Kriti Mehrotra
In the fall of 1979, 18-year-old Catina Rose Salarno was found dead in a secluded area of the University of the Pacific on her very first day as a student. The shocking discovery left the entire community of Stockton, California, baffled to the core. She was shot in the back of her head at point-blank range before being left to bleed to her death. Thankfully, though, it didn’t take long for her killer to be identified as she had made it known she was meeting him that evening “for the last time” – her ex-boyfriend, Steven John Burns. Through interviews and first-hand accounts of the people involved in the case, CBS’ ’48 Hours: The Boy Across the Street’ delves deep into the details of the investigation and the ultimate conviction of the perpetrator.
Steven Burns and Catina Rose Salarno Were Neighbors Turned Lovers
It was in 1977 when Steven Burns and his family moved into the suburban home right across the street from the Salar nos in San Francisco, shortly following which they became acquainted. The truth is that he didn’t have a great relationship with his father, so these neighbors essentially took him in and treated him as their own, especially after he became involved with Catina Rose. They were both 15/16-year-old sophomores at the time, yet while she was a quiet one who attended an all-girls school, he was a true athlete as he ultimately even captained his football team.
Therefore, as time passed, Steven grew close to not only Catina but also her immediate family to such an extent that they explicitly trusted him – he also landed a job at her father’s local shop. In fact, it seemed like everything was going great for them since they gradually started making plans for their future, too, that is, until the aspiring dentist realized he was not the one for her. She actually called off their romance for good by the end of their senior year, by which point his behavior towards her had allegedly done a 180 as he couldn’t comprehend her wanting to leave.
According to Catina’s family, Steven became quite aggressive towards her once she started to pull away in the hopes they could amicably part ways before she left for her further education. There were even incidents where he threatened to take her life, yet neither she nor her loved ones took his words seriously since they believed he was just wishing for things to get better. One of her sisters, Regina Salarno-Novello, has since also asserted that the familial relationship they had all cultivated over the years is another reason they didn’t worry, unaware of what was to come.
Following His 1980 Murder Conviction, Steven Burns Remains Behind Bars
As per reports, the summer of 1979, mere weeks before Catina was to begin attending the University of the Pacific to pursue her dream of becoming a dentist, is when she broke up with Steven. Little did she know that when she would arrive on campus on September 3, she would find her ex-boyfriend already there, as he had enrolled at the same institution without her knowledge. That same evening, he reportedly somehow managed to convince her to meet for a one-on-one conversation, which she agreed to under the belief it would help them close their chapter.
Steven actually led Catina to a dark, secluded corner of the university at around 8 pm, shortly following which an intense argument between them ensued as she refused to rekindle their romance. That’s when the teenager pulled out the gun he had stolen from her father while working at his business part-time a few weeks prior, only to then fire at the back of her head at point-blank range. He then fled the scene, so it wasn’t until 9:45 pm that she was found lying in a pool of blood, fighting for her life. Sadly, she succumbed to her injuries at a nearby hospital after midnight.
Steven was arrested for good not long after, and with the mountains of evidence against him, including testimonies from a lot of her loved ones, a jury convicted him of second-degree murder in 1980. He was subsequently sentenced to 17 years to life in a California State Correctional Facility, only to be eligible for parole for the first time following less than 10 years of disciplined incarceration. In other words, he first stood in front of the parole board hoping for early release in the fall of 1987, but he was denied – in fact, over the past 45 years, he has actually been denied parole a total of 13 times. The last one was on January 9, 2023, and he will next be eligible in January 2030. Therefore, today, at the age of 64, he remains behind bars at the medium-security Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, California.
Read More: Catina Salarno Murder Details and Investigation Timeline
