Kaylee Sanders, 21, was charged Oct. 27 with the murders of her brother Morgan Dane Salgado and another man, Lewis Wall, kidnapping a woman and assaulting three officers after the slayings in July.
Lewis Wall, 66, was shot dead in his home on Colorado Highway 145 north of Cortez on July 27. The next day, Salgado, 22, was shot dead in his grandmother’s home on the south side of Cortez.
During the preliminary hearing in Montezuma Combined Court in the 22nd Judicial District, the court provided videos, audio clips and photographs from the investigations, including a video interview with Sanders. Three law enforcement witnesses testified about their knowledge and experience with the two cases, which were combined during the hearing.
All three witnesses – Cortez Police Detective Koby Guttridge, Detective Lt. John Hargraves of the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office and an investigator from Mesa County – gave similar accounts of the cases.
As reported in The Journal, at 1:28 a.m. on July 28, Cortez Police officer Jerry Sam and Sgt. Rogelio Maynard received a call from dispatch indicating that a man had been shot in the head at 516 S. Madison St., Apt. 604, on the city’s south side.
Sanders’ grandmother, Audrey Collom, made the 911 call, which was played in the preliminary hearing.
Sanders could be heard in the background, shouting, “I needed your guys’ help to get that narcissistic, abusive (expletive) away from me.”
When Sam and Maynard arrived, they repeatedly ordered Sanders to “drop the gun.” Instead, Sanders muttered something and fired in the air.
Guttridge, the first to testify, said Sam stated he feared for his life.
Sanders then fled. She was later found on South Broadway by Patrol Sgt. Angelo Martinez and other officers.
Bodycam footage showed Martinez yelling at Sanders to “drop the gun” multiple times and she again did not comply.
“Kaylee, just stop and put down the gun,” Martinez pleaded. “We can talk about this.”
Multiple officers could be heard yelling in the background to drop the gun.
Soon after, Sanders was shot multiple times with a bean bag gun, forcing her to comply with officers’ demands.
The firearm – a black Colt .45 MK4 Series 70 Gold Cup National Match – was seized at arrest.
According to an investigator from Mesa County who interviewed Sanders’ grandmother, Salgado entered Collom’s home late at night and laid on the couch, saying he didn’t feel well.
Sanders later called to ask her grandmother if she could come over, but her grandmother warned that Salgado, whom Sanders tried to avoid, was there. Sanders first said she wouldn’t come, but changed her mind.
After Sanders arrived, she and Collum talked in the kitchen. Sanders was upset that her brother had drunk some of her beer. A photograph shown in court would show Salgado dead on the couch, with a beer bottle in front of him.
A cross-examination with public defenders Justin Bogan and Ben Burrier stated that Sanders was homeless and had no place to go but to Collom’s house. She reportedly was harming herself by cutting herself.
The defenders said Sanders did not threaten Collom and did not plan to hide the shooting.
In her interview with Guttridge, Sanders said she didn’t feel safe with her brother. “He triggers me and never leaves me alone,” she said. “Nobody wanted to listen, so I snapped. I finally snapped.”
Burrier claimed this could be a trauma response but Chief Judge Todd Plewe dismissed his remark and said it was not relevant in a preliminary hearing. Burrier then claimed that Salgado sexually assaulted Sanders multiple times over the years.
Shortly after Salgado’s death, Celeste Murdock, a friend of Sanders’, said she spoke with her on the phone. She was confused by the conversation, according to Hargraves’ interview on Sept. 13, because she could not believe Sanders “killed her brother.”
Later in the morning on July 28, Hargraves received a call about another slaying. When he arrived to the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office, he spoke with Tianna Gallegos, 24, who reported that a shooting had occurred July 27.
Gallegos said she brought Sanders to Lewis Wall’s house on July 26 to gather firewood the next day.
In the early morning on July 27, Wall made breakfast for both women and they left the house at 8:30 a.m. to get firewood.
Afterward, they went back to the house and ate watermelon. Gallegos noticed Sanders was journaling before she went outside to split the wood in the front yard with headphones on.
Shortly after, Gallegos said she saw Sanders walk outside with her backpack on and a gun in her hand. She demanded that Gallegos help her find Wall’s truck keys and told her to “not panic” when they entered the house.
Gallegos said she saw Wall in a semi-upright position on the couch grunting and she was confused.
Sanders demanded to see the call history on Gallegos’ phone, and after finding Wall’s keys, Gallegos drove her to Cortez. Sanders kept the gun on her lap and in her hands the whole time they were together, Gallegos said.
They ended up at the Handy Mart at 806 S. Broadway after leaving the truck at Mesa Elementary.
According to Hargraves, Gallegos couldn’t get away from Sanders because of the gun. After she told Sanders to get her (expletive) together, Sanders walked off and Gallegos found her phone in her backpack. She called a friend, who picked her up.
Hargraves said they did not eliminate Gallegos as a suspect and gave her a significant amount of pressure during questioning.
Sgt. Bryan Hill of the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office then conducted a welfare check at Wall’s home at 18661 Colorado Highway 145. He found Wall alone and dead on the living room floor.
Shortly after Salgado’s death, Murdock told Hargraves that Sanders said Salgado “is not the only person she killed.” Sanders reportedly said that she didn’t know Lewis Wall and that “his hands were in places they should not have been. He was trying to get his hands down her pants.”
Plewe announced the charges for the two homicide cases.
In the death of Morgan Dane Salgado on July 28, Sanders faces the charges of first-degree murder and second-degree murder. She also faces three counts of assault against officers Martinez, Sam and Maynard.
In the death of Lewis Wall on July 27, Sanders faces a charge of second-degree murder. She also faces charges of second-degree kidnapping and menacing for her treatment of Tianna Gallegos, and third-degree automobile theft.
Sanders will be arraigned Nov. 14 at 3:30 p.m. at Montezuma County Combined Courts.
