Modesto man convicted of murders faces life in prison; co-defendant gets 17-to-life
A Modesto man convicted in a double murder tied to an illegal marijuana grow operation is scheduled to be sentenced next month, while his co-defendant was sentenced this week to 17 years to life in prison.
Salvador Valencia was found guilty in the 2021 killings of Taurean Travis and Julian Sisk, who prosecutors say were lured to a home on Thrasher Avenue in south Modesto and executed in broad daylight. Co-defendant Amber Gartin was sentenced Wednesday after a jury also found her guilty of second-degree murder and child endangerment.
Valencia faces more than 85 years to life and is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 15 in Stanislaus County Superior Court.
Deputy District Attorney Patrick Hogan said security cameras left running at the property captured the murders as they happened — footage that became central to the prosecution’s case.
“You actually see the murder on camera,” Hogan said. “They left their own security cameras on during the murders.”
Authorities said Valencia used a 5-month-old child as a human shield while fleeing from deputies after the shootings. He led officers on a high-speed chase with two small children in the car before crashing and abandoning them. Both children survived without serious injuries.
“One miracle in this whole case is that neither child was significantly injured, which they very well could have been,” Hogan said.
Investigators found hundreds of marijuana plants, a drying system, firearms, and pounds of packaged weed inside the home. Hogan said the motive centered on protecting the black-market operation.
“At its heart, we think that’s what this case was about,” he said. “Amber and Salvador were running this operation ... and they felt, for whatever reason, that Julian Sisk especially had been a threat to it. So they decided they were going to kill him.”
Gartin’s attorney, Greg Spiering, said she made “plenty of terrible decisions” but did not intend for the killings to happen. He pointed to her traumatic upbringing — including physical and sexual abuse, time in foster care and a violent relationship with Valencia — as key context for her role.
“She suffered trauma throughout her life, and it changed her way of acting and thinking and reacting,” Spiering said.
He said surveillance footage showed Gartin trying to wrestle the rifle away from Valencia before Sisk was shot. “She was charged with one homicide, not the other, because you can see she’s trying to stop it.”
Spiering also said his client was remorseful and offered an apology in court. The father of one victim, he added, responded with forgiveness.
Gartin was sentenced to 15 years to life for murder, plus a consecutive two-year term for child endangerment.
A third defendant in the case, Manuel Valencia, pleaded no contest in May to two counts of assault with a machine gun. He was sentenced to 10 years in state prison. The original murder charges against him were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
Hogan said prosecutors will recommend the maximum penalty allowed by law for Salvador Valencia, who was the gunman in both killings. “This was a brutal double murder, and we believe the shooter should face the full consequences.”
Martin Baker, the attorney representing Salvador Valencia, declined to comment beyond the trial proceedings. His office said he “didn’t have much to add about the case.”
