Hearing on murder charge slated for March 17
The misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report, filed against Eddie Salazar Sr. two days after he reported his 8-month-old child missing, has been dismissed.
Jasper County Prosecutor Dean Danksleon said his office would have had to turn most of the evidence it plans to use against Salazar in its murder case over to his attorneys at a preliminary hearing on the misdemeanor charge scheduled for Tuesday if it hadn’t dropped that charge.
“To avoid providing all the police reports and evidence prior to the preliminary hearing on the murder charge, we dismissed the misdemeanor count,” Dankelson said. “The rules don’t require us to give that information over before the preliminary so we don’t do it.”
Salazar was charged with filing a false police report on Feb. 6, two days after he reported 8-month-old Eddie Salazar missing in a home invasion.
Salazar was held on $100,000 bond until Feb. 17 when he was charged with second degree murder and held on no bond.
At 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 4, Salazar called police and said two men broke into his home, knocked him unconscious and took the baby. More than 150 officers and volunteers immediately started searching the neighborhood in a snow shower for the baby and an AMBER Alert was issued across the nation.
On Saturday, Feb. 6, officials announced that Salazar admitted to lying about the kidnapping and the misdemeanor was filed.
The baby was found floating in the Spring River downstream from the County Road 85 bridge by searchers from the Missouri State Water Patrol and Joplin Police Department.
Judge Richard Copeland has scheduled a motions hearing on the second-degree murder charge for 9:05 a.m. Wednesday, March 17.
