Post Mortem | The Neighbor Across The Street

**Anne-Marie Green** (0:09)
Welcome back to Post Mortem, I'm your host, Anne-Marie Green, and today we are speaking with 48 Hours correspondent, Erin Moriarty, about the case of Catina Rose Salerno.
In 1979, Catina was shot on campus at the University of the Pacific in California.
It was the first day of her freshman year, and the assailant was her high school boyfriend, Steven Burns. Catina was just 18 years old at the time. Now, Burns was convicted of second degree murder in 1980, and he's been in prison for four decades. Catina's family wants to keep it that way. They have attended every single parole board hearing, 13 in total, to advocate against his release. So Erin is joining us now. Erin, thank you so much.

**Erin Moriarty** (0:57)
Well, I'm very happy to be here. Thank you, Anne-Marie, because this case, as you're going to hear, was eye-opening on so many different levels. I've seen it all, but I hadn't seen this, and so I want to talk about it.

**Anne-Marie Green** (1:10)
Yeah, we don't talk often about this sort of component of the criminal justice system, the parole system. So I'm looking forward to digging into it. I do want to remind everyone that if you haven't already listened to this episode of 48 Hours, you can find it in your podcast stream just above this one. Go ahead, go listen, and then come on back.
Catina Salarno and Steven Burns, they were high school sweethearts. They lived across the street from each other. But when Catina tried to break up with him, Burns threatened to kill her. She left and she went to college, and she was absolutely shocked when he turned up at the same college as her. They had discussed this before, and he was supposed to be going to another college. They go off to their separate norms to settle in, but he asks to speak with her, and she agrees to do so. She tells her roommate, I'll be back. She never comes back.
What I found just as a journalist, very impressive is the sheer number of people you all were able to track down. From decades ago, we're talking about Catina's roommate, the then young student who stumbled upon Catina fighting for her life in the middle of campus. The patrol officer who stayed in her hospital room because he did not want her to be alone. Talk to me about how you all managed to get in contact with all of these people and convince them to participate.

**Erin Moriarty** (2:46)
It wasn't me.
I'm as impressed as you are. We have these amazing producers, people who were willing to dig. As you point out, they didn't go back 45 years.
They managed to find so many people from that time. What that allowed us to do with this story was bring the past alive in a way that is remarkable, but also heartbreaking. As you mentioned, Randy Haight, who was the patrol officer, young back then, 45 years ago, and it's so moving to hear, when he gets to the hospital, he's wondering why no one in the family is there, but that's because they're in San Francisco. She's a student at the college and her parents can't get there yet, and so he doesn't leave her. He and another officer stay there until she dies and until the coroner gets there, and it's so moving. He's still friends with the family and even went to the very last parole hearing. Wow.
And then to be able to talk to these now grown up roommates of both Catina and Steven Burns. And I think what really hit me was that event so struck Steven Burns' roommate less, who really only knew him for a day, realized this was the first day of college, really. And he comes back with two really interesting stories is, one of course is that Steven had already come into that room and set up a shrine to Catina. And so I had asked him and I said, well, did he happen to mention that she had broken up with him? And he goes, no. He said, I saw more pictures than I'd ever seen. And also I was struck by the fact that less had told us that he had been watching Monday Night Football when Steven came back. But Steven told the police he had been there all night. So that gives you a real sense right away from the beginning who Steven Burns was.

**Anne-Marie Green** (4:50)
Absolutely. The other thing that kind of was really brought home to me by seeing all these people is the amount of time that has passed and like who Catina could have been. You know, because like here they are, they're all grown up. They've lived whole lives, whole careers like, wow, who would she have been if she had been allowed to sort of live these next four decades? You know?