The Estate

Host, Alex Estrada gives the eulogy at his father’s funeral. He speaks of the wonderful person Rosalio was. But what he doesn’t say is that for a long time, he’s had a sinking feeling that his father had someone killed. The Estate tells his journey into finding the truth and reconciling his complicated relationship with his father.

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.

Alex receives a box of documents from Calvin and in there he finds Tony Virgilio’s dying declaration. When Tony names Calvin and Rosalio as the culprits, they become the police’s prime suspects. But to this day, Calvin maintains his and Rosalio’s innocence. Then, who killed Tony Virgilio? In this episode, we delve into those the police might have overlooked.

Within days after Tony Virgilio’s murder, police established a theory and a motive: Calvin and Rosalio hired someone to kill Tony. And they did it for money. With Tony dead, they had a chance to collect on what today would be a 1 million dollar insurance payout. Suspiciously, that theory benefits certain parties, from the prosecution to the insurance company.

It’s 6 years after the murder and Rosalio is making a place for himself in local politics, while Calvin struggles to make ends meet. So he makes a risky move that ultimately becomes the smoking gun the prosecution had been looking for to finally make an arrest.

A decade after Tony’s murder, Rosalio and Calvin are on trial. The moment when the prosecution will finally go head to head against them. Each side will duke it out. And in the end, the jury will give a verdict. In theory, this is the ultimate form of justice. A definitive statement on what happened and who's to blame. Beyond a reasonable doubt. But that’s not what happened here.

Now it’s a heavyweight battle between the prosecution and Calvin’s attorney. The case is mostly circumstantial. They don’t have the gun. They don’t have the person who actually pulled the trigger. They have no physical evidence. But they do have a witness… someone who allegedly ties Calvin Jones directly to the murder.

Calvin Jones spent 30 years behind bars. But it wasn’t for shooting Tony. It was for CONSPIRACY to kill. It was the agreement to commit the murder that landed Calvin in prison. Without a link to the gunman, there’s no way Calvin gets convicted. In the final episode of The Estate, Alex and Angelina look for the gunman, while Alex tries to make peace with his relationship with his father.

In the third bonus episode of the season, you will listen to fragments from Angelina and Calvin’s ride-along, a tape that was originally four hours long. During Angelina’s inaugural trip to Stockton, she ventured into the city with Calvin, exploring the locations that serve as the backdrop to our story, from Downtown to the very spots where the liquor stores once stood.