September 14, 2023 • 33 mins
In the early evening on New Year’s Eve, in 1973, a 34 year old man was found bleeding to death on a downtown street in Stockton, California. In his dying moments, he named the men behind his murder: Calvin Jones and Rosalio Estrada. 50 years later, Rosalio’s son, Alex Estrada sets off to find out if his father was actually involved in the murder.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
You have found this episode here because we want to
introduce you to our new series The Estate from Sonoro
and Tenderfoot TV. My name is Alex Estrada and this
is the story of my family. The Estate is a
true crime documentary podcast series about a burning question that
has haunted me for the past twenty years. Was my
father involved in the murder of his business partner? A
(00:22):
murder mystery, political conspiracy, and family memoir touching on race,
the justice system, and a pain that moves from one
generation to the next. Listen to the first episode now.
If you enjoy it, look for The Estate wherever you
get your podcasts. In the early evening on New Year's
(00:44):
Eve in nineteen seventy three, a thirty four year old
man was found leading to death on the street with
multiple bullet wounds to his chest, stomach, and leg. He
was rushed a mile north of the Saint Joe's Hospital,
but died hours later in surgery. This man was Anthony
(01:07):
Virgilio Tony to his friends. He was found in Fremont Square,
a park in downtown Stockton, which at the time was
a busy place blocks away from the waterfront promenade. Downtown
was the heart of Stockton's business and entertainment. At rush hour,
(01:28):
you'd often see people in suits carrying briefcases walking to
work in tall office buildings. But that night Freemont Square
was vacant. It was rainy, and offices and restaurants were closed.
Nobody does business on New Year's Eve, Nobody except Tony Virgilio.
(01:48):
According to Stockton police, in his dying moments, Tony told
them that he had come downtown for a meeting with
his former business partner, Calvin Jones. Calvin Jones would spend
thirty years in prison for Tony's murder, and for thirty years,
(02:11):
Calvin Jones would call my house and speak to my father.
The phone would ring, my dad would walk into his room,
shut the door and talk to Calvin for hours. And
I always wondered what was happening in there? What were
(02:34):
they talking about? What did my dad have to say
to a convicted murderer from Sonoro in partnership with Tenderfoot TV.
I'm Alex Estrada and this is the estate. I'll never
(03:07):
forget giving the eulogy at my dad's funeral. The service
took place at the Annunciation Cathedral. It's a big Gothic
Catholic church on Rose Street in Stockton, California, just four
blocks away from the house where I grew up. I
had been to this church before, but this was my
(03:29):
first time in the front pew, which for this occasion
was reserved for a close family, the folks who were
truly grieving, and that's where I was, along with my
mom and my six siblings. My dad, rosalieo Estrada Rosie
to his friends, came from a huge Mexican family, so
(03:52):
his brothers and sisters, their kids and grandkids all showed up.
The place was packed. It was like a midnight mass
in the middle of a summer day. I could feel
myself sweating through my suit as I waited to go
up to the pulpit. In true Astrata fashion, my dad
wasn't even at his own funeral. His remains didn't get
(04:12):
cremated on time. They arrived a week later and sat
my sister's Honda for six months after that. So there
I was giving the last words for a guy who
wasn't even there, but I did my best to capture
who he was. Dad called himself the Maestro, the Boss,
(04:33):
because that's what he considered himself, the conductor, the guy
calling the shots, the one with a vision. And although
the Maestro is no longer with us, I concluded, he
certainly left his mark on the world, his city, and
his family. I made it back to the pew, trying
(04:57):
to catch my breath between heaving sobs. I still have
the eulogy, but when I read it now, it makes
me cringe, not because it was poorly written or badly delivered,
but because I didn't really like my dad. I don't
(05:19):
think he was a great person, maybe not even a
good person. I also don't know very much about his life,
and it feels like those are two rules for giving eulogy.
You know the person and you have good things to
say about them. And what I didn't tell people as
I stood at the pulpit of that Gothic cathedral looking
(05:41):
out at everyone who had loved my father, was that
for a long time, I had a sinking feeling that
my dad had someone killed. When I was a kid,
(06:02):
my parents taught me to answer the phone the same
way most people learned phone rings. You pick it up,
ask who's calling, then you take a message, or you
hand it to the person they want to talk to.
Pretty simple stuff. But there was one phone call that
we had to answered differently. I have a collect call
from Calvin Jones, an inmate at a San Bernardino County
(06:27):
detention facility. When Calvin Jones called, you were to take
the phone straight to Dad. Calvin called about once a month,
sometimes once a week. My Dad would always accept the
charges and usually take the call in another room. One day,
when I was about ten, I was walking up to
the house and I heard the phone ringing. No one
(06:51):
else was home, so I answered it, and it was
Calvin Jones. I accepted the charges and talked to him.
The call was short. I said Dad wasn't home, but
that I'd let him know Calvin called. He thanked me
and hung up, But by that time the answering machine
(07:14):
had already started recording and caught everything. That evening, my
Dad called me into the living room and played the message,
and I got a sinking feeling in my stomach and
the sense that I had messed up big time. Dad
looked at me with cold eyes and then told me
(07:35):
in a low, stern voice that if he wasn't home
when Calvin called, I was to hang up. Do not
talk to the man who was calling. He told me
my dad was an imposing guy, especially to me, a
ten year old kid. He loomed over me and had
a face like granite. He was born with a hair
(07:55):
lip and his nose was crooked from being broken a
few times. Dad used to brag me and my siblings
about fights he had gotten into as the younger guy.
I remember him telling me once that there was no
greater satisfaction than the feeling of a guy's mouth collapsing
when you hit him in the jaw. He had no
qualms about being threatening or violent, even with his own kids.
(08:20):
So I did what Dad told me, and that's the
way it went for many years, but the calls never stopped.
I still had questions. Who was Calvin Jones? How did
he know my father? Why was he calling our house
(08:42):
from prison? I didn't get any answers until I was fifteen.
I asked my oldest sister, who is this guy who
keeps calling? She gave me the clip notes. Calvin was
Dad's best friend, and before I was born, he and
Dad were put on trial for killing their business partner
(09:04):
Tony Virgilio, The man who was found in Fremont Square
on New Year's Eve nineteen seventy three and Calvin was convicted.
My dad accused of murder. For fifteen year old me,
this was the definition of an oh shit moment. On
the one hand, the idea of my father being a
(09:26):
killer never occurred to me, even with my complicated feelings
towards him. It seemed impossible. But once the shock wore off,
I thought maybe it wasn't so crazy. Either way, I
had to know more, so that night at dinner, I
straight up asked my dad about the case, and he
(09:48):
didn't seem entirely phased by the question. I mean, he
probably figured that one day his kids would want to
know more about these strange phone calls from prison, so
he took a breath and talked for what felt like
an hour. By the time he finished, my mom and
siblings had cleared the plates from the table. There were
(10:08):
no pauses, no room for questions, just the story of
what he said happened. As Dad explained it, he and
Calvin were partners in a construction business with this guy Tony,
who died under mysterious circumstances. Calvin and my dad were
the immediate suspects, but according to my dad, it had
(10:31):
less to do with the evidence, and more to do
with what they represented to the powerful people in Stockton.
Dad said the police had no evidence except for an
insurance policy, which he didn't want to begin with. There
was no murder weapon, no eye witnesses, no direct evidence
tying him or Calvin to Tony's death. Calvin had been
(10:53):
convicted by rumors. The whole thing was a racially motivated
witch hunt. According to Dad, they were innocent. That night
at dinner, I remember being spellbound. I came away both
(11:13):
awestruck and afraid. In awe that something so insane could
have happened to someone so close to me, and afraid
because it felt well like my dad was dangerous. As
an adult, I kept coming back to my dad's story
(11:35):
and comparing it to what I knew about him. A
guy who was violent, a guy who held grudges, a
guy who kept secrets, who stayed in bed until noon,
didn't have a job, and drove junkie cars. Honestly, he
wasn't important enough to be framed for murder. So each
(11:55):
time I thought back on his side of the story,
I grew more suspicious, to the point where, for most
of my life I believe that he got away with murder,
which brings us back to the eulogy and this feeling
that my dad was not a good guy, that the
impression others had of him was a sham. And there
(12:18):
I was in a church in front of everyone contributing
to that lie. And although the Maestro is no longer
with us, he certainly left his mark on the world,
his city, and his family. My dad died nearly a
(12:40):
decade ago, but questions about the case have stuck with me,
and at a certain point I realized I needed to
put my suspicions to rest along with my dad, and
the only way I can do that is by getting
to the truth of what happened on New Year's Eve
nineteen seventy three. Of course, that's daunting. I'm an attorney
(13:05):
and a television writer. I've lived in New York City
for the past two decades and haven't spent much time
at Stockton since my parents died. So when it came
to piecing together my dad's part in a fifty year
old homicide, I had no idea where to begin. So
I hired a journalist, Angelina Mosher Salazar, an investigative reporter
with experience in podcasting and roots in Stockton.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Just like me.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I needed someone to track down the people involved in
my dad's case, and Angelina had a knack for that,
all right.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
So right now what I have from you is Randy
of course, Calvin Calvin's lawyer, Brian Calvin's son, France Esca.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
For months, we met through zoom and talked about my
dad's story, about the key players and where to find them.
After a couple of weeks we were ready to start interviewing.
We decided to meet at the place where this all started,
my hometown. So in the middle of summer, I packed
my bags and left the comfort of my Brooklyn apartment
(14:08):
for my sister's spare bedroom in northern California, where she
lives with her dog Scrappy, who I found out the
hard way was not supposed to go outside.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Hell, Shadow, is that.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Bad that Scrappy? Okay, you go get Scrappy.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I'll hold back Shadow.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Don't worry. Scrappy was safely recovered, though he did bite
me when I caught him. We started by laying out
everything I knew about the case, which wasn't much, so
we turned to my siblings. Surely one of them would
know something about Dad's involvement in this whole mess.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
There's just like this shroud of mystery over like Dad
in his feelings and like even what he did every day,
you know.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
But his trial, we were very sheltered. We never talked
to him really about it. It's been this thing that's
been like hanging over our family for a long time
in a sort of weird way.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Not much to go on there either. Clearly Dad wasn't
an open book with any of us, and even though
no one in the family had information to go on,
they all agreed on the one person who would, the
man at the center of this story, the voice on
the other end of those calls from prison, Calvin Jones.
(15:38):
So we went to see him.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
This is exciting.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I love being in the field.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
There's like nothing that gives me more joy than being
in the field. Did I have the same level of
enthusiasm to be investigating a murder in my hometown in
the middle of a heat wave in August? Get me
the fuck out of this county? The answer is no.
But if this is what it takes to get answers
about my dad and his past, what choice did I have?
(16:08):
Calvin Jones lives in South Stockton, not far from where
he and my dad opened their first door. The sun
is baking the sidewalk as we step out of the
car towards an adobe house behind a chain link fence.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Wow. Hello, Hello.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
We sat down to talk to the man who served
thirty years in prison for crime he says he didn't do,
but whose answers left us wanting more. Who is Calvin
Jones and what's his side of the story? That's after
the break. For the last twenty years, I've thought about
(16:52):
Calvin Jones, the man who called my house regularly from prison,
my father's best friend and former business partner, and a
man who says he spent thirty years behind bars for
a crime he didn't commit. Growing up, I always wanted
to learn more about the case and what had happened
before I was born. But as I mentioned before, my
(17:13):
dad and I had a pretty strained relationship. I carried
a lot of resentment when I left Stockton and it
never really let up. From then on. My dad and
I rarely talked except for holiday's birthdays, that kind of thing.
And then he died, which didn't exactly do Wonders for
our communication My dad died in twenty twelve, one year
(17:38):
before Calvin was released from prison. When I heard he
was out, I was shocked he had been given a
life sentence. That this opened a door. I had always
hoped that one day Calvin and I would talk about
the story, have a real conversation, manned a man about
what happened that night. But I put it off for years,
(18:01):
and to be honest, I was scared. I was scared
to know the answer, scared of what it would bring
up in me. But time was slipping away. Dad was gone.
If I waited any longer, I could lose Calvin two.
Talking to Calvin was my only chance at figuring out
(18:25):
what happened between him, Dad and Tony almost fifty years ago.
Had Dad been part of a murder plot or the
victim of an unjust system? So that's what brings me
and Angelina to Calvin's house. The first thing I noticed
about Calvin is that he's tall, at least six foot three.
(18:46):
He's dressed comfortably in a sweatshirt and jeans. Calvin is
pushing eighty, but he doesn't give the impression of a
guy slowing down. I shake his hand and it's strong,
Despite his large stature, his demeanor is gentle, grandfatherly, and
his voice is soft, almost zen like. We move into
(19:07):
the dining room and the interview begins with Calvin telling
us about how we met my dad in the late
nineteen sixties. At the time, both of them were in
their mid twenties. They had started families and were working
sort of dead end jobs, Calvin at the county Housing
Authority and Dad and an army depot just outside of town.
(19:30):
They found each other through their interest in politics and
local activism.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
That's when we started picketing. Go We used to go
picket farmers out here with say the Chevez Delors were
to May and Rothy we marched in all those kind
of day.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
You heard that, right, Caesar Chavez and Dolores Werta, two
people at the forefront of California's labor rights movement. Calvin
and Rosie were movers and shakers, wanting to make a
big change for their community, but they also wanted to
make money, lots of it.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I desire was to be the richest black and brown
in this valley. That was one of our you know,
I mean as was that one of our goals to
achieve something that other brown and blacks could actually see
being done, and it's because we were the only one
doing things at that time.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
From what Calvin tells me, he and my dad wanted
to upset the city's power dynamics, so in the early
nineteen seventies they decided to become business partners. With a
loan from the Small Business Administration, they started off with
liquor stores. They opened their first one in nineteen seventy one.
Within a year, they opened another location with plans for
(20:46):
a third store, and from there they decided to go
into construction, which is where they would meet Tony Virgilio,
the man Calvin was convicted of murdering.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Uh. I met to Virgierio from some other people that
within the construction business and do his reputation as a worker.
That's how he came about. That's how we got started.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Calvin says. Tony brought construction experience to the table, but
more importantly, he brought a contractor's license, which they needed
to operate the construction business. With Tony's skills, Calvin's business sense,
and my dad's brain, they were ready to take over Stockton.
They had big plans to change the face of the
(21:37):
city and make a place for themselves at the head
of the table. Calvin and my Dad were young and cocky,
and they weren't going to take shit from anyone. And
Calvin says that rubbed Stockton's wide establishment the wrong way.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Well, you gotta understand doing that time, no other blacks
and brown would stand up to these people and say
thanks to him. People say we was too up at
the high up without order.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I should mention here that in the nineteen seventies, Stockton's
business class was overwhelmingly white. My dad being Mexican and
Calvin being black, they would have stuck out like sore thumbs,
and they weren't shy about letting everybody know they wanted
to run things. Their ambition brought them together as friends.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
We didn't feel it with nothing that we couldn't do period.
I mean, if they were doing it, we could do
it and better.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
As we talk, I notice how every time Calvin mentions
my dad he gets somber. I get the sense that
he's saying things that he never could have told my
dad in person.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Well, he was honest and laurel and he was a
person that cared about humanity. I would say you know,
he cared about people who cared about situation. That's what
I admired about.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Sitting in Calvin's dining room, hearing him talk about my
dad this way. I feel embarrassed because my experience was
almost totally opposite. I think if I felt half of
what Calvin told me was true about my dad being
an honest, loyal man who cared about humanity, I might
(23:25):
not have questioned whether my dad was guilty of murder.
I also wonder how one person can be so drastically
different to two people. As Calvin spoke, I felt like
I was internally fact checking him.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
He was a person that loves his family.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Debatable, He loved his kids doubtful.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
He loved politics, Okay, that one I.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Can agree with.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
But the conclusion from all this he was just basically
a good person now that I couldn't get behind. It's
obvious at this point that he and I experienced rosalieo
Estrada in vastly different ways. Calvin sees Rosie is the loyal,
(24:11):
best friend and savvy business partner. I see him as
an abusive and violent man whose selfishness hurt his wife
and kids. Is it possible that my dad was hiding
his true self from Calvin, that he hid those darker
aspects of his personality from his best friend. Maybe Calvin
only speaks to the good and Rosie because that's what
Rosie showed him. My dad could be charismatic, But it's
(24:35):
also possible that Calvin isn't telling me the truth about
my father and knows it. Maybe he doesn't want to
speak ill of the dead, or maybe he thinks revealing
the truth would taint his innocence. And another thought, if
they were such good friends, why did my dad keep
Calvin a secret from us? Calvin's explanation was simple. The
(24:58):
murder trial destroyed my dad.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
I think a lot of that probably came from the
fact that his whole personna, his whole desires was killed off.
When he got charged. His whole demeanor changed. I've seen
a a big change in him, because when you out
(25:24):
and you have notoriety from the community that you working
in the community and doing all this stuff in the community.
And he did wanna be a big time builder, you know,
he had aspirations of doing a lot of good stuff.
That stopped all that, just the charge of itself stops
(25:46):
that people got afraid of him who used to be
his so called friend. But they once you get charged,
everything changed, Bankers stopped dealing with you. But before that,
I never seen that part of him before. How this
has happened. No, he might have had it pinned up
(26:09):
any but I doubt it goes pus together a lot.
I mean, that makes a big difference in a person's life.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
What Calvin is saying here gave me pause. I had
this hunch that my dad was involved in a murder,
that he was guilty of the crime as charged. I
thought that because of the dad I knew, the one
I grew up with, a man who was quick to
anger and violence. But now the person who's spent thirty
years in prison for the crime is saying no, they
(26:41):
were both innocent. And the fact that my dad had
to live knowing his best friend went away for a
crime he didn't commit that destroyed him. It took away
his goals, his dreams, his reputation, and his best friend.
Is it possible that the man I knew was depressed
and angry because of a wrongful conviction for being the
(27:02):
victim of a political conspiracy. I tell Calvin my truth
that for the majority of my life. I didn't believe
my dad's story. I thought my dad was guilty.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
I only had access to the case through my interactions
with him that weren't positive. Like my sense was that
he had been involved.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
I felt that he.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Had orchestrated or been part of a plan to kill
Tony Virgilio. The things I experienced and saw. My feeling
was that he was a person capable of killing someone
else and killing someone else for money.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
No, I don't think he had a lot of love
for Tony Bigilio, But as far as him planning to
have him.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Kill, no, Calvin is unfazed, wavering in his and my
dad's innocence. My father had a saying that he would
repeat to me and my siblings. Protect yourself at all times.
(28:14):
It's the advice referees give to boxers at the beginning
of every fight. Be alert, keep your guard up, don't
open yourself up to getting hurt. I must have heard
those words ten thousand times growing up, and I repeat
them to myself still even today. So I thought to myself,
(28:35):
would I be making a mistake in trusting Calvin's version
by accepting this view of my dad as an honest
and loyal person. Was I opening myself up to getting hurt?
If Calvin and my dad maintain their innocence, exactly, how
do they end up being charged for the murder? What
was the actual evidence against them? How is it that
(28:58):
Dad went home and Calvin and went to jail?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
For that?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
We needed the police reports, the facts of what happened,
And though Calvin himself didn't offer up a ton of
new information about the case, he did give us something
we hadn't seen yet.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
If you want to go to a whole lot of
poe reports, I.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Mean that would be a lot of fun. Actually, if
there's a time that.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Worked where that stag.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Oh my god, yeah, I think we can.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
We can take them with us. I you know, I
don't have anything why of work, but other than that, yeah, sure,
I'd love to.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Do you have like a do you have like.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
A little box or something that I can take them
out of, like you know, shoe box or a bag
or something even I.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Just want to keep them all together. We packed hundreds
of documents into a plastic box, sealed the lid, and
said our goodbyes to Calvin.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Man.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
All right, Well, I walked away with a big pile
of documents, so that's always fun.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Honestly, it was like, maybe the most exciting part is
getting these in a way, you know, just having more
stuff to sort of pour through, the things that I
haven't read before. When a parent dies, they always leave
(30:19):
something behind to their kids. Often it's money, a house
or some kind of heirloom. Sometimes it's bills or debts.
Other times it's just a body. Literally there remains. But
when my dad died, he left behind a question was
he responsible for killing Tony Virgilio. The box of documents
(30:46):
we got from Calvin seemed like the best place to start.
I began pouring through volumes of police reports in court
transcripts and stumbled upon the first big discovery of our investigation,
the last words of Tony Virgilia, who, in his dying
moments named the men behind his murder Calvin Jones and
(31:07):
Rosalio Estrada. But that's next time on the Estate. The
(31:31):
Estate was produced by Sonora in partnership with Tenderfoot TV,
hosted by me Alexistrada and Angelina Moojer Salazar. Reported by
Angelinamojer Salazar. Investigated by Angelina Moojer Salazar, alex E Strada
and Evelyn Uribe. Written by Angelinamojer Salazar and Alexistrada, with
help from Evelyn Urribe and Carlos Ernato. Edited by Ross
(31:55):
Terrell and Jasmine Romero. Fact check by Sarah Moonda and
Evelyn Uribe. Mix in sound design by Manuel Para and
Daniel Padilla. Engineering by josh Han, Sam Bear and Brett
Tuban at the Relic Room in New York City. Original
music by Ernesto Aguire. Our theme song is by Marcus Bagala.
(32:19):
Executive produced by alex Eestrada from Sonoro. Executive producers are
Joshua Weinstein and Camilla Victoriano from Tenderfoot TV. Executive producers
are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. Special thanks to Lisa Pollock,
Sarah Boannon, Christian Utar, Rodrigo Crespo, Carmen Grathedrol, and Adriana Broger.
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
You have found this episode here because we want to
introduce you to our new series The Estate from Sonoro
and Tenderfoot TV. My name is Alex Estrada and this
is the story of my family. The Estate is a
true crime documentary podcast series about a burning question that
has haunted me for the past twenty years. Was my
father involved in the murder of his business partner? A
(00:22):
murder mystery, political conspiracy, and family memoir touching on race,
the justice system, and a pain that moves from one
generation to the next. Listen to the first episode now.
If you enjoy it, look for The Estate wherever you
get your podcasts. In the early evening on New Year's
(00:44):
Eve in nineteen seventy three, a thirty four year old
man was found leading to death on the street with
multiple bullet wounds to his chest, stomach, and leg. He
was rushed a mile north of the Saint Joe's Hospital,
but died hours later in surgery. This man was Anthony
(01:07):
Virgilio Tony to his friends. He was found in Fremont Square,
a park in downtown Stockton, which at the time was
a busy place blocks away from the waterfront promenade. Downtown
was the heart of Stockton's business and entertainment. At rush hour,
(01:28):
you'd often see people in suits carrying briefcases walking to
work in tall office buildings. But that night Freemont Square
was vacant. It was rainy, and offices and restaurants were closed.
Nobody does business on New Year's Eve, Nobody except Tony Virgilio.
(01:48):
According to Stockton police, in his dying moments, Tony told
them that he had come downtown for a meeting with
his former business partner, Calvin Jones. Calvin Jones would spend
thirty years in prison for Tony's murder, and for thirty years,
(02:11):
Calvin Jones would call my house and speak to my father.
The phone would ring, my dad would walk into his room,
shut the door and talk to Calvin for hours. And
I always wondered what was happening in there? What were
(02:34):
they talking about? What did my dad have to say
to a convicted murderer from Sonoro in partnership with Tenderfoot TV.
I'm Alex Estrada and this is the estate. I'll never
(03:07):
forget giving the eulogy at my dad's funeral. The service
took place at the Annunciation Cathedral. It's a big Gothic
Catholic church on Rose Street in Stockton, California, just four
blocks away from the house where I grew up. I
had been to this church before, but this was my
(03:29):
first time in the front pew, which for this occasion
was reserved for a close family, the folks who were
truly grieving, and that's where I was, along with my
mom and my six siblings. My dad, rosalieo Estrada Rosie
to his friends, came from a huge Mexican family, so
(03:52):
his brothers and sisters, their kids and grandkids all showed up.
The place was packed. It was like a midnight mass
in the middle of a summer day. I could feel
myself sweating through my suit as I waited to go
up to the pulpit. In true Astrata fashion, my dad
wasn't even at his own funeral. His remains didn't get
(04:12):
cremated on time. They arrived a week later and sat
my sister's Honda for six months after that. So there
I was giving the last words for a guy who
wasn't even there, but I did my best to capture
who he was. Dad called himself the Maestro, the Boss,
(04:33):
because that's what he considered himself, the conductor, the guy
calling the shots, the one with a vision. And although
the Maestro is no longer with us, I concluded, he
certainly left his mark on the world, his city, and
his family. I made it back to the pew, trying
(04:57):
to catch my breath between heaving sobs. I still have
the eulogy, but when I read it now, it makes
me cringe, not because it was poorly written or badly delivered,
but because I didn't really like my dad. I don't
(05:19):
think he was a great person, maybe not even a
good person. I also don't know very much about his life,
and it feels like those are two rules for giving eulogy.
You know the person and you have good things to
say about them. And what I didn't tell people as
I stood at the pulpit of that Gothic cathedral looking
(05:41):
out at everyone who had loved my father, was that
for a long time, I had a sinking feeling that
my dad had someone killed. When I was a kid,
(06:02):
my parents taught me to answer the phone the same
way most people learned phone rings. You pick it up,
ask who's calling, then you take a message, or you
hand it to the person they want to talk to.
Pretty simple stuff. But there was one phone call that
we had to answered differently. I have a collect call
from Calvin Jones, an inmate at a San Bernardino County
(06:27):
detention facility. When Calvin Jones called, you were to take
the phone straight to Dad. Calvin called about once a month,
sometimes once a week. My Dad would always accept the
charges and usually take the call in another room. One day,
when I was about ten, I was walking up to
the house and I heard the phone ringing. No one
(06:51):
else was home, so I answered it, and it was
Calvin Jones. I accepted the charges and talked to him.
The call was short. I said Dad wasn't home, but
that I'd let him know Calvin called. He thanked me
and hung up, But by that time the answering machine
(07:14):
had already started recording and caught everything. That evening, my
Dad called me into the living room and played the message,
and I got a sinking feeling in my stomach and
the sense that I had messed up big time. Dad
looked at me with cold eyes and then told me
(07:35):
in a low, stern voice that if he wasn't home
when Calvin called, I was to hang up. Do not
talk to the man who was calling. He told me
my dad was an imposing guy, especially to me, a
ten year old kid. He loomed over me and had
a face like granite. He was born with a hair
(07:55):
lip and his nose was crooked from being broken a
few times. Dad used to brag me and my siblings
about fights he had gotten into as the younger guy.
I remember him telling me once that there was no
greater satisfaction than the feeling of a guy's mouth collapsing
when you hit him in the jaw. He had no
qualms about being threatening or violent, even with his own kids.
(08:20):
So I did what Dad told me, and that's the
way it went for many years, but the calls never stopped.
I still had questions. Who was Calvin Jones? How did
he know my father? Why was he calling our house
(08:42):
from prison? I didn't get any answers until I was fifteen.
I asked my oldest sister, who is this guy who
keeps calling? She gave me the clip notes. Calvin was
Dad's best friend, and before I was born, he and
Dad were put on trial for killing their business partner
(09:04):
Tony Virgilio, The man who was found in Fremont Square
on New Year's Eve nineteen seventy three and Calvin was convicted.
My dad accused of murder. For fifteen year old me,
this was the definition of an oh shit moment. On
the one hand, the idea of my father being a
(09:26):
killer never occurred to me, even with my complicated feelings
towards him. It seemed impossible. But once the shock wore off,
I thought maybe it wasn't so crazy. Either way, I
had to know more, so that night at dinner, I
straight up asked my dad about the case, and he
(09:48):
didn't seem entirely phased by the question. I mean, he
probably figured that one day his kids would want to
know more about these strange phone calls from prison, so
he took a breath and talked for what felt like
an hour. By the time he finished, my mom and
siblings had cleared the plates from the table. There were
(10:08):
no pauses, no room for questions, just the story of
what he said happened. As Dad explained it, he and
Calvin were partners in a construction business with this guy Tony,
who died under mysterious circumstances. Calvin and my dad were
the immediate suspects, but according to my dad, it had
(10:31):
less to do with the evidence, and more to do
with what they represented to the powerful people in Stockton.
Dad said the police had no evidence except for an
insurance policy, which he didn't want to begin with. There
was no murder weapon, no eye witnesses, no direct evidence
tying him or Calvin to Tony's death. Calvin had been
(10:53):
convicted by rumors. The whole thing was a racially motivated
witch hunt. According to Dad, they were innocent. That night
at dinner, I remember being spellbound. I came away both
(11:13):
awestruck and afraid. In awe that something so insane could
have happened to someone so close to me, and afraid
because it felt well like my dad was dangerous. As
an adult, I kept coming back to my dad's story
(11:35):
and comparing it to what I knew about him. A
guy who was violent, a guy who held grudges, a
guy who kept secrets, who stayed in bed until noon,
didn't have a job, and drove junkie cars. Honestly, he
wasn't important enough to be framed for murder. So each
(11:55):
time I thought back on his side of the story,
I grew more suspicious, to the point where, for most
of my life I believe that he got away with murder,
which brings us back to the eulogy and this feeling
that my dad was not a good guy, that the
impression others had of him was a sham. And there
(12:18):
I was in a church in front of everyone contributing
to that lie. And although the Maestro is no longer
with us, he certainly left his mark on the world,
his city, and his family. My dad died nearly a
(12:40):
decade ago, but questions about the case have stuck with me,
and at a certain point I realized I needed to
put my suspicions to rest along with my dad, and
the only way I can do that is by getting
to the truth of what happened on New Year's Eve
nineteen seventy three. Of course, that's daunting. I'm an attorney
(13:05):
and a television writer. I've lived in New York City
for the past two decades and haven't spent much time
at Stockton since my parents died. So when it came
to piecing together my dad's part in a fifty year
old homicide, I had no idea where to begin. So
I hired a journalist, Angelina Mosher Salazar, an investigative reporter
with experience in podcasting and roots in Stockton.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Just like me.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I needed someone to track down the people involved in
my dad's case, and Angelina had a knack for that,
all right.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
So right now what I have from you is Randy
of course, Calvin Calvin's lawyer, Brian Calvin's son, France Esca.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
For months, we met through zoom and talked about my
dad's story, about the key players and where to find them.
After a couple of weeks we were ready to start interviewing.
We decided to meet at the place where this all started,
my hometown. So in the middle of summer, I packed
my bags and left the comfort of my Brooklyn apartment
(14:08):
for my sister's spare bedroom in northern California, where she
lives with her dog Scrappy, who I found out the
hard way was not supposed to go outside.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Hell, Shadow, is that.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Bad that Scrappy? Okay, you go get Scrappy.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I'll hold back Shadow.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Don't worry. Scrappy was safely recovered, though he did bite
me when I caught him. We started by laying out
everything I knew about the case, which wasn't much, so
we turned to my siblings. Surely one of them would
know something about Dad's involvement in this whole mess.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
There's just like this shroud of mystery over like Dad
in his feelings and like even what he did every day,
you know.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
But his trial, we were very sheltered. We never talked
to him really about it. It's been this thing that's
been like hanging over our family for a long time
in a sort of weird way.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Not much to go on there either. Clearly Dad wasn't
an open book with any of us, and even though
no one in the family had information to go on,
they all agreed on the one person who would, the
man at the center of this story, the voice on
the other end of those calls from prison, Calvin Jones.
(15:38):
So we went to see him.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
This is exciting.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I love being in the field.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
There's like nothing that gives me more joy than being
in the field. Did I have the same level of
enthusiasm to be investigating a murder in my hometown in
the middle of a heat wave in August? Get me
the fuck out of this county? The answer is no.
But if this is what it takes to get answers
about my dad and his past, what choice did I have?
(16:08):
Calvin Jones lives in South Stockton, not far from where
he and my dad opened their first door. The sun
is baking the sidewalk as we step out of the
car towards an adobe house behind a chain link fence.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Wow. Hello, Hello.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
We sat down to talk to the man who served
thirty years in prison for crime he says he didn't do,
but whose answers left us wanting more. Who is Calvin
Jones and what's his side of the story? That's after
the break. For the last twenty years, I've thought about
(16:52):
Calvin Jones, the man who called my house regularly from prison,
my father's best friend and former business partner, and a
man who says he spent thirty years behind bars for
a crime he didn't commit. Growing up, I always wanted
to learn more about the case and what had happened
before I was born. But as I mentioned before, my
(17:13):
dad and I had a pretty strained relationship. I carried
a lot of resentment when I left Stockton and it
never really let up. From then on. My dad and
I rarely talked except for holiday's birthdays, that kind of thing.
And then he died, which didn't exactly do Wonders for
our communication My dad died in twenty twelve, one year
(17:38):
before Calvin was released from prison. When I heard he
was out, I was shocked he had been given a
life sentence. That this opened a door. I had always
hoped that one day Calvin and I would talk about
the story, have a real conversation, manned a man about
what happened that night. But I put it off for years,
(18:01):
and to be honest, I was scared. I was scared
to know the answer, scared of what it would bring
up in me. But time was slipping away. Dad was gone.
If I waited any longer, I could lose Calvin two.
Talking to Calvin was my only chance at figuring out
(18:25):
what happened between him, Dad and Tony almost fifty years ago.
Had Dad been part of a murder plot or the
victim of an unjust system? So that's what brings me
and Angelina to Calvin's house. The first thing I noticed
about Calvin is that he's tall, at least six foot three.
(18:46):
He's dressed comfortably in a sweatshirt and jeans. Calvin is
pushing eighty, but he doesn't give the impression of a
guy slowing down. I shake his hand and it's strong,
Despite his large stature, his demeanor is gentle, grandfatherly, and
his voice is soft, almost zen like. We move into
(19:07):
the dining room and the interview begins with Calvin telling
us about how we met my dad in the late
nineteen sixties. At the time, both of them were in
their mid twenties. They had started families and were working
sort of dead end jobs, Calvin at the county Housing
Authority and Dad and an army depot just outside of town.
(19:30):
They found each other through their interest in politics and
local activism.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
That's when we started picketing. Go We used to go
picket farmers out here with say the Chevez Delors were
to May and Rothy we marched in all those kind
of day.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
You heard that, right, Caesar Chavez and Dolores Werta, two
people at the forefront of California's labor rights movement. Calvin
and Rosie were movers and shakers, wanting to make a
big change for their community, but they also wanted to
make money, lots of it.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I desire was to be the richest black and brown
in this valley. That was one of our you know,
I mean as was that one of our goals to
achieve something that other brown and blacks could actually see
being done, and it's because we were the only one
doing things at that time.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
From what Calvin tells me, he and my dad wanted
to upset the city's power dynamics, so in the early
nineteen seventies they decided to become business partners. With a
loan from the Small Business Administration, they started off with
liquor stores. They opened their first one in nineteen seventy one.
Within a year, they opened another location with plans for
(20:46):
a third store, and from there they decided to go
into construction, which is where they would meet Tony Virgilio,
the man Calvin was convicted of murdering.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Uh. I met to Virgierio from some other people that
within the construction business and do his reputation as a worker.
That's how he came about. That's how we got started.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Calvin says. Tony brought construction experience to the table, but
more importantly, he brought a contractor's license, which they needed
to operate the construction business. With Tony's skills, Calvin's business sense,
and my dad's brain, they were ready to take over Stockton.
They had big plans to change the face of the
(21:37):
city and make a place for themselves at the head
of the table. Calvin and my Dad were young and cocky,
and they weren't going to take shit from anyone. And
Calvin says that rubbed Stockton's wide establishment the wrong way.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Well, you gotta understand doing that time, no other blacks
and brown would stand up to these people and say
thanks to him. People say we was too up at
the high up without order.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I should mention here that in the nineteen seventies, Stockton's
business class was overwhelmingly white. My dad being Mexican and
Calvin being black, they would have stuck out like sore thumbs,
and they weren't shy about letting everybody know they wanted
to run things. Their ambition brought them together as friends.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
We didn't feel it with nothing that we couldn't do period.
I mean, if they were doing it, we could do
it and better.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
As we talk, I notice how every time Calvin mentions
my dad he gets somber. I get the sense that
he's saying things that he never could have told my
dad in person.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Well, he was honest and laurel and he was a
person that cared about humanity. I would say you know,
he cared about people who cared about situation. That's what
I admired about.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Sitting in Calvin's dining room, hearing him talk about my
dad this way. I feel embarrassed because my experience was
almost totally opposite. I think if I felt half of
what Calvin told me was true about my dad being
an honest, loyal man who cared about humanity, I might
(23:25):
not have questioned whether my dad was guilty of murder.
I also wonder how one person can be so drastically
different to two people. As Calvin spoke, I felt like
I was internally fact checking him.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
He was a person that loves his family.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Debatable, He loved his kids doubtful.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
He loved politics, Okay, that one I.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Can agree with.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
But the conclusion from all this he was just basically
a good person now that I couldn't get behind. It's
obvious at this point that he and I experienced rosalieo
Estrada in vastly different ways. Calvin sees Rosie is the loyal,
(24:11):
best friend and savvy business partner. I see him as
an abusive and violent man whose selfishness hurt his wife
and kids. Is it possible that my dad was hiding
his true self from Calvin, that he hid those darker
aspects of his personality from his best friend. Maybe Calvin
only speaks to the good and Rosie because that's what
Rosie showed him. My dad could be charismatic, But it's
(24:35):
also possible that Calvin isn't telling me the truth about
my father and knows it. Maybe he doesn't want to
speak ill of the dead, or maybe he thinks revealing
the truth would taint his innocence. And another thought, if
they were such good friends, why did my dad keep
Calvin a secret from us? Calvin's explanation was simple. The
(24:58):
murder trial destroyed my dad.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
I think a lot of that probably came from the
fact that his whole personna, his whole desires was killed off.
When he got charged. His whole demeanor changed. I've seen
a a big change in him, because when you out
(25:24):
and you have notoriety from the community that you working
in the community and doing all this stuff in the community.
And he did wanna be a big time builder, you know,
he had aspirations of doing a lot of good stuff.
That stopped all that, just the charge of itself stops
(25:46):
that people got afraid of him who used to be
his so called friend. But they once you get charged,
everything changed, Bankers stopped dealing with you. But before that,
I never seen that part of him before. How this
has happened. No, he might have had it pinned up
(26:09):
any but I doubt it goes pus together a lot.
I mean, that makes a big difference in a person's life.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
What Calvin is saying here gave me pause. I had
this hunch that my dad was involved in a murder,
that he was guilty of the crime as charged. I
thought that because of the dad I knew, the one
I grew up with, a man who was quick to
anger and violence. But now the person who's spent thirty
years in prison for the crime is saying no, they
(26:41):
were both innocent. And the fact that my dad had
to live knowing his best friend went away for a
crime he didn't commit that destroyed him. It took away
his goals, his dreams, his reputation, and his best friend.
Is it possible that the man I knew was depressed
and angry because of a wrongful conviction for being the
(27:02):
victim of a political conspiracy. I tell Calvin my truth
that for the majority of my life. I didn't believe
my dad's story. I thought my dad was guilty.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
I only had access to the case through my interactions
with him that weren't positive. Like my sense was that
he had been involved.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
I felt that he.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Had orchestrated or been part of a plan to kill
Tony Virgilio. The things I experienced and saw. My feeling
was that he was a person capable of killing someone
else and killing someone else for money.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
No, I don't think he had a lot of love
for Tony Bigilio, But as far as him planning to
have him.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Kill, no, Calvin is unfazed, wavering in his and my
dad's innocence. My father had a saying that he would
repeat to me and my siblings. Protect yourself at all times.
(28:14):
It's the advice referees give to boxers at the beginning
of every fight. Be alert, keep your guard up, don't
open yourself up to getting hurt. I must have heard
those words ten thousand times growing up, and I repeat
them to myself still even today. So I thought to myself,
(28:35):
would I be making a mistake in trusting Calvin's version
by accepting this view of my dad as an honest
and loyal person. Was I opening myself up to getting hurt?
If Calvin and my dad maintain their innocence, exactly, how
do they end up being charged for the murder? What
was the actual evidence against them? How is it that
(28:58):
Dad went home and Calvin and went to jail?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
For that?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
We needed the police reports, the facts of what happened,
And though Calvin himself didn't offer up a ton of
new information about the case, he did give us something
we hadn't seen yet.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
If you want to go to a whole lot of
poe reports, I.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Mean that would be a lot of fun. Actually, if
there's a time that.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Worked where that stag.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Oh my god, yeah, I think we can.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
We can take them with us. I you know, I
don't have anything why of work, but other than that, yeah, sure,
I'd love to.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Do you have like a do you have like.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
A little box or something that I can take them
out of, like you know, shoe box or a bag
or something even I.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Just want to keep them all together. We packed hundreds
of documents into a plastic box, sealed the lid, and
said our goodbyes to Calvin.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Man.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
All right, Well, I walked away with a big pile
of documents, so that's always fun.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Honestly, it was like, maybe the most exciting part is
getting these in a way, you know, just having more
stuff to sort of pour through, the things that I
haven't read before. When a parent dies, they always leave
(30:19):
something behind to their kids. Often it's money, a house
or some kind of heirloom. Sometimes it's bills or debts.
Other times it's just a body. Literally there remains. But
when my dad died, he left behind a question was
he responsible for killing Tony Virgilio. The box of documents
(30:46):
we got from Calvin seemed like the best place to start.
I began pouring through volumes of police reports in court
transcripts and stumbled upon the first big discovery of our investigation,
the last words of Tony Virgilia, who, in his dying
moments named the men behind his murder Calvin Jones and
(31:07):
Rosalio Estrada. But that's next time on the Estate. The
(31:31):
Estate was produced by Sonora in partnership with Tenderfoot TV,
hosted by me Alexistrada and Angelina Moojer Salazar. Reported by
Angelinamojer Salazar. Investigated by Angelina Moojer Salazar, alex E Strada
and Evelyn Uribe. Written by Angelinamojer Salazar and Alexistrada, with
help from Evelyn Urribe and Carlos Ernato. Edited by Ross
(31:55):
Terrell and Jasmine Romero. Fact check by Sarah Moonda and
Evelyn Uribe. Mix in sound design by Manuel Para and
Daniel Padilla. Engineering by josh Han, Sam Bear and Brett
Tuban at the Relic Room in New York City. Original
music by Ernesto Aguire. Our theme song is by Marcus Bagala.
(32:19):
Executive produced by alex Eestrada from Sonoro. Executive producers are
Joshua Weinstein and Camilla Victoriano from Tenderfoot TV. Executive producers
are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. Special thanks to Lisa Pollock,
Sarah Boannon, Christian Utar, Rodrigo Crespo, Carmen Grathedrol, and Adriana Broger.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.