Nearly three months after a West Virginia mother’s brutal murder — allegedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant with an extensive rap sheet — mystery still surrounds her final few hours alive.
Samantha Dailey’s body was found on a burning sofa in a field in Berkeley County, near the town of Martinsburg, on May 6. Her remains were so badly burned that police were initially only able to determine the body was that of a woman.
The 32-year-old mother of two had reportedly met her killer around a week before she disappeared, with police alerted to her disappearance when the GPS tracker she was wearing stopped working.
The man accused of killing her, a 46-year-old Salvadoran national named David Antonio Calderon, had served a 22-year prison sentence in his home country for crimes including murder and sexual assault, before entering the U.S. illegally in 2021.
He was due to appear for an immigration hearing two days after Dailey’s body was discovered, having been initially released by U.S. authorities with a notice to appear. On the day of his hearing, Calderon was arrested for a pair of separate violent assaults that preceded Dailey’s murder.
GPS tracker helped to identify Dailey
Dailey was described in her obituary as a “devoted mother, daughter and friend to all.”
The victim had been living under home confinement in Jefferson County, West Virginia as a non-violent offender for driving with a suspended license, an official told Newsweek. She was allowed to leave home under GPS surveillance to go to work or run errands.
On the day she died, Dailey had told the officer assigned to her case she was going to clean the nearby Los Amigos Car lot in Ranson, where officers believe Calderon was staying.
That evening, officers were called out to Golf Course Road in Martinsburg, to reports of a field fire which turned out to be the sofa with Dailey’s burning body lying on it.
“The body was severely burnt but was able to identified as a female,” according to the original criminal complaint obtained by Newsweek. An initial cause of death was listed as thermal burns along with blunt force trauma.
The victim’s identity was unknown at first. Two days later, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office reached out to their counterparts in Berkeley County to alert them that Dailey was missing and her GPS tracker had stopped working.
Officers found that the tracker last pinged from where the unidentified body had been found. Investigators then worked backwards to track Dailey’s last known movements on May 6.
As well as the car lot, Dailey’s GPS tracker showed her at several locations in Martinsburg, but when officers checked surveillance footage, they couldn’t find her.
Instead, they saw Calderon, driving a dark blue Nissan Ultima with no sign of the victim in the vehicle.
Suspect was a known violent offender
At that point, investigators had already been looking for Calderon in connection with two other violent incidents.
The Jefferson County Sheriff told Newsweek that on April 10, Calderon had allegedly beaten a couple living at a homeless camp with a baseball bat, leaving them with serious injuries that required hospitalization. Calderon was reportedly known at the camp only by a nickname, making it difficult to track him down.
He then allegedly got into an argument with another man on April 28 and stabbed him multiple times, the sheriff’s office said.
It’s believed Calderon met Dailey around this time, roughly a week before her death.
The Salvadoran arrived in the U.S. illegally sometime after his release from prison in 2021, officials said.
He first sought asylum in Canada, but officials there turned him over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which then released him into the country.
Calderon was due to appear in front of an immigration judge on May 8, the same day he was arrested for the assaults at the homeless encampment and two days after Dailey’s death.
Newsweek reached out to ICE for comment on Calderon’s case, but is yet to receive a response.
A service of remembrance for Dailey will be held on August 3 in Ranson.
“She was an avid lover of nature, finding peace, clarity and enjoyment being outside on the river or exploring on any hiking trails,” her obituary read. “She dedicated her spare time caring for all animals and providing her love and attention to them.”
Dailey was a mother to Jibril and Laila Mosleh, according to the obituary. She had a partner, Amir Mosleh, and is also survived by her mother, sister and brother, as well as an extensive wider family. Her family did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Calderon is being held at the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg without bond. He is next due to appear in court on August 8.
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