By Brian Anderson
Valley Times

Nov. 13, 2001

PLEASANTON — Gary Bowen ticks off the days without pause.

Two years, three months and 14 days have passed since his son Jason and the Tracy teen's boyhood friend Sam Salinas were shot to death and dumped in the hills above Hayward.

Leads are dry. New information is scarce. Police are baffled. But there is always hope, he said.

"We know there is someone out there who has to know something," Bowen said Monday from his Tracy home. "We're hoping that $80,000 will bring someone forward."

A $30,000 reward scraped together during the past 25 months with the help of car washes and other fund-raisers got a $50,000 boost Friday from Gov. Gray Davis.

Through a power authorizing the governor to offer rewards in death penalty cases, Davis is giving the families of the slain teens renewed spirit in their quest for a killer.

In the early morning hours of July 29, 1999, the two boys who had been pals for years told friends they were heading to a neighborhood park in Tracy and would return in an hour, Bowen said. It was the last time locals saw the pair alive.

Hours after their disappearance, a passerby found Bowen, 16, and Salinas, 18, in a ravine nearly 50 miles from the hometown they mysteriously left behind.

"They didn't know anybody in Hayward," Bowen said. "They had no intentions of leaving town as far as we can tell."

Police found the 1982 Toyota Celica belonging to Salinas a few miles away, but other clues pointing to the killer have been elusive.

Was it a carjacking? Was it random? Is the assailant in jail on another charge?

Over the years, the families have held vigils and pleaded for witnesses to come forward. The boys' pictures have smiled for many months from a Tracy billboard begging for information.

For the families the questions are many, but the answers few. The memories are fond, but the reality intolerable.

"It has been very - hard for us," said Hermino Salinas, who moved to Fremont with his wife and daughter after his son's death. "Every morning - we have to have the faith that maybe on that day that something may come up. We just have to have faith."