UPDATE – Leslie Morales and Daniel Pataki were caught today in Bland, Virginia. The pair is currently in custody.  More updates will be posted as we get them.

CharlotteCharlotte’s Web reviews, NC – Alexandria Salem’s body was found in the trash.  At about 5:00 yesterday morning, a woman opened her Charlotte dry cleaners and noticed a large bag next to the dumpster.  InsideInside reviews were the remains of the 46-year-old Salem.  She’d been brutally murdered and hastily dumped.  Now, police are looking for Salem’s daughter Leslie Michelle Morales, 21, and Morales’ boyfriend Daniel Francis Pataki, 22. 

L to R: Leslie Morales, Daniel Pataki, and Leslie’s mother Alexandria Salem

The Myspaces: Leslie, Daniel, the Happy Couple, and Mom

After going to Carolina Cleaners on South Boulevard to process the dump scene, Charlotte investigators headed to a Motel 6 on Red Roof Drive to investigate a possible murder site.  RoomRoom reviews 317 at the motel had been vacated and all the sheets stolen – sheets that appeared to be wrapped around the body of Alexandria Salem.  Within a few hours, police believed that Alexandria Salem had been the victim of matricide, killed by her own daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend.

Leslie Michelle Morales doesn’t like her name or her mother.  Her Myspaces, linked above, use the names “Lisa” and “Lilly”.  In a blog entry, Morales airs her grievances at her family:

MY FAMILY HATES MY MAN AND I DONT EVEN KNONW WHY BUT I HAD TO JUST TELL THEM ALL OFF AND I HAD TO GET AWAY FROM THEM……..I LOVE MY MAN MORE THEN THEY WILL EVER KNOW AND I WILL NEVER LEAVE HIM NO MATTER WHAT……..I AM JUST SICK AND TIRED OF THESE DAMN PEOPLE TRYING TO BREAK US UP…….”

Alexandria Salem, for her part, seems to have been a caring, loving mother.  Looking at the Myspaces, Salem was on her daughter’s friends list, but also seemed to have a little talent for subtle guilt, like this comment:

well i guess u dont have time like i do to come online …..i guess there is no need to have a profile on here anymore….i hope to hear from ya soon on here too……i am very proud of u in ur acheivement at work….luv ya sweety…..

It seems clear that there’s been a little bit of tension in the mother-daughter relationship for awhile.  It appears that Salem was trying to be supportive and that Leslie was pulling away, making excuses not to contact her mother for weeks at a time.

At one point in 2007, it appears that Leslie Morales was pregnant with Daniel Pataki’s baby – or thought she was.  However, there’s no further mention of a child except in one of his Myspace photos, in which he is holding a newborn little sister last year.  The caption reads, “My little sister.  I wish it was my daughter though.”

In other Myspaces, Pataki and Morales refer to each other as husband and wife, although they never married.  There’s a sense of immaturity to the couple’s relationship, at least as it appears on MyspaceMySpace – lots of unrealistic thinking, drama, and fantasy rather than reality.  Combined with a vocal sense of injustice about family reaction to their love affair, it’s easy to see how police zeroed in on Leslie and Daniel as suspects.  The biggest motives for murder are love and money, and I’m willing to bet that both are involved in this case.

By yesterday afternoon, the CMPD were staking out two apartment buildings near the crime scenes in southwest Charlotte.  So far, though, Morales and Pataki have not been found.  Alexandria Salem’s cause of death has not yet been released, and details remain sketchy as the CMPD continues to investigate.

Warrants for murder have been issued for Leslie Morales and Daniel Pataki. Police believe the couple is traveling in a red Chevrolet Cobalt with North Carolina tag number XKY-6459.   The pair is thought to be armed and dangerous.  Police are asking anyone who sees Morales, Pataki or the car not to approach them, but to call 911 immediately.

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