Not Lost Forever: My Story of Survival

Carmina Salcido · Steve Jackson

Sep 2009 · Harper Collins

About this ebook

In this memoir of true crime and survival, a woman recounts the remarkable story of her father’s murderous rampage and how she was left for dead.

On April 14, 1989, in California’s idyllic Sonoma Valley, Mexican immigrant Ramón Salcido went on a rampage, killing his wife, her two younger sisters, his mother-in-law, and his wife’s suspected lover. Then he slashed the throats of his three young daughters—ages four years, three years, and twenty-two months—and left them for dead in the county dump. A day later, when the children’s bodies were finally discovered, three-year-old Carmina was miraculously still alive. “Daddy cut me,” she told her rescuers.

In Not Lost Forever, Carmina Salcido reaches back into her traumatic past to reconstruct, in sobering detail, her father’s crimes and their aftermath. Recalling with clear-eyed candor, courage, and grace the horrific event and troubled childhood that followed, a remarkable young woman carries readers along on her miraculous journey of survival, discovery, and hope.

Ratings and reviews

Carmina, I truly wish you the best in life! You have gone through far too much tragedy! I thoroughly appreciate you sharing your life story & you wrote one hell of a book! I'm sad you had to write it about such horrible loss and struggle. Sending you warm wishes, prayers, & all good vibes!

Wow how brutal and devastating. Don't know if I could have endured what Carmina has. She is so brave. Well written. Had me in tears.

A very good read, so sad for Carmina, she never seemed to get a break from her loneliness .

About the author

Carmina Salcido lives and works in Northern California. Steve Jackson is a bestselling author who lives and works in Colorado.