Ramada builds security booth

Cathy Scott

Friday, Oct. 24, 1997 | 10:02 a.m.

A guard is now standing watch in a newly built security booth near where a Pennsylvania tourist was shot to death last month.

The booth was built this week at Winnick and Audrey avenues by Ramada Vacation Suites. Although one hotel employee said the booth was built in response to the murder, Kay Scherer, a hotel spokeswoman, said the booth is simply one of several security measures the hotel has been undertaking.

Maria Salvoti, the wife of Ernest Salvoti, the slain tourist, said it's unfortunate a security guard wasn't overlooking the dark neighborhood east of the Imperial Palace hotel-casino when her husband was shot Sept. 15.

Salvoti, 61, was walking with his wife and her sister and brother-in-law, returning from the Maxim hotel-casino, when he was shot to death.

The foursome had arrived at the Ramada after midnight and had decided to walk to the Maxim to get something to eat, Metro Police said. As the group walked back to the hotel about 2:25 a.m., a gunman in an older-model white Cadillac pulled up to the group.

A man jumped out of the Cadillac's passenger side and ran up to Maria Salvoti's sister-in-law and grabbed her fanny pack, police said. When Ernie Salvoti saw that the driver had a gun, he stepped between his wife and the gunman, taking a bullet in the chest after the driver fired, police said.

"It's a little too late for me, but (the security booth) could help someone else," Maria Salvoti said from her home in Monaca, Pa.

What troubles her most, she said, is that she told hotel employees when the group checked in that she didn't feel safe in her room because it was too far back on the Ramada property.

"We usually stayed in the villas toward the front," she said. "I told them I didn't like the room and that I didn't think it was safe. I asked to be moved that night. They talked me out of it. They said, 'Oh, there's security.' I never saw any security."

No arrests have been made in the shooting.

Metro homicide Sgt. Ken Hefner said Thursday that the investigation is at a standstill.

"At this point, we have very little to work with," Hefner said. "It's not much different than what we had the night of the murder."