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Experts say most children don’t have memories before they’re at least two or three years old. But if your earliest memories were anything like Carmina Salcido’s, you might not want them at all.
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Carmina Salcido recalls details from day she was left for dead in garbage dump.

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At age 3, Carmina survived the shocking massacre of her entire family. Her father, Ramon Salcido, then a 28-year-old hard-drinking and hot-tempered vineyard worker, ambushed his co-workers, murdered his wife, several in-laws, and slashed the throats of his three young daughters, leaving them for playground equipment dead in a garbage dump. Miraculously, she survived.

CLICK HERE to read an excerpt of Carmina’s book, “Not Lost Forever.”

On April 14, 1989, detectives traced the trail of the killer who had left seven people dead, across 30 miles of wine country; from the vineyard, to his home where he shot his wife and ultimately to the dump, where he left his daughters before he fled to Mexico. Ramon was moving faster than either the cops or the press could comprehend.
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Carmina Recalls Stunning Details of Massacre

Ramon’s killing spree upended life as Carmina knew it. She said she inflatable bouncers remembers details from that traumatizing day vividly: her father picked her up out of bed, put her and her sisters in the car and drove away.

“I remember actually him carrying me out of the house that morning,” she told ABC’s “20/20.” “Probably about 15 minutes into driving I lean up over the front seat and go, ‘Papa where are we going?’ He turned around. He was mad. He turned around and gave me such an evil look and he’s like, ‘Shut up and sit down.’”

She said that before her father slit her sisters’ throats, the air was filled with a “dark energy.”

“I look over at my sister Sofia, and she has this look of terror on her face. She knows something’s terribly wrong. The atmosphere is just thick,” she told “20/20.” “I’m looking up at him, [and said] ‘Papa, please don’t cut me.’”

CLICK HERE to see photos of Carmina and her family through the years.

Carmina said that the girls didn’t cry when their father first took her sister Teresa, threw her on the ground and slashed her across the belly and throat.

“There’s no crying,” she said. “It was silent — like naughty castles lambs led to a slaughter.”

Crime scene photos confirm Carmina’s account.

“[He] grabs my hair, pulls my head back and I put my hands up … protecting, so he cut open my fingers and I moved them.” And then, she told “20/20″, her father slashed her throat.” I move my hands out of the way, [in] one clean cut. It was just like a razor. You almost don’t feel anything. And I just went out.”

Police have asked child protective services to investigate the Colorado family of a boy who was believed to have been aboard a runaway homemade flying saucer, but was later found to be hiding in his family’s garage.
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Richard, Mayumi and their sons explain what happened with the helium balloon.

Amid mounting public suspicion that the parents of Falcon Heene, 6, intentionally released the 20-foot balloon in an effort to garner publicity, the Larimer County Sherriff said police and child-services professionals would interview the boy and his parents.

Sheriff Jim Alderden said Child protective Services would “probably open an investigation,” but asked that they wait until law enforcement officials had an opportunity to playground equipment question the family Saturday.

Alderden said he believed the boy had hid in the rafters and fell asleep there because he thought he was responsible for untethering the aluminum-foil balloon.

He said he further believed that the parents were legitimately worried about their son’s well being and that it did not appear to be a hoax or publicity stunt.
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Click here to listen to the Heene’s 911 call

“We were convinced yesterday having talked to inflatable bouncers the parents and investigators that the parents were being honest,” he said.

He said they “appropriately expressed statements, nonverbal communication, body language and emotions that were entirely consistent with events that were taking place. They believed the boy was in there.”

“Our people didn’t think [that emotional response] could be faked or was faked,” he said.

The sheriff said he doubted the 6-year-old, who allegedly slept during the hunt for him, could have been coached to remain quiet and still during the five hour search, given his “hyperactive” disposition.

“The suggestion to us that he had been coach to hide and remain still for five hours is inconceivable. It is much more likely he was frightened because he thought he was responsible for the device becoming untethered,” Alderden said.

The sheriff said the boy’s statements Thursday night on CNN, in which he said “we did this for a show” had raised some new questions about whether the family had planned the naughty castles incident as part of a hoax. As a result of those comments the sheriff said he would again interview the family.

“Clearly that has raised everyone’s level of skepticism. We will go back to the family and reinterview them and establish if this is actually a hoax or an actual event,” he said.

For five hours, Falcon Heene — part Tom Sawyer, part Huck Finn — tucked himself away in the rafters of his Colorado garage, in some ways watching his own funeral.
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Richard, Mayumi and their sons explain what happened with the helium balloon.

Today, no one knows why the rambunctious boy hid playground equipment as police, firefighters and the National Guard chased after an experimental balloon gone wild, or even if Thursday’s incident was a hoax.

But hiding is not an unusual behavior for a 6-year-old, especially one who’s been alternately described as “well-adjusted and fun-loving” and a “nationally known troublemaker.” Falcon’s answer to authorities was that his father, Richard Heene, amateur scientist and storm-chaser, “scared me because he yelled at me.”
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But glimpses of the boy on a family YouTube video and on the reality TV series “Wife Swap” show a much more rebellious personality.

In the first season of the show, Falcon told his “new mom” and home-safety expert Karen Martel, “F**k this rule!” when she tried to rein the boy in.

“Hiding around doesn’t always happen as a result of inflatable bouncers feeling guilty,” said George Scarlett, a child development expert at Tufts University.

“I’ve known children around this age to hide as a way to exert control and feel powerful,” said Scarlett. “Think of how powerful a small child momentarily feels knowing that others, mostly large adults who normally have control over him or her, are now searching for him or her. That’s power.”

Child specialists say most children hide because they are afraid of naughty castles punishment. Before Falcon went missing, Heene told police he had yelled at his son for trying to get in to the experimental balloon.

A Minnesota nurse whose license was revoked by the state is under investigation for allegedly encouraging the suicides of people he met on the Internet.
Photo: Minnesota Nurse Investigated for Allegedly Encouraging Suicide: Police Say William Melchert-Dinkel May Have Had Suicide Fetish
Authorities in Minnesota are investigating William Metchel-Dinkel for allegedly encouraging people to playground equipment commit suicide.
(Robin Thorpe/KAAL/ABC News)

William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, has not yet been charged, but the case has drawn the attention of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and several Minnesota law enforcement agencies after as many as five people attempted suicide or successfully completed the act.

Melchert-Dinkel’s license was revoked by the Minnesota Board of Nursing in June in light of the police investigation and after years of reprimands and documented infractions. The license had been suspended since February.

According to the nursing board’s public action document, it received a complaint in August 2008 that Melchert-Dinkel was under investigation by the St. Paul, Minn., Police Department for allegedly using fake identifies on the Internet and encourgaing people to kill themselves, sometimes watching the suicides via webcam.
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The complainant, according to the document, was the mother of a 32-year-old man who, she said, had hanged himself after corresponding with Melchert-Dinkel online.

In January 2009, Melchert-Dinkel was admitted to inflatable bouncers a hospital, the admissions survey noting that he was “dealing with addiction to suicide Internet sites,” and, “feeling guilty because of past and present advice to those on the Internet of how to end their lives.”

The nursing assessment also noted that Melchert-Dinkel had a four-year “suicide fetish” and had posed as a 28-year-old woman on the Internet in order to make suicide pacts with others even though he had no intention of following through on his end.

A medical record from that time indicated Melchert-Dinkel was involved with an Ottawa woman who jumped to her death after talking with Melchert-Dinkel online. He reportedly also told individuals that his nursing experience gave him “expert knowledge into the most effective ways to kill yourself.”

Reached by phone, Melchert-Dinkel declined to naughty castles comment to ABC News about his job or the allegations against him.

“What they said was all nothing new,” he said of the information contained in the Board of Nursing document.