Daughter of landmark murder victim inspired to tell story

On a Friday evening in 2014, seven-year-old Samantha Salley sat on a swing in her backyard, waiting for her mother and grandparents to return after a series of troubling events she didn’t understand.

“I saw my grandparents get out of the car, and I was like, ‘Oh, my mom’s home,’” Samantha, now 17, recalls. “And I waited. And she never got out of the car.”

Earlier that afternoon, Samantha’s recently estranged father, Michael Salley, had waited outside Samantha’s daycare in DeSoto Parish, armed with a shotgun, until his wife, Gwennette Salley, arrived to pick up their daughter.

Catching them by surprise, he ordered the pair to get into Gwen’s car, but Gwen and a daycare worker were able to get Samantha inside the building.

Then Samantha’s mother and father drove away, and she never saw either of them again.

“My grandparents came and sat next to me on our big swing. And they told me, your mom’s not coming home — she can’t come home,” Samantha recalled. “I remember letting out a scream, because I thought I was being abandoned.

“I didn’t realize she was dead.”

Mike had forced Gwen to drive away at gunpoint until police chased their SUV to a dead-end road near the Texas state line, where Mike shot and killed his wife before turning the gun on himself.

“He only had three bullets,” Samantha said. “Some were thinking that if I hadn’t been brought inside (the daycare), I would have gotten one of those bullets.”

The story of Gwen Salley’s murder has taken many branching paths and touched many lives. The tragedy led to a significant change in the way Louisiana’s justice system handles certain violent offenders.

Samantha, now 17, recently told her mother’s story live on the air at the Domestic Abuse Resistance Team (DART) Radiothon in Ruston, hoping to spread awareness of domestic violence and show that even life-altering tragedies can be overcome.

But her story wasn’t the first time a Salley man had committed deadly violence against his own family.

The crimes of Mike Salley in 2014 bore a close resemblance to those of his brother Charles in 1999.

Decades later, a chance encounter would bring together those left behind by these two acts of violence and, in turn, show young Samantha her path forward.

The murder of Gwen Salley

As Samantha recalls it, the story began during a camping trip at Toledo Bend with her extended family, when her parents had a confrontation.

“I saw my mom and dad arguing with each other, and my mom had a suitcase, and she was trying to pack up some of mine and her stuff so we could leave,” she said. “My dad was angry at that, and he took the suitcase from her and threw it on the ground.”

Gwen later told Mike she and Samantha would leave him, and Gwen’s parents intervened to keep an angry Mike away from her.

Later that week, Mike, having supposedly left to work on an oil rig in Texas, sneaked into their family home through a bedroom window.

News coverage of the incident states Mike told Gwen his plan was to kill her, call the police for Samantha, and then kill himself.

He held the pair at gunpoint with a .45 caliber handgun in the living room. Gwen was able to go to the bathroom and text a friend for help, momentarily leaving Samantha alone with her father.

“I wasn’t aware of what was going on, because I was so young,” Samantha said. “I just asked my dad while I was sitting on the couch with him, ‘Do you want to play a game?’ And he just started crying.”

Police arrived, distracting Mike enough for Gwen to emerge and hide the gun he had set down. Mike then surrendered to police.

“That was about 9:30, 10 at night,” said Bennie Cox, Gwen’s father and Samantha’s grandfather. “(Mike) bonded out the next morning around 9 or 10 o’clock. I’m sure he was still drunk. He bonded out within about 13 hours.”

Mike was back on the street on $50,000 bond just hours after holding his family at gunpoint. The same day, Gwen obtained a temporary protective order barring Mike from making contact with her.

That was a Wednesday. By that Friday, Mike had obtained a new car and shotgun, and no court order stopped him from ambushing his wife and child as Gwen was picking up Samantha from her daycare in Stonewall.

Samantha recalls feeling confused. One moment, her mom was placing her in her car seat to head home, like any normal day. The next moment, her dad was there, and the two struggled outside the car.

Then suddenly, her mom pulled her from the car seat, and a daycare worker ushered her back inside.

“I turned around for a second, and because the door was glass, I saw (Gwen) running toward the road before I was pushed into a room for lockdown,” Samantha said. “I was just a little scared. I was like, why am I inside? Why am I not with my mom?”

Sheriff’s deputies picked up Mike and Gwen’s trail in Caddo Parish and cornered them in a clearing on Johns Gin Road, just short of the state line.

As soon as deputies announced themselves, they heard three shots. Gwen took two in the back of the head, and the last Mike turned on himself.

Samantha didn’t know it at the time, but now she figures her mom’s quick thinking at the daycare, along with the workers there, probably saved her life.

Fifteen years earlier, another Salley daughter had not been so fortunate.

The murder of Miranda Salley and Michelle Riley

Kris Barney, currently a community advocate with DART in Ruston, was once married to Mike Salley’s brother, Charles Salley, Jr.

A paramedic with the Bossier City fire department when the two were together, Charles never laid a hand on Barney or their daughter, Miranda Salley, but he abused the former all the same.

After their split, Charles was convicted of stalking Barney but faced no lasting consequences, and she feared he would do much worse. Despite Barney’s best efforts, Charles retained unsupervised visitation rights with Miranda.

Those familiar with DART may know the rest. It was on one of those visitations, in January of 1999, that Charles took his three-year-old daughter to the hospital where his ex-girlfriend Michelle Riley worked.

Much like his brother would do 15 years later, Charles waited for Riley to emerge, then confronted her with a gun. After shooting her point blank, he retrieved little Miranda from the car and shot her, too.

After refusing to lower his weapon, Charles was killed by police officers.

“He stated on his suicide tape that the reason he killed Michelle was that if he couldn’t have her, then nobody was going to have her,” Barney said for a previous story in the Leader. “The reason he killed Miranda was strictly out of revenge. He knew it would be the ultimate way to get back at me and hurt me and my family.”

Barney’s journey through grief and darkness to resilience and purpose — from receiving help from DART to being an advocate herself, helping others find a similar path — has been chronicled in the Leader before.

But it was only recently, a decade after Gwen Salley’s murder, that Barney’s path would find its intersection with the survivors of that second tragedy, made possible only by the legal reform Gwen’s death inspired.

Full circle

The crimes of both Charles and Mike Salley were possible partially because of judicial systems and processes that didn’t take the danger these men posed seriously enough.

In May of 2014, a law changing the bail process for domestic violence crimes was passed in Louisiana, less than a month after Gwen Salley’s murder, thanks in large part to the advocacy of Gwen’s friend, attorney Gary Evans, and her sister Theresa Donald.

Because of what is now known as Gwen’s Law, a judge can order a hearing be held for people arrested for domestic abuse, stalking and similar crimes before they can bond out of jail. At the hearing, the judge can hear from the victims and determine whether the accused should be allowed to bond out or await trial behind bars.

That law came into play in 3rd Judicial District court in Ruston when former Grambling fire chief Patrick Aaron Conley was arrested in 2021 and accused of raping and sexually brutalizing his wife, Kimberly Danforth, over a period of at least three years.

Conley — who, much like Charles Salley, leveraged his position as a fireman to threaten and intimidate his wife — was not allowed to bond out of the Lincoln Parish Detention Center while awaiting his trial. The next year, in dramatic fashion that trial saw a jury unanimously convict Conley of several rape and battery charges, leading to essentially a lifelong jail sentence.

In the aftermath, Danforth received assistance from DART and began her own journey to recovery, another story the Leader has previously detailed.

She met Barney and bonded over their shared experiences and healing. Barney resonated with her story so much that she made Danforth the first recipient of her own scholarship program for survivors, the Miranda Faith Memorial Foundation, founded in honor of her late daughter, Miranda.

While that was being set up, Danforth took a job with Evergreen Life Services in Bossier City, which provides a variety of supports for individuals with disabilities.

“She messaged me one day and said, ‘You’ll never guess who I’m working with,’” Barney said.

The answer? Gwen Salley’s father, Bennie Cox, and Gwen’s 17-year-old daughter Samantha.

The spark

Barney had known about Gwen’s murder and those she left behind. In another, happier world, her daughter Miranda and Samantha would be cousins.

But Barney’d never met Samantha and her family. She didn’t know where they lived or how to contact them.

Until Danforth happened to meet them at work.

“I didn’t have any idea until (Danforth) stopped me in the hallway six months after she’d been hired and told me her story,” Cox said. “She told me without Gwen’s Law, she’d be dead.

“And then through her getting the scholarship and us finding out about (Barney), all the ingredients came together.”

So it was that the legacy of Gwen’s tragedy would lead a virtual stranger to connect Samantha with a lost relative of sorts — one she now sees as family, calling her “Aunt Kris.”

Samantha, Cox and Barney swapped their stories of the Salley brothers and cultivated a relationship. Eventually, Barney decided Samantha would become the second recipient of the scholarship bearing her lost daughter’s name.

For a teen coming to terms with childhood trauma and searching for her own path forward, Samantha said Barney’s work with DART and other avenues of domestic violence advocacy was a revelation.

“I think I realized it after I met Aunt Kris,” she said. “I learned about her story, and I learned what she was doing, and that just put a spark in me. I was like, I need to do that — that’s what I should do.”

Paying it forward

Sharing her perspective of her mom’s story with others has allowed Samantha to think back on how she felt after the incident.

“It took some time for me to understand that she was dead — that she didn’t purposely leave me,” she said. “ That took some time to wrap my head around. I was going to therapy, and apparently I said stuff I don’t even remember saying.”

Therapy allowed her as a young girl to process through play what she wouldn’t have otherwise been able to express. She continued seeing a therapist until she was 13.

That experience, the support of her friends and family, and even meeting Barney all showed Samantha that she wasn’t grieving alone, that there are many individuals and agencies willing and able to lend support.

“I would tell others that they’re not alone,” she said. “There’s other people who have suffered through similar things. You can always find someone to lean on. For me, it was my family and friends. If you ever need help, you should ask for it.”

DART provides a survivor shelter, crisis intervention, counseling, children’s services and more to a rural geographic area from Claiborne Parish down to Grant Parish. DART’s 24/7 crisis hotline is 318-251-2255 in Lincoln Parish and 1-888-411-1333 elsewhere in Louisiana.

Inspired by her Aunt Kris, Samantha plans to join Barney on her speaking engagements after graduating high school, telling her story to help spread awareness.

She made her debut Oct. 10 at DART’s annual Radiothon fundraiser, appearing alongside Cox to tell her story and Gwen’s story live on the air and rally support for the agency facing dwindling federal funding.

“Before, I was nervous,” Samantha said. “It was my first time speaking about it, and I’m not the best with crowds. But I had talked to some family members, and I knew they were going to listen and that I had their support. It felt great, just being able to share something, to spread awareness, to help DART reach their goal of getting donations to help other people in need. It felt amazing.”

Barney recalls filming a video of Samantha dancing in her chair during a music break in the middle of her Radiothon interview, awestruck by the joy on display in contrast to her past.

“She still has her whole life ahead of her,” Barney said. “She does get emotional when she’s asked these questions, but then she’s also full of joy. She’s so resilient. To see her there — it made me so proud of her, as if she were my own kid.”

Cox said he believes God brought Barney and his family together for a purpose when they may otherwise never have crossed paths, despite their similar histories.

Whatever the case, those touched by the crimes of the Salley brothers continue to turn their tragic pasts into hope for the future.

Barney dedicated her life to assisting others in situations like hers. Gwen’s sister lobbied for legal change — change that, years later, saved Danforth from potential retribution and gave her the courage to pursue her own path of advocacy.

And now, Samantha says her experience at the Radiothon has only further convinced her that she bears a similar calling.

“It made me feel like I had a bigger purpose that I was missing,” she said. “You never know what you’re meant to do, why you’re here. But I feel like that made think maybe that’s why I’m here: to spread awareness, to share my story, to give faith to people who need it, and to show that you can overcome things, that you can achieve things and go further even if something bad has happened.”