano's two younger daughters, Regina and Nina, rushed to their side. Then the phone rang again.

5:16And they said, your daughter passed away. I don't think it can be described in words what it's like to watch your mom collapse crying. My dad, a very, very strong man, but you could tell he was shaken to the core. And life just stopped. I literally, life stopped. Completely stopped. You got the keys to the car? Yeah. 48 Hours first met the Solano family in 1990. Harriet and Mike were making their weekly visit to Katina's resting place. I think coming out here and being able to talk to Katina gives me a peace of mind also that I can still communicate with my daughter, that it isn't the final end.

6:12At the time, Katina had been gone for 10 years, and her family was just embarking on a decades-long journey to keep her killer behind bars. It's the first skirmish in a long, long battle that this week started today. It was not a journey they had ever expected to make. Harriet, did you and Michael really have kind of the perfect life as parents, three kids? Yes. To answer you yes, we were so blessed. Both Mike and Harriet were juvenile commissioners, assigned by the city of San Francisco to mentor boys and girls. Their arms and home were always open, says Nina, the youngest daughter. I think the best way to describe it is it typified a middle-class American family that valued their faith, valued family, valued community as well.

7:15They spent blissful summer days at the cabin in the mountains. Three carefree sisters, with Katina leading the pack, says Regina, younger by 18 months. She was the heart and soul of the family. She had such a good heart. She loved being the older sister. I think the best way to describe Katina is she is that person every person she'll meet in their life. She just brought an air of kindness. When Katina was 14, a new family, the Burns, moved in across the street in San Francisco. There were four children, a girl and three boys, all about the same age as the Solano sisters. And we were spying on them, so we all made a big batch of cookies, giggled all the way across the street, knocked on the door, introduced ourselves and gave them a batch of homemade cookies.

8:16Soon, the friendship between the oldest Solano sister and the second oldest Burns brother blossomed into a young love. Katina and Stephen Burns started dating in the 10th grade. How would you describe Stephen Burns? Well, he was the big brother I never had. And for me, it was like, God, I have a big brother. And I just thought he was great because we got to go to the football games. Steve, who went to an all-boys Catholic school, was a star athlete and captain of the football team. He and Nina, a basketball and volleyball player, bonded over their shared love of sports. I love Steve. I idolized him.

9:03He was a great athlete. He coached my team, so he would help me with my shot. And he took the time to do that. Mike took Steve, who had a difficult relationship with his own dad, under his wing. He not only mentored him, he gave him a job at his TV store delivering TVs And my dad, who embraces everybody, brought him in and treated him as a son Mike trusted him completely, says Regina They all did Did you ever see anything between Steve and Katina that worried you? I have to tell you, I've given hours and hours of thought of that Why didn't I see this? What was it? You sometimes are close to people.

9:49You don't always see little signs or you ignore them. But with hindsight, the sisters say, there were signs. In her senior year, Katina, who had been accepted to the University of the Pacific, wanted to break up with Stephen. But he wasn't having it, says Regina. He started threatening her. He said that Steve said that if I broke up with him, he would kill me. But at the time, neither sister took him seriously. Neither one of you told your parents. We just figured he was just saying it. And because of what our relationship was over the years, why would we believe that? He enjoyed being part of their family.

10:34Why would he destroy a family that he loved? Mike and Harriet never heard about that incident. Never imagined that the life they knew would come to an end. We thought we were doing good and everything would be fine. And never thought the boy across the street would murder our daughter.

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12:47When Katina arrived at the University of the Pacific, UOP, in September of 1979, she thought she had left Stephen Burns behind for good. He said he was going to Santa Clara University, and she was going to begin pursuing her longtime goal. She knew she was going to become a dentist. She knew exactly what she was going to do. It was planned for her. That was her goal, her dream. But Katina's excitement was cut short soon after the Salernos got to campus. We were staying overnight, and we went to the hotel lobby. And then all of a sudden, there's Steve and his sister and family. We're like, what are you doing here?

13:31And he says, well, I'm going to UOP.

13:36That's really the first time I heard a lot of panic in her voice, because that just caught her off guard. For the first time, Katina turned to her father for help. My dad walked up to him and said, okay, Steve, leave Katina alone. She has told you that. You guys move on to your own ways, be friends, and know that I will always be here for you. The Solarnos headed back to San Francisco, and Katina and Steve each moved into their respective dorm rooms on opposite sides of the campus. Steven's new roommate, Les Serpa, remembers walking in the room and seeing Katina's picture everywhere. He said his girlfriend was at Pacific as well.

14:22There were pictures of her and him together.

14:29More pictures than I had ever seen before, but they were everywhere on his desk. He didn't mention that she had wanted to break up? Not at all. It was all very positive. Everything was great. Across campus, Katina was settling in with her new roommate, Joanne Marks. Then came a knock on the door. It was Steve Burns. After he left, Katina told me that he wanted to meet with her later in the evening for the last time. She was not looking forward to meeting with him, but she was looking forward to it being the last time. She believed that he would stop bothering her. Joanne says Steve came by to pick up Katina about 7.45 that evening.

15:16I said something like, you know, have a good evening, and he kind of just grunted. Katina told Joanne she would see her later, but that later never came. I think it was probably close to here. A freshman out for a walk named Kevin Arlen would be the one to discover why. It was around 9.45 at night when he saw something on the sidewalk. And I kept walking and realized that's a person and figured I needed to go get some help. Kevin, unnerved by what he saw, rushed back to his dorm and got a resident advisor. They both ran back to the scene. And we got up to her and it was a young lady that was laying on the ground and she was still alive.

16:11She was unconscious, but there was a big pool of blood around her head. Kevin would later find out it was 18-year-old Katina Rose Salarno. She had been shot in the back of the head. Her arms were twisted in a way that I never thought the human body could twist. Do you remember her face? I just remember the blood. That had to be heartbreaking. Yeah, I knew it was tragic. I knew it was very serious, a very serious injury. While the two men waited for the ambulance to arrive, Stephen Burns returned to his dorm room, where his roommate Les was watching Monday night football. He went and laid on the bed, propped up a pillow, and started watching the game.

17:03Did he seem nervous at all? He was not nervous at all. The ambulance arrived around 10 p.m. and rushed Katina to St. Joseph's Hospital. She was still alive, barely. Years later, her family would learn she was not alone. Randy Haight, at the time a young patrol officer who was at the crime scene, met his partner at the hospital. I said, where's the family? And he says, she's a student UOP from out of town. They're not here. I said, is anybody with her? He says, haven't seen anybody. It's just us. Katina Rose was pronounced dead at nine minutes after midnight. We made the decision to sit with Katina until the coroners came.

17:52Even though she had passed, I just didn't feel right leaving her alone. I prayed. I said a prayer for her. By then, homicide detectives were at Katina's dorm talking to Joanne. I told the police that Katina had been picked up by Steve Burns, and I told them which dorm he was from. Les and Steven were in their room when there was a knock on the door. I opened the door, and, you know, there's five guys out there in suits. So I stepped out a little bit, say hello, and I could see at the end of each hall was full of police officers. And then they asked to search our room. They went through everything, every bag, every drawer, everything.

18:36What were they looking for? I didn't know at the time, but later I learned they were looking for a weapon, for a gun. Stephen Burns was pulled from the room and taken to the Stockton Police Station, where he was fingerprinted and photographed. Officer Haight recalls seeing him there. He did not appear to be upset in any way. Burns told the police he didn't meet Katina on campus that night, and that he spent the evening in his dorm room, watching Monday Night Football. Without the gun, it was never found. The police didn't have enough evidence to hold him. Stephen Burns was released. His father took him back to San Francisco.

19:25The police didn't publicly name a suspect, but Harriet Solano didn't need a name. She already knew it. I just said to Mike, it's Steve, Mike. It's Steve. I don't know why. I just had that feeling. After talking to the family, the police learned that Stephen had threatened to kill Katina if she broke up with him. Two days after the murder of Katina Rose Salarno, Stephen Burns was arrested at his home just across the street from where Katina grew up. I remember sitting up in the window, watching them walk him out in handcuffs and putting him in the patrol car. My whole world got taken from me. and really the flash of a gun.

20:17I mean, everything was God.

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23:37Learning to live without their daughter has been a lifelong journey for Katina's parents. One crippled by what-ifs, Mike Salarno never stopped blaming himself. He felt that as a father, he let her down. For decades, Katina's sisters have also grappled with regret, wishing they had told their parents about Stephen Byrne's threatening to kill Katina. What if I had said something? What if we told them about the threat? You're living with guilt, too. And it doesn't change after 40 years. It's the hole in my heart for missing my sister and what we could have had together.

24:29In the wake of the murder, each member of the family retreated into their own private grief. I didn't even care. So I even lived. I wanted to join Katina. I didn't know what to do anymore. My whole plan, my whole world, my whole bubble blew up. I mean, I never felt that kind of hurt. I lost my entire family because they fell apart. It was painful enough that my sister had been murdered, but the person that I viewed as a brother and loved betrayed me by taking her life. The Salernos would learn that the young man they had trusted had stolen a gun from Mike's store weeks before Katina's murder. You believe he planned that murder?

25:20Yes. The fact that he stole the gun prior, There was no reason for the stealing of the gun otherwise. They came to believe Stephen may have been planning to use that gun to kill Katina, even before she left for college. The night before we took her to UOP, I heard this noise outside. And it was Steve Burns pacing in front of the bedroom window. He had a big white towel wrapped around his left hand. Regina says Burns tried to climb up the side of their house and enter through the window of the bedroom the girls shared. But Katina told him to leave. And she said, no, I'm not opening the window. Go to bed, Steve.