The 2020 killings of Maliaka Taylor, 13, and Maurice Taylor Jr., 12, ended in a guilty verdict Tuesday, bringing a horrific five year case to a close
A truly horrific case out of Los Angeles County came to a close on Tuesday, after a jury convicted a father and mother of an unspeakable crime: first-degree murder in the stabbing and decapitation of their 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son in 2020, as well as child abuse for forcing their two younger boys to view their slain siblings, and starving them for days.
Maurice Jewel Taylor Sr., 39, and Natalie Sumiko Brothwell, 48, ended a five-year saga that horrified the community, where the family lived in a quiet Lancaster neighborhood. Taylor and Brothwell face life in prison without parole plus more than six additional years, with sentencing set for January 2026.
#California#Parents Convicted of Stabbing and Decapitating Two Children and Forcing Their Surviving Children to ‘Live Through Unimaginable Horror’https://t.co/DjlRZLz1CA
“This was a monstrous act of cruelty that shattered an entire family,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said in a statement. “Two innocent children were brutally murdered, and their young brothers were left to live through unimaginable horror. The jury’s verdict delivers justice for these victims and sends a powerful message: Those who commit such evil acts will be held fully accountable.”
Prosecutors proved that on November 29, 2020, Taylor and Brothwell fatally stabbed and decapitated 13-year-old Maliaka Taylor and 12-year-old Maurice Taylor Jr. inside the family’s home, according to court documents and trial testimony. The couple then forced their surviving sons, then ages 8 and 9, to look at the gruesome scene (the decapitated bodies of their brother and sister) before locking them in separate bedrooms without food for several days. The latter led to convictions on two counts each of child abuse likely to cause great bodily injury or death.
The case unfolded after Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies and the fire department were called to the residence five days after the murders, after receiving a tip about a possible gas leak, and then subsequently discovering the bodies of the two children. More specifically, they discovered Taylor inside with the children’s mutilated bodies (Maliaka in one bedroom and Maurice Jr. in another) and arrested him on the spot after he resisted. Brothwell fled shortly after Taylor’s arrest and was named a person of interest; she was on the run for nearly 10 months before her arrest in September 2021 while in Tucson, Arizona. She was extradited to California the following month.
Statements from the surviving brothers, who were found malnourished and confined, pointed to both parents in the killings and abuse, per the prosecutors.
The couple was each charged with two counts of murder under special circumstances and separate counts of child abuse. Taylor once sought to represent himself for “spiritual reasons,” briefly delaying the proceedings for a mental health evaluation. He was later declared mentally fit to stand trial.
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Deputy District Attorneys Alexander Lara and Kirsten Brown of the Sex Crimes Division, alongside investigators from the Sheriff’s Lancaster Station, handled the prosecution. “This prosecution would not have been possible but for the tremendous efforts of Lara and Brown, who pieced this gruesome case together and presented it compellingly to the jury,” Hochman said, praising his staff.
Neither Taylor nor Brothwell testified, and their defense attorneys argued mental health issues, though the jury clearly rejected their defense. The surviving children, now teenagers, were placed in protective custody and have received counseling, authorities said.
COACH MADE HIS FIRST COURT APPEARANCE TODAY. KCRA 3’S RYAN CURRY JOINS US LIVE FROM SAN FRANCISCO WITH THE CHARGES HE’S FACING. RYAN. YEAH. GOOD AFTERNOON. IT WAS A RELATIVELY ROUTINE FIRST COURT APPEARANCE FOR SEDRICK IRVING JUNIOR, WHO IS ACCUSED OF SHOOTING COACH JOHN BEAM. LATE LAST WEEK. IRVING MADE HIS FIRST APPEARANCE EARLY THIS MORNING, ONE OF THE FIRST APPEARANCES OF THE DAY, STANDING BEHIND A GLASS BARRICADE WHILE WEARING A VEST PROVIDED TO HIM FROM THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE. IN COURT, THE JUDGE RULED HE MUST REMAIN IN JAIL WITHOUT BAIL. HE DID NOT ENTER A PLEA TODAY THAT IS SET TO COME IN ABOUT A MONTH FROM NOW, ACCORDING TO OAKLAND POLICE. BEAM WAS SHOT IN THE HEAD JUST BEFORE NOON THURSDAY AT LANEY COLLEGE IN THE FIELD HOUSE. HE DIED FRIDAY MORNING AND POLICE SAYS IT WAS. POLICE SAID IT WAS A TARGETED ATTACK. INVESTIGATORS SAY IRVING TOOK OFF, TOOK OFF ON AN AC TRANSIT BUS SHORTLY AFTER THE SHOOTING. THEY SAY HE CONFESSED TO THE SHOOTING WHEN POLICE THEN ARRESTED HIM, SOURCES TOLD THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE. IRVING BELIEVED COACH BEAM HAD BEEN USING WITCHCRAFT ON HIM. IRVING FACES 50 YEARS TO LIFE IF CONVICTED ON HIS CHARGES. THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY AND PUBLIC DEFENDER’S OFFICE DID NOT WANT TO COMMENT ON THIS CASE. TODAY. IRVING IS SET TO APPEAR IN ABOUT A MONTH FROM NOW, DECEMBER 16TH, WHERE HE IS THEN EXPECTED TO ENTER A PLEA FOR THESE CHARGES. BUT FOR NOW, REPORTING LIVE IN SAN FRANC
The man accused of shooting and killing longtime Oakland football coach John Beam appeared before a judge Tuesday, marking his first court appearance since being charged with murder. Cedric Irving Jr., 27, appeared behind a glass barricade wearing a vest given to him by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. A judge ruled he must remain in jail and cannot be released on bail. Irving did not enter a plea during the appearance. Prosecutors charged Irving with murder with gun enhancement charges. If convicted, he could serve 50 years to life in prison. Oakland native and former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch was present in court, along with members of Beam’s family. The family, plus the district attorney and public defenders’ office declined to comment after the hearing. Oakland police say Beam was shot in the head while in the field house at Laney College, where he worked as athletic director. Sources told the San Francisco Chronicle Irving thought Beam was conducting witchcraft on him. Beam was a respected member of the Oakland community having coached several players who eventually played in the NFL. His popularity grew after his program was featured on “Netflix’s Last Chance U.” Irving is set to appear in court again on Dec. 16 where he is expected to enter a plea.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
OAKLAND, Calif. —
The man accused of shooting and killing longtime Oakland football coach John Beam appeared before a judge Tuesday, marking his first court appearance since being charged with murder.
Cedric Irving Jr., 27, appeared behind a glass barricade wearing a vest given to him by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. A judge ruled he must remain in jail and cannot be released on bail. Irving did not enter a plea during the appearance.
Prosecutors charged Irving with murder with gun enhancement charges. If convicted, he could serve 50 years to life in prison.
Oakland native and former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch was present in court, along with members of Beam’s family. The family, plus the district attorney and public defenders’ office declined to comment after the hearing.
Oakland police say Beam was shot in the head while in the field house at Laney College, where he worked as athletic director.
Sources told the San Francisco Chronicle Irving thought Beam was conducting witchcraft on him.
Beam was a respected member of the Oakland community having coached several players who eventually played in the NFL. His popularity grew after his program was featured on “Netflix’s Last Chance U.”
Irving is set to appear in court again on Dec. 16 where he is expected to enter a plea.
An arraignment hearing was held for Cedric Irving Jr., who was charged with murder with a gun enhancement by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. The 27-year-old did not enter a plea.
Cedric Irving Jr., who has been charged with murder in the killing of Laney College athletic director John Beam, made his initial court appearance on Nov. 18, 2025.
CBS
Public defender Sydney Levin asked the judge to delay the plea until the next court hearing, which is scheduled for Dec. 16.
Irving is accused of shooting Beam at the Laney Fieldhouse on campus Nov. 13. Beam died from his injuries the following day.
Authorities located Irving at the San Leandro BART station following a manhunt. District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson said on Monday that a gun found in Irving’s possession at the time of his arrest was registered to him.
Over a four-decade coaching career, Beam was beloved in Oakland and throughout the Bay Area for coaching thousands of student-athletes. He was the longtime football coach at Skyline High School, where he led the Titans to 15 league championships and four undefeated seasons.
Beam went on to coach football at Laney College, where he gained national recognition in the Netflix docuseries “Last Chance U”. His program at Laney was noted for having more than 90% of his players graduating or transferring to four-year schools, and several of his players have gone on to play in the National Football League.
The man accused in the killing of beloved Laney College athletic director John Beam in Oakland, Calif., was charged with murder on Monday and faces a gun enhancement count as well, authorities said.
Cedric Irving Jr., 27, faces 50 years to life in prison if convicted of Beam’s murder. The charges come with an enhancement that he discharged a firearm, said Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson at a press conference Monday.
Irving is accused of shooting and killing Beam, the former Laney football coach profiled in the Netflix series “Last Chance U,” at the Laney Fieldhouse sports facility last week. The 66-year-old Beam died of his injuries the next morning, hours after Irving was located at the San Leandro BART station following a manhunt.
Cedric Irving Jr.
Alameda County Sheriff’s Office
Dickson said at the press conference that Beam’s shooting, along with a second shooting last week at Skyline High School in Oakland and ongoing gun violence in the city have prompted her office to reinstitute mandatory minimum sentences in gun cases in Alameda County.
“I think it’s important to talk about accountability as it relates to gun violence. I think that there are way too many guns on the street in the hands they shouldn’t be in, and a lot of those hands, unfortunately, are young people,” Dickson said. “And so, this is my opportunity to try something that we’ve tried before, to see if we can put a dent in some of this violent crime that is related to gun violence in our community.”
Dickson said she would not release details about Beam’s shooting, and police have not released any information about a motive in the shooting, which police called a “very targeted incident.” Dickson did confirm that Irving made statements to officers about the shooting but would not divulge details about what was said.
Irving was not a student or employee at Laney College but was known to loiter on or near the campus, Oakland Interim Police Chief James Beere said last week following the shooting. Irving played football at Skyline High School, where Beam coached before being hired at Laney, but not during the time Beam was head coach, Beere said.
Dickson said on Monday that a gun found in Irving’s possession when he was arrested was registered to him. She also indicated that she would not comment on Irving’s state of mind or mental health.
“I can say he does not have a criminal record that we can find,” Dickson said. “And oftentimes, people who have significant mental health issues will come into contact with the criminal justice system, but we see none.”
Beam was revered in Oakland and the Bay Area for his impact on the student-athletes he coached over his decades-long career and gained national recognition from the “Last Chance U” series, which highlighted his unique coaching style and influence on players on and off the field. His program at Laney was known for having over 90% of his players graduating or transferring to four-year schools.
Over the course of his coaching career, Beam developed more than 30 National Football League players, including seven Super Bowl participants, according to the Peralta Community College District.
The man accused in the killing of beloved Laney College athletic director John Beam in Oakland, Calif., was charged with murder on Monday, and also faces a gun enhancement in the case, authorities said.
Cedric Irving Jr., 27, faces 50 years to life in prison if convicted of Beam’s murder, which comes with an enhancement that he discharged a firearm, said Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson at a press conference Monday.
Irving is accused of shooting and killing Beam, the former Laney football coach profiled in the Netflix series “Last Chance U,” at the Laney Fieldhouse sports facility last week. The 66-year-old Beam died of his injuries the next morning, hours after Irving was located at the San Leandro BART station following a manhunt.
Cedric Irving Jr.
Alameda County Sheriff’s Office
Dickson said at the press conference that Beam’s shooting, along with a second shooting last week at Skyline High School in Oakland and ongoing gun violence in the city, has prompted her office to reinstitute mandatory minimum sentences in gun cases in Alameda County.
“I think it’s important to talk about accountability as it relates to gun violence. I think that there are way too many guns on the street in the hands they shouldn’t be in, and a lot of those hands, unfortunately, are young people.” Dickson said. “And so, this is my opportunity to try something that we’ve tried before, to see if we can put a dent in some of this violent crime that is related to gun violence in our community.”
Dickson said she would not release details about Beam’s shooting, and police have not released any information about a motive in the shooting, which police called a “very targeted incident.” Dickson did confirm that Irving made statements to officers about the shooting, but would not divulge the details about what was said.
Irving was not a student or employee at Laney College but was known to loiter on or near the campus, Oakland Interim Police Chief James Beere officials said last week following the shooting. Irving played football at Skyline High School, where Beam coached before being hired at Laney, but not during the time Beam was head coach, Beere said.
Dickson said on Monday that a gun found in Irving’s possession when he was arrested was registered to him. She also indicated that she would not comment on Irving’s state of mind or mental health.
“I can say he does not have a criminal record that we can find,” Dickson said. “And oftentimes, people who have significant mental health issues will come into contact with the criminal justice system, but we see none.”
Beam was revered in Oakland and the Bay Area for his impact on the student-athletes he coached over his decades-long career and gained national recognition from the “Last Chance U” series, which highlighted his unique coaching style and influence on players on and off the field. His program at Laney was known for having over 90% of his players graduating or transferring to four-year schools.
Over the course of his coaching career, Beam developed more than 30 National Football League players, including seven Super Bowl participants, according to the Peralta Community College District.
New warrants released Monday reveal the Zebulon father accused of murdering his four children had a fifth child, whom he buried behind the family’s home.
Wellington Dickens III is facing multiple counts of first-degree murder. He was arrested in October, after calling 911 and telling the dispatcher he’d killed the children through a combination of neglect and over-discipline.
The warrants released Monday say Dickens and his wife also had a fifth child, named Riley, who died shortly after the family moved into the Zebulon home. Court records show Dickens took possession of the home in May 2023.
Dickens told investigators that Riley was about a month old when the child’s health began to decline. It’s not clear how Riley died.
After the child died, Dickens said he wrapped the body in paper or plastic material and buried the child in a four-foot-deep unmarked grave in a wooded area behind the home. Investigators said Riley’s death was never reported in any capacity.
Family members told investigators they had never seen, heard from or about Riley once the family moved.
Investigators have been searching for Riley’s grave, but so far, they have not found any signs of the baby’s body.
Neighbors told WRAL News that sheriff’s deputies and members of the State Bureau of Investigation have visited the home multiple times since Dickens was arrested. That includes one visit on October 31, when a video shared by neighbors shows Dickens himself leading investigators across the property. In the video, Dickens is wearing an orange and white jumpsuit and has his hands and feet shackled.
The warrants also revealed the order in which the other children died.
According to investigators, Dickens said his 5-year-old daughter, Leah Dickens, was the first to die. He said he had disciplined her, and after returning to her room to check on her, she was dead.
Dickens said his 9-year-old daughter, Zoe Dickens, was the next child to die. According to warrants, Dickens told investigators that Zoe began asking about her sister. Dickens admitted to investigators that he taped her mouth shut to discipline her, and when he returned to check on her, she was also dead.
Dickens told investigators his 10-year-old son, Wellington Dickens IV, was the third child to die. According to arrest warrants, Dickens said he was teaching the boy how to box. He said the boy had stopped eating, and his father believed he died from malnutrition.
The fourth child to die was his 18-year-old stepson, Sean Brasfield, who he believed also died from malnutrition.
Warrants also revealed that much of the inside of Dickens’ home had recently been repainted. These warrants say Dickens had also been searching Amazon for a type of paint capable of covering up stains.
Investigators now want to bring in chemicals that could reveal bloodstains under that paint.
The guys at the sheriff’s office call her a cool dude with long hair because, they say, she’s meaner than any of them — on the gun range and in the field. Her name is Lt. Dakota Black. She’s a trained tracker and detective with the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Lt. Dakota Black: I go out to scenes when there’s manhunts or trying to locate individuals.
Her specialty is finding the missing — whether alive or dead.
Lt. Dakota Black: I have found them underneath piles of leaves. … In trees and abandoned homes, sheds … I’ve found them pretty much in any area you can think of.
Often by her side, her partner, Deputy Haven, a trained therapy dog. For kids and other family members caught in the crossfire of tragedy, Haven provides comfort and consolation — a consoling presence she herself would rely on in the coming months as she embarked on one of the most heart-wrenching cases of her career.
Lt. Dakota Black: This case will stay with me forever. And it will be one that I always remember through my whole life … Because of how cruel it was.
The Search for Makayla Meave
Andria Meave: The last thing we said to each other, was “I love you.”
Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, began like most days for Andria Meave: with a 7 a.m. phone call from her best friend and younger sister, Makayla.
Andria Meave: I wish I would’ve known I would’ve said so much more. … I’m grateful for that. At least I said, “I love you.”
The next morning, Saturday the 16th, the phone rang as usual around 7 a.m. —only this time, it wasn’t Makayla. It was Makayla’s husband, Frank Byers.
Andria Meave: He’s hysterical, crying, screaming, can barely understand what he’s saying. And he says, Makayla didn’t come home last night. … Heended up telling me that Makayla went on a date the Friday night before with a bald man in a white truck … They left and she never came home last night.
Makayla Meave and Frank Byers on their wedding day.
Frank Byers Facebook
At the time, Makayla and Frank Byers were headed for divorce, says Andria Meave. They were still living on the same 10-acre property in Macomb, Oklahoma — but in separate homes. So, at first, Meave wasn’t worried.
Andria Meave: My first thought is she’s single. … I hope she had fun.
But Meave’s mood began to shift when her many calls to Makayla went to voicemail.
Andria Meave: By noon, I was worried. One o’clock, I was really worried.
Their mother, Barbara Harper, was also anxious. Makayla was supposed to help out at the family restaurant that afternoon. But she didn’t show and hadn’t called — unheard of for Makayla.
Barbara Harper: And the more I prayed about it, the more I realized that something serious had happened.
Frank Byers also reported Makayla missing to the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office that afternoon.
FRANK BYERS (to 911): … my wife’s been missing since late last night … she left … at 5:30ish, roughly 5:40, and the last time that anyone has heard from her has been at 8:00 p.m.
911 OPERATOR: … And your name?
FRANK BYERS: My name is Frank Byers, B-Y-E-R-S.
911 OPERATOR: … What’s her name?
FRANK BYERS: Her name is Makayla, uh, Byers …
The deputy on duty, Dustin Richardson, felt he needed to put eyes on the ground. He got to Macomb around 4 p.m. with his bodycam rolling.
Deputy Dustin Richardson: … he’d given me the information over the phone, but I just wanted to see where she was coming from and — and see more of the details.
Frank Byers made a point of showing the deputy the last Facebook message he said Makayla sent him after she left assuring him she was “fine…” and to “back off…”
Then he told him the story about Makayla driving off with a bald man in a white truck.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON (bodycam): Did you see the guy at all?
FRANK BYERS: … I would probably say, 6, 6’1″.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON: OK.
FRANK BYERS: He was completely bald and he had a beard. If I — If I had to guess a weight, I don’t know, maybe 200.
Richardson then asked if he could see the house where Makayla was temporarily living.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON (bodycam): Can I go take a look around?
FRANK BYERS: Yeah.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON: … So she’s been staying in this little old thing?
FRANK BYERS: Yeah … Yeah, so —
DEPUTY RICHARDSON: All locked up.
An image from bodycam video shows Frank Byers with Deputy Richardson outside the shed where Byers said Makayla Meave had been staying.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
But the shed-like home was locked and Byers said he didn’t have a key. But he did have something to say about their relationship.
FRANK BYERS (bodycam video): … we have an open marriage where — well, that’s — that’s a brand-new thing I don’t like it, but um, I agreed upon it cause I’m trying to fix our marriage …
At that point, the deputy decided to take a quick drive to the school where Makayla worked as a teacher’s aide. Maybe she had gone there.
ANOTHER DEPUTY (on phone): What’s up?
DEPUTY RICHARDSON: Man. This uh Frank Byers called in saying his uh wife was missing …
He called his son, also a deputy, from the car.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON (bodycam): … this guy is squirrelly man, this Frank guy is squirrelly …
Deputy Dustin Richardson: The sensation was that there is nothing about the story that is really true.
While the deputy was at the school, friends and family started showing up at the property, including Makayla’s mom, Barbara Harper.
Barbara Harper: When I first got there … I didn’t even speak to anyone.
Barbara Harper: I was on my hands and knees crawling through brush out in the pasture. … we’ve got to find where she’s at.
With his body camera rolling, Richardson returned to the property late that afternoon. Byers had smashed open the lock to Makayla’s place with a hammer.
Deputy Dustin Richardson: I looked and I … I immediately saw empty, uh, shell casings from what appeared to be 22 caliber …
Deputy Dustin Richardson: … he told me that she sits in there and shoots out at animals … the coyotes and stuff.
FRANK BYERS (bodycam): There’s a few times I’ve heard her shoot …
By then, more deputies had arrived.
Deputy Dustin Richardson: I had asked him where she … kept that gun. And he said it was in his house.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON (bodycam): Is it in there now?
Deputy Dustin Richardson: I had him walk me to his house and he walked inside … and he pointed at it … I had, uh, pulled it from where it was in there … and put it in my vehicle.
FRANK BYERS (bodycam): … treat it like always.
The gun, according to the deputy, appeared to have been recently fired.
Deputy Dustin Richardson: I, uh, made phone calls to, uh, get our criminal investigation team out there because I just — it was off that there was something that needed to be looked into more.
DEPUTY RICHARDSON (bodycam): Hey, I’m on that – I’m on that missing person thing still… This is suspicious as f***.
Investigators ushered family and friends off the property and blocked the driveway.
Barbara Harper (crying): I remember walking back to my car and just screaming at God, asking him, “why, why did you do this, let this happen? Just take me, take me, and let us find her and just take me.”
The missing person’s investigation was now a possible criminal investigation, and that’s when the call went out to lead detective Lieutenant Dakota Black.
Lt. Dakota Black: We definitely needed … to figure out what was going on.
A Mother’s Intuition
As soon as Lt. Dakota Black got the call that Makayla Meave was missing, she jumped in her vehicle and sped to Macomb.
Peter Van Sant: What was your immediate mission?
Lt. Dakota Black: To locate Makayla. We — we needed to locate her. We didn’t know where she was.
Detective Black and her partner on the case – Detective Marcus May—now the undersheriff—put out a BOLO alert: be on the lookout.
Det. Marcus May: It was “be on the lookout for a … white male with a beard, bald head, driving a white truck” … we wanted … all of the local law enforcement and surrounding agencies aware that, that we do have a situation developing over here.
The tips from this rural area, where everyone seems to know everybody, came pouring in.
Lt. Dakota Black: Every white pickup truck with tinted windows was getting called in to the sheriff’s office.
None of the sightings panned out but the search took on a life of its own.
Lt. Dakota Black: Flyers were posted everywhere. Social media ads were everywhere.
Det. Marcus May: Makayla Meave was beloved by everybody. … they were demanding every resource possible … to go find Makayla.
Peter Van Sant: Dakota, this was a, uh, a woman with enormous heart. Right?
Lt. Dakota Black: Absolutely. … She loved her family. She loved her friends. … she loved children.
Makayla Meave, right, with her sister Andria and mother Barbara Harper.
Andria Meave
Makayla fell in love with children when she herself was still a child. Her mom ran a daycare.
Barbara Harper: We weren’t just a daycare. We were the family, and she loved those kids, especially the babies (laughs).
Sadly, Makayla was unable to have children of her own. But that didn’t stop her. In her 20s, Makayla fostered and would eventually adopt two kids — a brother and sister.
Andria Meave: She dropped what she was doing, went took — and took classes, got certified to make sure that she could give those kids a home. … She did.
Around that time, an old high school classmate named Frank Byers contacted her out of the blue through Facebook. Byers, who was divorced, had primary custody of four young daughters.
Frank Byers
Frank Byers Facebook
Andria Meave: Frank was telling her a story that the current girlfriend he was living with was abusing his four daughters … so my sister took him and all four girls in and just started basically taking care of them.
Barbara Harper: She felt like the kids needed her and she sure needed them. … probably the happiest I’d seen her in a long time with those girls.
Frank and Makayla got married in 2022. They built their lives together in Macomb – population 24.
Barbara Harper: It’s just country. It’s 100 percent country. The kids are 100 percent country.
Makayla was going to college to get her teaching degree while working at the local elementary school.
Barbara Harper: And she would stand up for the kids. And — and if she saw a child that was dirty or wasn’t taken care of, she would take it to the principal and, you know, bring awareness to it.
Andria Meave: I think that was her biggest thing in life was to help little innocent kids that needed adult help. She always felt responsible to do that.
Countywide, dozens of people turned out in the cold and pouring rain to slog through mud and tick-infested woods in search of their beloved teacher. But one person at the heart of this mystery conspicuously appeared notto search: Makayla’s husband, Frank Byers.
Lt. Dakota Black: He never participated in a single search. He never volunteered to go out with any of the search parties, to go out and try to find Makayla.
Andria Meave: It wasn’t like, oh, my God, my wife is missing. He never seemed like concerned about that. He seemed more concerned about himself.
Peter Van Sant: What were you noticing about Frank Byers?
Det. Marcus May: The — the lack of any … human emotion … I mean he — he did not seem scared. … He just wanted to know what we knew. He – he just didn’t seem human at all.
Investigators were already zeroing in on Frank Byers.
Det. Marcus May: We strongly suspected Frank.
Three days after Makayla was reported missing, Frank Byers agreed to be questioned by Black at the sheriff’s office. The interview was audio only.
FRANK BYERS (interview with detectives): At this time I just want her found …
The detective tried to win his trust by playing the good cop.
DET. BLACK: Again, I couldn’t imagine. I mean it’s hard not knowing, you know. And when everybody’s pointing a finger at you I’m sure it doesn’t make it any better.
FRANK BYERS: Yeah.
FRANK BYERS: … I feel like I got to defend myself and tell everyone that no, this is what happened, this is the truth.
She pressed him but not enough to make him stop talking.
DET. BLACK: Did you ask her about the date before she left?
FRANK BYERS: Yes, I did. And uh, she told me it was none of my business. Same thing as if I went on a date, it’s none of her business.
DET. BLACK: OK, so she never said a name or anything?
FRANK BYERS: No. She —
DET. BLACK: How she met him, how she knew him?
FRANK BYERS: No…
After answering questions for two-and-a-half hours, Black let him go home. The search for Makayla continued. Harper remembers crawling through brush wearing snake protectors when she says she had a premonition.
Barbara Harper: I heard Makayla tell me, mama I’m in a tin horn. … I said, oh my God, she just told me she’s in a tinhorn.
Harper frantically started looking for tinhorns — pipes or culverts used to divert water under roads — but there was no sign of Makayla. Then came the call to 911 on day five that would prove her mother’s intuition was right.
911 CALLER: … ma’am I don’t know exactly where I’m at, but I’m on Hamilton Road. I was searching with my friend for my cousin that’s missing, Makayla Meave.
DISPATCHER: Mm-hmm.
911 CALLER: And I think that we just found her.
A Devastating Discovery
The chatter of locusts permeated the air, an eerie sense of foreboding. Makayla Meave had been missing for five days.
Andria Meave: I got a phone call from my friend, and she said, I need you to sit down … And she said they found someone and it’s a female … And I’m like, is she dead or alive?
Earlier that day, a cousin and her friend had been out searching about half a mile from Makayla’s house when they were stopped in their tracks by a strong, sickening odor. The friend followed the intense smell down a ditch to a tinhorn. He saw something sticking out. It was a hand.
911 CALLER: … I was searching with my friend for my cousin that’s missing, Makayla Meave.
DISPATCHER: Mm-hmm.
911 CALLER: And I think that we just found her.
It was the call Detective Dakota Black had been dreading.
Lt. Dakota Black: It was devastating to everybody I mean it was absolutely terrible.
The tinhorn — a culvert used to divert water under roads — where Makayla Meave’s body was discovered wrapped in a carpet.
CBS News
Just as Barbara Harper had imagined, Makayla was in a large drainage pipe beneath the road.
Lt. Dakota Black: She had been drug into the middle area and she was wrapped in a carpet. … Uh, she had one sock on her foot that had teddy bears on it and her shirt was actually pulled up over her face to cover it. .. I mean it was hard. It was really hard.
Detective Black wouldn’t leave Makayla’s side. The two women had been born one day apart in the same year. But that wasn’t their only bond.
Lt. Dakota Black: I did feel a connection with Makayla… I have a history also. … you know I’ve been in bad relationships … It could have been me. (emotional) … On more than one occasion. … I just got lucky …
While the detectives were working the scene, Makayla’s family gathered just up the road.
Lt. Dakota Black: You could hear, hear them crying up there and they were trying to come down here where she was.
But the crime scene was blocked off.
BARBARA HARPER (bodycam): Can we see her? I can verify. Please?
Barbara Harper: I never once doubted that it was her.
Makayla Meave’s mother Barbara Harper arrives at the crime scene. “I just needed to be with her,” she said.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
OFFICER (bodycam): … if anyone goes through the tape without permission, they immediately go to jail, I – I don’t know what to tell you I’m sorry.
BARBARA HARPER: Can you tell them we’re here?
OFFICER: Of course. Of course.
Barbara Harper: I felt like I needed to see her because she had been out there for five days without me. And I just needed to be with her and they wouldn’t let me.” (crying) … she needed me and I wasn’t there.
Makayla’s remains were placed in the coroner’s van for the journey to the Medical Examiner’s Office.
Andria Meave: My mom and I both realized that it was probably her in there and that we would never be able to, like, hold her and hug her again, my mom started to chase the van. (crying)
Barbara Harper: I just followed it down the road, just as fast as I could … And somebody hollered at me and asked me what I was doing and I said, “my — my baby is in that van.” (crying)
Detective Black was so angry, she had to hold herself back.
Lt. Dakota Black: I wanted to leave that night and go and arrest Frank. But I knew … um … it’s better to move thoroughly than to act quick.
The two investigators had already begun building a strong circumstantial case against Frank Byers — the bullet casings in her home, his unlikely story that Makayla agreed to an open marriageand left with a bald man in a white truck.
FRANK BYERS (bodycam): Uh, she embraced the guy in a hug, and then they got in the truck and left …
Peter Van Sant: When you ask Makayla’s family about this open relationship … what’d they say?
Lt. Dakota Black: Absolutely not. They said there was absolutely no possible way that Makayla would’ve ever done that …
Investigators learned from interviews and from Frank Byers’ own social media accounts that he was the one who was cheating.
Andria Meave: Frank Byers is the biggest cheater. … He was cheating on her as soon as he moved in … Every time he would go out of town, he was creating dating profiles.
Frank Byers worked for an environmental cleanup company cleaning up hazardous materials. He spent a lot of time on the road.
Lt. Dakota Black: He would meet women at gas stations, he would meet up with them at hotel rooms … He would text them while he was home with Makayla and hide it from her.
Det. Marcus May: He was communicating … with females … the day Maykala was murdered … and immediately afterwards.
Andria Meave: He was sending pictures to women the day of her funeral asking, how do I look in my tux?
Byers’ cheating got so bad, Makayla moved out about three months before her murder.
Andria Meave: She packed a bag and she came and stayed with me for a week. … I held her where she cried every night. … She felt like a failure.
But Makayla’s love for the little girls kept drawing her back, says Andria Meave.
Makayla went back to the 10-acre property, but not to Byers. She temporarily moved into that little structure behind his to stay close to the girls. Byers tried to win her back, promising to change. But the cheating continued. Detective Black would later discover this conversation in which Makayla told Byers she was done:
MAKAYLA MEAVE: I’ve never once been dead set for divorce until today.
FRANK BYERS: You …
MAKAYLA MEAVE: … I’m just saying you have officially lost me …
Makayla recorded it two days before her murder.
Black believes she recorded it to expose Byers’ infidelity.
MAKAYLA MEAVE: … I’m stating to you right now that you have officially broke the last string that was holding me to you.
FRANK BYERS: OK.
MAKAYLA MEAVE: And you have nobody to blame but yourself for doing it.
That Friday, September 15, Makayla returned from work to pick up her things and leave for good. But Frank Byers, it seemed, had other plans. Detectives would later recover these images captured on a home security camera on his phone.
Detective Black believes he thought he had deleted them.
A home security camera photo of Makayla Meave, right, seen walking through the front door of the home she once shared with Frank Byers, on the day of her murder.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
Peter Van Sant: Where is Makayla in this picture?
Lt. Dakota Black: This is Frank’s home and she’s coming through the front door.
Makayla stayed for 14 minutes. The detective believes they were arguing.
The last picture of the series is Frank Byers standing at the door of his home.
Peter Van Sant: What do you believe happened after this last photograph was taken?
Lt. Dakota Black: I think this is when he exited his home and went to her home and killed her. I think this is when he killed Makayla, within minutes.
Makayla was shot in the head.
Lt. Dakota Black: Makayla had a gunshot wound right here in the front. She had one on the left side and then she had a graze wound on the same side.
Peter Van Sant: The last image she may have seen on this earth was her own husband holding a rifle, and then the shot fired.
Lt. Dakota Black: Yes.
Profile of a Murderer
It started as a simmering anger and grew into a raging fury. People wanted to know why Frank Byers was still walking free.
Det. Marcus May:The most difficult part was knowing that we were accumulating evidence to Frank’s guilt and Makayla’s murder, but we were unable to release that or share that with the public …
Lt. Dakota Black: We knew Frank was guilty. We knew Frank was not a good husband. We knew Frank was lying. … We knew lots of things, but we couldn’t prove everything, and I wanted to prove everything to make sure he stayed in jail.
Lt. Dakota Black, a tracker and detective with the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and her partner, Deputy Haven, a trained therapy dog.
CBS News
Detective Black spent 18-hour days at the office with her sidekick Haven – the therapy dog now there for her.
Peter Van Sant: Give me a sense, emotionally, how tough this was for you?
Lt. Dakota Black: It was tough mentally. I was drained. I was mentally exhausted. … I had lost weight. I was tired, but I was not gonna to go home … until this case was solved.
Byers used the time to defend himself on social media. “… I am innocent, And everything will come out.”
He also appeared on local news.
FRANK BYERS (local news report): Even today, I called her. I mean, I know she’s not here, but it’s just the fact that I have her number still and her phone’s still on somewheres. And, uh, it just, it would’ve been nice to hear her voice …
Many in the community tuned in to watch Byers’ interview, including Lt. Dakota Black.
Peter Van Sant: Did it make you angry?
Lt. Dakota Black: It did make me angry. It was sickening to see that a beautiful woman was gone from the world, and that while he’s on TV, professing his innocence, he’s … still in communication with other women, trying to have intimate relationships with them.
Black tracked down scores of these women. Crystal Cantrell was Byers’ girlfriend before he met Makayla.
Crystal Cantrell: He is very good at making you believe him … And then he’s kind of like a snake. Once he gets you in there, he bites you.
Black learned Byers wooed Cantrell the same way he wooed Makayla — with a false story that his daughters were being mistreated by his current girlfriend. And like Makayla, Cantrell had a soft heart.
Crystal Cantrell: I love kids. You know, I have kids of my own. So, I just felt really bad for them.
Shortly after they moved in together, Cantrell says Byers started to show his true colors. He isolated her from friends and family and controlled her every move. They fought. One night, she woke up to see him looming over her clutching a pair of handcuffs.
Crystal Cantrell: I closed them so he couldn’t use them on me. And then … after that he just got on my back and was choking me. He had wrapped his arms around me and had his hand on my throat and he just didn’t let go.
Cantrell was able to get away but was too afraid to report the incident to the police. She left Byers for good but says it could have been her in that ditch.
Crystal Cantrell: He would’ve killed me.
If Byers ever harmed Makayla, she never told her mom and sister. Sometimes they saw bruises, but Makayla always said they were just from rough housing with the kids.
Andria Meave: I think if I think about it too much is where I will go down a dark hole and not come out because I did see the bruises and I just chose to believe and not question. And then maybe if I would’ve questioned, it would come out differently.
Bit by bit, Black and her team built a profile of a murderer.
Lt. Dakota Black: So, this photo was taken at Walmart …
Using the date on a Walmart receipt found on Frank’s property, the detective was able to track down a security camera photo.
Frank Byers seen in a Walmart security image buying bleach, ammonia and a mop on Sept. 16, 2023.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
Peter Van Sant: What’s in the cart?
Lt. Dakota Black: There is bleach, ammonia, and a mop.
Peter Van Sant: And mop, ammonia, and bleach equals what in your mind as an investigator?
Lt. Dakota Black: Crime scene cleanup.
They were also able to match the carpet in the ditch to one a neighbor had given Byers and Makayla for their dogs.
DET MARCUS MAY (bodycam): … you, you gave them that carpet about eight or nine months ago? Was that…
NEIGHBOR: Yes…
Lt. Dakota Black: Frank took the carpet that was given to him by the neighbor and used that to roll Makayla’s body in.
They believe Byers killed Makayla around 4 p.m. and left her body in her home. He then picked up his girls after school and drove them around, returning home about 8 p.m. That’s when, the detectives believe, he started to move her body.
Det. Marcus May: The kids reported in interviews that once they returned home, that, that Frank … was outside most of the night. He — he wasn’t in his bed.
Black says there were fresh tire tracks leading to Makayla’s little house.
Lt. Dakota Black: We believe that the tire tracks actually came from a vehicle backing up to load her body, to take it to where she was located.
The detectives believe Byers drove Makayla’s body to the edge of the ditch, pulled her out, and then let her body topple the 12 to 15 feet to the creek bed. They believe Byers then climbed down and dragged her into that pipe underneath the roadway.
Once Byers got rid of the body, he concocted a plan to cover up his crime.
MAN (bodycam): So she took her phone with her?
FRANK BYERS: Yeah as far as I know she took her phone with her…
Remember, he told the deputy that Makayla had messaged him from her phone that evening, telling him “back off …” But investigators would later find Makayla’s phone in Frank’s bedroom.
Detective May confronted Frank in a second interview.
DETECTIVE MAY (interview): … So, I’m just trying to understand how, if she left with her phone and was communicating with you through her phone on Facebook, how that phone was in your bedroom? …
FRANK BYERS: I understand. Um, I mean, I — I don’t — I mean, I — I don’t have an explanation, honestly …
But investigators did have an explanation. Makayla had two phones – an iPhone and a Moto G phone. Byers had both of them.
Lt. Dakota Black: The Moto G phone was an old phone of Makayla’s that she hadn’t been using for quite some time.
Byers knew how to get into that old phone. so he switched the SIM card from her iPhone.
Peter Van Sant: Why does he do that?
Det. Marcus May: To gain full access to … all of her accounts.
Det. Marcus May: That’s how he was texting himself … pretending to be Makayla …And in fact, it was him the entire time.
The evidence was mounting but they were still waiting on two key pieces of evidence they had sent to the forensic lab for testing.
Lt. Dakota Black: I needed a smoking gun that I knew was not gonna let him out. I knew it was going to keep him there.
Peter Van Sant: What have you just unwrapped here?
Det. Marcus May: … what do we have here is the projectile recovered from the two-by-four inside Makayla’s bedroom.
In addition to the shell casings found on the floor in Makayla’s home, they later found a bullet – wrapped in what they believed was Makayla’s hair – embedded in the wall. They hoped it would test positive for Makayla’s DNA.
And then there were the boots.
Lt. Dakota Black: So these are Frank’s work boots. They were recovered … on the night of the missing person’s report, uh, from his bedroom.
Peter Van Sant: And what did you spot on these boots that was of interest?
Lt. Dakota Black: So we had found a substance that we believed could be blood, but he also works with lots of chemicals. So we were unsure if that would be something that got on there while he was at work.
Makayla Meave’s blood was found on Frank Byers’ work boots.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
Thirty-eight days after Makayla went missing, they finally got the results. They weren’t able to get a genetic confirmation on the hair, but the boots were a different story. The substance on Byers’ boots wasblood — Makayla’s blood.
Lt. Dakota Black: As soon as we got that … we were like, we’re going right now.
Peter Van Sant: You had your man.
Det. Marcus May: We had our guy, yes.
Plea Deal was Cop Out, Says Victim’s Mother
Lt. Dakota Black: We were waiting for that arrest. … So it moved fast after that.
It was close to midnight, flashing police lights lit up the darkness. 38 days after Makayla Meave was reported missing, Lt. Black, Deputy Richardson and a special operations team moved in to arrest Frank Byers.
Lt. Dakota Black: Got with the SWAT team, organized the takedown and went in and got him.
Peter Van Sant: He thought he was smarter than everyone, but he was outsmarted, right?
Lt. Dakota Black: Yes. I think he was surprised.
Bodycam video shows Frank Byers the night of his arrest.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office
FRANK BYERS (bodycam): I swear I didn’t do it.
Black finally had Byers in her grasp and right where she wanted him — in handcuffs headed to jail. Detective May called Makayla’s family with the news.
Barbara Harper: That was a hallelujah moment, that was about time moment. … We couldn’t get her back, but we knew he wasn’t walking free anymore.
May says they were done with Byers’ lies and they confronted him with the hard evidence they’d taken weeks to gather.
DETECTIVE MAY (interrogation): Now is the opportunity to let us know what happened.
FRANK BYERS: I — I didn’t do it. I mean –
DETECTIVE MAY: Why was her blood on your boots?
FRANK BYERS: I mean, I can’t answer I mean, I — I — I don’t — I don’t know I mean, honestly.
Frank Byers was charged with first-degree murder. The D.A. was seeking the death penalty, but the defense requested a deal to save his life. 15 months after Byers’ arrest, he agreed to plead guilty and serve life without parole.
Makayla’s mom was bitterly disappointed.
Barbara Harper: I feel that the plea deal was a cop out. … The moment, the second that she took her last breath, he chose that and he got to choose what he got for punishment too, and that’s not OK. It’s not OK.”
The plea deal isn’t the only thing upsetting Harper. She doesn’t think Byers acted alone.
Peter Van Sant: You’re absolutely convinced that Frank had somebody help him.
Barbara Harper: I’ll go to my grave believing that.
Andria Meave: I think he had to have had an accomplice. … I don’t think that he could have moved her body on his own at all.
Peter Van Sant: Physically he could not have done it.
Andria Meave: No, I don’t believe so.
Lt. Dakota Black: I think we all agree that it would absolutely be difficult to move her, but people are scared, they can do amazing things.
Det. Marcus May: What they’re saying is not unreasonable. … If the evidence is presented to us one day that, that — uh — that suggests that … we will take it and we’ll run with it to its fullest extent.
Barbara Harper: I come and I sit and I look at that place down there … I went down and hung all kinds of crosses and different things.
Barbara Harper: He didn’t just take from us, he took from his own children someone that loved them, that put them first.
Lt. Dakota Black: It didn’t have to end this way. He could have let her leave. But he didn’t.
There’s cold justice for Makayla. For Detective Dakota Black, tracker, her painful work continues.
Barbara Harper: Makayla would want her life to mean something.
Harper is starting “Makayla’s Purple Butterfly” foundation to fight against domestic violence.
Andria Meave: … that was her goal, her mission in life, was when you see someone in need help them.
Barbara Harper has created “Makayla’s Purple Butterfly” foundation to fight against domestic violence – keeping with Makayla’s mission of wanting to help others.
CBS News
Andria Meave (at Makayla’s grave with her mother): When I think of Makayla, I think of sunflowers. I think of joy.
Barbara Harper: She would love that though, you know, she would with all those sunflowers. I sure miss her smile, her laugh, oh that laugh was something else.
Andria Meave: She was my best friend. … I strived for her to be proud of me because I looked up to her, even though she was the little sister.
Andria Meave: I still lay in bed and talk to her like she’s still right there. … I feel like she’s watching over us every day.
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233
Produced by Liza Finley and Hannah Vair. David Dow is the development producer. Marlon Disla, Marcus Balsam, George Baluzy and Michael Baluzy are the editors. Megan Brown is the associate producer. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
After being found guilty at retrial earlier this month, Lyndon Wiggins is seeking a third trial over his role in the 2019 kidnapping and killing of Minneapolis realtor Monique Baugh.
Wiggins was set to be sentenced on Thursday, but his defense filed a motion for a new trial. The judge said he would have to read through the new motion before making a decision.
Wiggins, 40, was originally convicted in June 2022 and sentenced to life in prison. The Minnesota Supreme Court later reversed his conviction, saying the trial judge gave erroneous legal instructions to the jury. In a retrial that lasted nearly a month, Wiggins was convicted of aiding and abetting first-degree premeditated murder, aiding and abetting first-degree premeditated attempted murder, aiding and abetting kidnapping and aiding and abetting first-degree murder while committing kidnapping.
Monique Baugh’s mother said she is emotionally exhausted after sitting through two trials.
“I just think this is her strategy, this is the way that she works, and when I say she, I’m talking about his defense attorney,” Wanda Williams Baugh said. “Because you wait until the day of sentencing, you send a 13-page motion to get a new trial right before sentencing? I mean, who does that, who does that?”
Court documents said Wiggins and his codefendant, Elsa Segura, set up a fake home showing for Monique Baugh in a Minneapolis suburb. When she arrived at the Maple Grove, Minnesota, home on New Year’s Eve, two men abducted her, then drove to her boyfriend’s home, where one of them shot him.
Monique Baugh was shot three times and later died from her injuries. Her boyfriend identified Wiggins as a possible suspect.
The state Supreme Court also overturned Segura’s original conviction, but she subsequently pleaded guilty to kidnapping in 2024 and earned a 20-year prison sentence. The two other men involved, Cedric Berry and Berry Davis, received life sentences without the possibility of parole for their roles.
Monique Baugh, 27, was a mother of two who worked for Kris Lindahl Real Estate, which set up a fundraiser for her children after her death. Her aunt told WCCO in 2020 that she was “always happy, always nice to people.”
There is not a trial date set yet for the man accused of killing a top Minnesota House Democrat and her husband as the defense reviews thousands of documents and recordings prosecutors turned over related to the June shooting attacks.
Vance Boelter, 58, faces six federal charges for who faces six charges for killing former DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and wounding DFL state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette at their homes on June 14. He pleaded not guilty.
At a status conference hearing Wednesday, Boelter’s federal defender Manny Atwal said the defense received 130,000 pages of documents, over 800 hours of video and audio recordings and 2,000 photos from prosecutors, which has taken 110 hours just to download and is still in process.
“That’s not unusual for a complex case, but it is a lot of information for us to review,” she told the court.
Magistrate Judge Dulce Foster extended the deadline for defense pretrial motions from January to May after Atwal said the earlier deadline would be hard to meet due to the sheer volume of evidence to review.
Foster also asked prosecutors if the government would be seeking the death penalty in this case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Harry Jacobs said there is not a timeline yet on when that would be determined.
His office can make recommendations, but the final decision rests solely with the U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“We’re giving it the care and concern it needs,” Jacobs said.
Foster scheduled another status conference for Feb. 12 and asked for updates on the death penalty as soon as they are available.
Investigators said Boelter was impersonating a police officer and had a hit list that included the names of other Democratic officials the night he shot and killed the Hortmans and wounded the Hoffmans. He also visited the homes of two other DFL lawmakers the night of the attacks, police said, before he was arrested after a two-day manhunt that authorities called the largest in Minnesota history.
Thompson said the note “certainly seems designed to excuse his crimes.”
Separately, the International Association of Chiefs of Police is conducting an after-action review of the 43-hour period that started with Hope Hoffman’s 911 call alerting authorities her parents had been shot by a person impersonating a police officer and ended with Boelter’s arrest.
The report, which will be made public upon completion, will evaluate law enforcement’s response during that time and is commissioned by the Brooklyn Park, New Hope and Champlin police departments, as well as the Minnesota Department of Public Safety and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office.
It’s expected to take six months and will cost nearly $430,000 split between those agencies.
Detectives charged 41-year-old Luis Marquez of the Bronx with murder on Tuesday, one day after 47-year-old Carmen Lopez was discovered on the 3rd floor of 409 West 129 Street by the elevator.
Luis Marquez, 41, of the Bronx was booked on murder charges in the death of 47-year-old Carmen Lopez, who was discovered mortally wounded near the third-floor elevator of 409 West 129th St.
A building cleaner came upon Lopez lying by the elevator after having been stabbed as many as 18 times, according to violence interrupter Iesha Sekou, who spoke with amNewYork after the killing.
Lopez was rushed to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital in critical condition. However, cops said, she later succumbed to her injuries.
Police are looking for the male suspect who stabbed a woman to death in an Upper Manhattan apartment on Monday morning.Photo by Dean MosesDetectives charged 41-year-old Luis Marquez of the Bronx with murder on Tuesday, one day after 47-year-old Carmen Lopez was discovered on the 3rd floor of 409 West 129 Street by the elevator.Photo by Dean Moses
Sources familiar with the incident allege that Marquez had waited for hours to attack Lopez inside the building. Sources also indicate that Lopez was allegedly involved in a recent breakup.
Lopez was a mother of four, according to neighbors, leaving a child as young as seven behind.
A first-floor resident of the building, who identified himself to amNewYork as Jay, said on Monday that he had known the victim for about two decades and had heard arguing during the early hours of the morning.
“I was up very late. I didn’t hear much, but I heard a commotion between 3 and 4 a.m., like people arguing. It definitely just sounded like arguing,” Jay said. “She was a very nice person.”
Marquez was arrested after he went to a hospital with wounds he allegedly sustained during the attack. He spent about 24 hours in the hospital before being transferred to the 26th Precinct for questioning.
On Tuesday evening, detectives walked Marquez out of the 26th Precinct stationhouse in cuffs, but refused to answer questions about the murder and his alleged involvement.
Detectives charged 41-year-old Luis Marquez of the Bronx with murder on Tuesday, one day after 47-year-old Carmen Lopez was discovered on the 3rd floor of 409 West 129 Street by the elevator.Photo by Dean Moses
A beloved doctor and his family are murdered. A suspect emerges with a fantastical story of shadowy figures and intrigue straight out of a spy thriller. “48 Hours”‘ Natalie Morales reports.
Mark and Marla Palumbo were concerned when their friend and business partner Dr. Henry Han failed to show up for a meeting on March 23, 2016. They would learn the horrific reason why the following day from a news report.
Marla Palumbo: I was in the kitchen on my computer and I kept checking … And I just remember screaming, “they’re all dead.”
Dr. Han, his wife Jennie, and their 5-year-old daughter Emily were found dead in the garage of their Santa Barbara home. Mark Palumbo had just seen them on his way back from a business trip.
Mark Palumbo: We went out for dinner … played Connect Four with Emily.
Emily Han was just three days shy of her 6th birthday.
Mark and Maria Palumbo
Marla Palumbo: He brought his phone to me and I’m just looking at all these pictures of Emily … and they were … taken the Friday before …
Natalie Morales: Just horrific.
Marla Palumbo: Yeah. … and she’s just goofing around with a book … making all these funny faces and … you could tell … she was loving life.
Business Agreement Signed the Last Day of Victim’s Life Led to a Person of Interest
The Palumbos had recently embarked on a new business venture with Dr. Han.
Mark Palumbo: I really loved the guy. I mean he really was smart and curious and open-minded …
Marla Palumbo: He had to come with food … and in shorts and flip-flops you know … just no … air about him.
Natalie Morales: But what made you trust him?
Marla Palumbo: His passion.
Mark Palumbo: Yeah. The way he cared about people.
Don Goldberg had known Dr. Han for more than 25 years and thought of him as a brother. To Goldberg, he was just “Henry.”
Don Goldberg: I was … approximately 10 years older than Henry, but he still called me his younger brother. …you just don’t come across a friend like Henry … It’s once in a lifetime friendship.
“Henry was the guy … in the alternative medicine world,” said Dr. Glenn Miller, who partnered on a book with Dr. Han. “Patients would come in from all different parts of the country to see him.”
Santa Barbara Herb Clinic
When they met, Henry Han was making a name for himself after emigrating from China, where he came from a family of physicians. He would soon take over the Santa Barbara Herb Clinic.
Dr. Glenn Miller: I had several patients … who had had medication side effects … They would say … I went to see Doctor Han … and it went away. … And it was like, I gotta meet this guy.
Dr. Glenn Miller, a psychiatrist, says he and Henry Han developed a mutual respect and even partnered on a book about how Eastern and Western medicine could work together to improve patients’ quality of life.
Dr. Glenn Miller: Henry’s practice was flourishing … as far as active patients, he would see like in a month, it was hundreds … but he also tried to balance it.
In 2009, that balance he was seeking became a reality, when Henry met and married Jennie Yu.
Dr. Glenn Miller: He seemed incredibly happy … It was good to see Henry that happy.
Marla Palumbo: Jennie … was absolutely warm and lovely.
“I felt better whenever I spent time with Henry, Jennie and Emily,” friend Don Goldberg said of the Han family.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
When they had Emily, the dream was complete.
Don Goldberg: Henry was just … on cloud nine. He was very proud father.
They were often together at the clinic, where Jennie had quickly become Henry’s right hand, says her friend Isaiah Oregon.
Isaiah Oregon: He really trusted her and let her kind of take the reins …
In the spring of 2016,they were getting ready to celebrate Emily’s 6th birthday.
Isaiah Oregon: We were making plans for her birthday party and … you know, had all her presents wrapped.
But just three days shy of her birthday, her loved ones were stricken with grief.
Don Goldberg: I don’t really have adequate words to describe h — how I felt … The sadness … is too deep.
As night fell on the Han estate on Wednesday, March 23, Goldberg tried to process what he had just witnessed. He had called 911 when he couldn’t find the Hans anywhere, and he was with sheriff’s deputies when they discovered the bodies in the garage wrapped in plastic.
Don Goldberg: None of it made any sense at all.
Prosecutor Ben Ladinig says it was shortly before midnight when Santa Barbara sheriff’s investigators obtained a search warrant and began to piece together what had happened inside the house. It appeared the family had been shot while they slept upstairs on the second floor — Henry in the couple’s bedroom, and Jennie and Emily across the hall in Emily’s room.
Ben Ladinig: Emily’s room was tough to see … Mom … probably read her stories to have Emily go to sleep that night and was sleeping with her.
Natalie Morales: What did that tell you about the depravity of the kind of person who could do something like that? … What were they after?
Ben Ladinig: We didn’t know what he was after. But … the depravity I’ve never seen anything like it.
Detectives picked up on the distinct smell of the murderer’s attempts to cover his tracks.
Ben Ladinig: The smell of bleach … was there. …We had bleach bottles found … There were bleach … stains on the carpet and throughout other items upstairs … and then you see bloody things in … a washing machine.
All the bedding, which had been stripped from the beds was found piled in the laundry room and in the machine.
Ben Ladinig: The washing machine, the alarm had gone off because it — the load was unbalanced. And within there are a huge group of bloody sheets …
A bullet and bullet fragments were found in pillows stuffed in the Han family’s washing machine.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
Wedged in pillows in the laundry, crime scene investigators found a .22 caliber bullet and bullet fragments. Three matching shell casings were found within the wrapping of Jennie’s body, and one was later found lodged between the baseboard and box spring of Emily’s bed.
Ben Ladinig: We had one bullet that was a through and through … it was perfect for comparison … for … the murder weapon.
Ben Ladinig: As things are going, we start to find clues as to … who potentially could be involved.
Inside a paper bag next to Henry’s bed, detectives found a document signed the last day Henry was seen alive. It provided a name.
Ben Ladinig: It’s basically a four-page business contract between two partners. Partner one, Pierre Haobsh, and partner two, Dr. Han.
Don Goldberg knew a Pierre that Dr. Han was associated with, but Goldberg thought he was harmless.
Don Goldberg: I did not think that … Pierre was capable of … murder … I never really saw Pierre become angry or agitated.
But the Palumbos had a bad feeling.
Natalie Morales: You didn’t trust him?
Mark Palumbo: I did not.
A Suspect is Sought as a Community Mourns
The indelible scar left by the murders was the kind that not even Dr. Han could’ve healed.
Mourners paid their respects at a beachside gathering for Henry, Jennie and Emily Han. “This community was left with a scar,” said Dr. Glenn Miller.
Paul Wellman/Santa Barbara Independent
Kymberlee Ruff: It was like a bomb exploded … Nobody could move for weeks. … There is something … very, very, very dark going on.
Kymberlee Ruff says Dr. Han treated her family for two decades — ever since she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer shortly after giving birth to her son. Ruff says Dr. Han’s holistic approach allowed her to nurse her newborn while still treating her tumors.
Kymberlee Ruff: He could do anything. … No matter how scared you might be, or- or frightened, you just left feeling like it’s gonna be OK. Yeah, he was something.
Instilling hope may have been one of the secrets to why his patients say Dr. Han could heal just about anything.
Sheri Buron: Dr. Han, like, saved my life.
Sheri Buron was also a young mother with cancer when she went to Dr. Han.
Sheri Buron: My daughter, Abbey, was 15 months old … I felt a lump under my armpit.
Even though she had the prescribed surgery and chemotherapy, she credits Dr. Han with her survival.
Sheri Buron: There were so many people that passed away around me. … He got me through it.
Natalie Morales: What was the impact for you of his loss?
Sheri Buron: It’s the fear of … if something comes back. … And I’m … trying every day to be positive and … try to stay with his level of calm and how much confidence he had that like everything’s taken care of.
That conviction is what had drawn the Palumbos — who worked in the skincare industry — into their partnership with Dr. Han, hoping to treat various skin maladies.
Marla Palumbo: Henry was very interested in CBD.
Having used CBD in his practice to treat pain and inflammation, Henry Han wanted to harness its full potential. It was groundbreaking science at the time, and he wanted 25-year-old Pierre Haobsh to help develop it.
Don Goldberg: Pierre … from what we gathered had a lot of experience, uh, in laboratories … in this case relating to CBD.
Henry Han had taken a liking to Haobsh after meeting him through another associate, but the Palumbos were uncomfortable with Pierre from the start.
Pierre Haobsh
Facebook
Marla Palumbo: You know how when you meet somebody … you can’t put your finger on it … but something’s not right. That was Pierre.
Mark Palumbo: It was always this kind of little boiling simmer.
When it came time to do the lab work, the Palumbos say the results were disturbing.
Marla Palumbo: What we came to find out was he was using toxic materials … when … we called him on it … he said, you know, “I’m just learning more about the molecules” … it was just weird.
As it turned out, Haobsh wasn’t a formally trained scientist. He didn’t even have a college degree.
Mark Palumbo: The more you got under that surface, the more you realize that he could, uh, talk a game and stay over the folks’ heads a bit scientifically …
Natalie Morales: Sounds like he was sort of … a snake oil salesman-type, right?
Marla Palumbo: He was —
Mark Palumbo: — sophisticated one, but yes —
Marla Palumbo: Yeah, very sophisticated one.
There was more eyebrow-raising behavior — Haobsh had also made odd charges on Henry Han’s account.
Marla Palumbo: I was doing all the finances … And I’m like, this doesn’t look right.
Natalie Morales: Not a business expense —
Marla Palumbo: Not at all.
After Marla Palumbo flagged the charges to Henry Han, he discovered they were for escort services.
Marla Palumbo: Henry was, “You won’t believe this! Pierre’s out.”
Natalie Morales: That was the final straw.
Marla Palumbo: That was Henry’s final straw.
Mark Palumbo: For Henry, yeah.
But then, a few weeks before the murders, the Palumbos say Henry Han brought up Pierre Haobsh out of the blue.
Marla Palumbo: Henry mentioned that he had learned a lot more about Pierre’s upbringing … how much Pierre had to overcome from his childhood. … Mark nor I really responded. We didn’t want to have Pierre back in our fold at all.
The Palumbos were not alone in being wary of Pierre Haobsh. Jennie Han’s friend, Isaiah Oregon, says Jennie also had concerns and confided in him about them four days before the murders.
Isaiah Oregon: It was weighing on her heavily. … “Do we trust him? … Do we give him another chance?” … I was like, “Absolutely not.” … If he stole from you before, he’s gonna steal from you again.”
But Pierre Haobsh had already ingratiated himself back into Henry’s good will.
Don Goldberg: Henry had a very trusting nature … Henry had shared with me that Pierre told him that he was … ill … that it was late-stage cancer and that, uh, he was going to do what he could to help Pierre.
Isaiah Oregon: Using Henry’s good nature … by lying to him, by manipulating him.
Authorities learned that Haobsh had been an overnight guest at the Han’s home before the murders and had formed a new partnership with the healer. There was that contract found in the master bedroom they had signed the last day of Henry’s life. But Prosecutor Ben Ladinig says it didn’t seem legitimate.
Ben Ladinig: It … was like a college sophomore drafted it. … It was not notarized, not witnessed.
Detectives had found something else of interest.
Ben Ladinig: A brilliant detective … found … packaging to … the plastic … wrapping … that all three of the Han family were wrapped in … In a trash can, in the kitchen area next to packaging … of 3M duct tape, similar to the duct tape that was used to wrap all three of the bodies.
Packaging from plastic wrap investigators believed was used in the Han murders was found in a trash can in the victims’ home.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
He recognized the plastic wrap was a Home Depot brand and reached out to the company’s security department.
Ben Ladinig: And Home Depot was, within hours of us … gaining an entry into the house, able to run those two items together, to see if they had been purchased in the Southern California region within the last several days or weeks.
A Home Depot in Oceanside, California, had security footage of a man who matched the DMV photo of Pierre Haobsh, who also happened to have an Oceanside address.
Ben Ladinig: And that was “Bam!” We knew. … He’s walking out with three huge plastic rolls … and sure enough, duct tape.
Security video shows Pierre Haobsh shopping at a Home Depot in Oceanside, California. In his cart, say investigators, were rolls of plastic wrap and duct tape.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
Natalie Morales: So within hours of … the crime scene being discovered, Pierre Haobsh became … a person of interest.
Ben Ladinig: Yes.
But where was Haobsh now? Detectives had a hunch. Data from the Hans’ cellphones — which were missing — showed they were traveling south, further, and further from Santa Barbara.
Ben Ladinig: Then inexplicably, Henry’s phone goes dark … but Jennie’s is still on and it keeps going south. …We’re getting basically digital footprints leading down to the Oceanside area from a dead woman’s phone.
A Key Witness Tells Detectives Pierre Haobsh Confessed to Him
Sgt. Anthony Flores (driving): Anytime you’re trying to stop somebody that is wanted for homicide, the stakes are gonna be high.
The day after the Han family was found murdered, a manhunt was underway in Oceanside, California — nearly 200 miles from the crime scene. Sgt. Anthony Flores and his partner were part of the local Oceanside Police team assisting the Santa Barbara investigation.
Sgt. Anthony Flores: We had come in to work with our Special Enforcement section … And we were gonna be the stop car for that day. … If … given a window of opportunity … to take him into custody or potentially stop him.
Meanwhile, undercover detectives were conducting surveillance at the residence Pierre Haobsh shared with his father and updating all units — including the homicide team that had driven down from Santa Barbara with Prosecutor Ben Ladinig.
Ben Ladinig: All of a sudden, we get chatter … on our intercoms … “dad’s on the move.”
The surveillance team followed Pierre Haobsh’s father as he drove to a Walmart parking lot, where security cameras captured him meeting up with none other than Pierre.
Security video shows Pierre Haobsh’s father meeting up with his son in a parking lot. After transferring two large duffel bags to Pierre’s car, they both drove off.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
Ben Ladinig: That’s dad driving in … sedan and then you see the Lexus following shortly behind … They appear to be communicating briefly together … you can just see that trunk pop — on dad’s car.
After transferring two large duffel bags to Pierre Haobsh’s car, they both drove off.
Ben Ladinig: We gotta move quickly.
Sgt. Anthony Flores (driving): It was … a little after midnight and … we had just got the update that the suspect was on the move … As we’re traveling, we’re hearing that he’s pulling into the ARCO station.
Sgt. Anthony Flores: He had a few miles of a head start.
The other units and Ladinig had pulled over by the ARCO station waiting for the arrest team to arrive.
Ben Ladinig: Then all of a sudden, you see … an unmarked car … drive right through the middle of that intersection … sparks fly and … it just basically comes in, pulls in and lays on the brakes … Two huge dudes get outta the car and pull gun on him and prone him out. And our eyes are like saucers. We’re like, whoa.
Natalie Morales: Wow.
Pierre Haobsh’s arrest was captured by ARCO gas station security cameras in Oceanside, California.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office
Natalie Morales (at ARCO station): It’s 200 miles away that this investigation started and it culminated here.
Sergeant Flores had handcuffed Pierre Haobsh.
Natalie Morales (at ARCO station): What do you remember about that arrest?
Sgt. Anthony Flores: I remember it going down really fast … all of our senses were heightened …
Within 48 hours of the murders, investigators had the Han family’s alleged killer in custody. Pierre Haobsh waived his Miranda rights and started talking to detectives. What he told them was something out of a spy thriller. He claimed that his life was in danger.
PIERRE HAOBSH (to detective): Over the past couple of days, I—I kid you not I’ve been shot at. … probably about five individuals so far that I shot in self-defense.
He claimed he was being targeted because of a scientific marvel he had invented.
DET. HENDERSON: What does it do?
PIERRE HAOBSH: It’s, um, it’s a very, very advanced energy source. … it’s — it’s a quantum kinda energy source. … I think probably at least 15 individuals who have been connected to this project are — are dead.
A prototype of Pierre Haobsh’s supposed perpetual energy device. Haobsh claimed his life was in danger because of his invention.
Santa Barbara Superior Court
Pierre Haobsh said he had gone to Dr. Han’s house earlier in the week to install one of his perpetual energy devices and that the plastic wrap and duct tape he was seen purchasing were for that purpose.
PIERRE HAOBSH (to detective): Dr. Henry, we, um, we signed a contract together … he was going to facilitate taking the technology out to China. … love— love the guy to death. … he really, um, really liked this project …
Pierre Haobsh said he had left Santa Barbara around 2 p.m. on March 22 — the day before the murders — after signing the contract. But detectives pushed back.
DET. HENDERSON: There’s more to this story that you’re not telling me. … Dr. Han is dead.
PIERRE HAOBSH: What!? … I had —no clue that — oh my gosh. Everything was perfectly fine when I left.
Pierre Haobsh was adamant he would never hurt the family and insisted the shadowy figures who had been after him had killed the Hans and were trying to frame him for murder.
PIERRE HAOBSH (to detective): … I invented a technology that changes the world… oil companies and people don’t want this technology out there.
Ben Ladinig: It was this massive conspiracy to keep this … next-level energy system from getting out to market. … “James Bond,” “Mission Impossible” … this fantastical life.
Pierre Haobsh’s outlandish story continued, but then detectives received an unexpected call from someone who claimed to have information about the murders.
TJ Direda: I’m a pretty rough around the edges guy … I have rough around the edges friends.
TJ Direda was a marijuana grower who said Dr. Han had approached him about supplying CBD-rich strains. Direda had also met Pierre Haobsh.
TJ Direda: Dr. Henry had told me … that he was … like a prodigy street chemist … he had done some stuff that was ahead of his time.
Natalie Morales: So, a little bit of a mad scientist?
TJ Direda: Yeah, I would say.
Natalie Morales: Perhaps, yeah.
According to Direda, Pierre Haobsh had a penchant for making up grandiose stories to seek attention. But he befriended him, nonetheless.
TJ Direda: He was … that … awkward … kid that wanted to fit in. … And … I was the guy in high school that stuck up for kids like that … So … I, uh, took an interest in him … in that regard. …
Natalie Morales: You think he trusted you then?
TJ Direda: Oh, he absolutely trusted me.
As Direda revealed to detectives, Pierre Haobsh had reached out to him via text the morning of the murders. The message sent at 09:39 a.m. said: “I need your help with something urgently… Like its urgent!!!!!”
Natalie Morales: What was he asking for?
TJ Direda: Uh, he needed my help. … moving something.
He says Pierre Haobsh told him he was in Santa Barbara and needed to talk face to face. So Direda had him come to his house in Thousand Oaks, about an hour away.
TJ Direda: The first thing out of his mouth … “just so you know, I’m a monster.” … He had told me right then and there that he had killed Dr. Henry … his wife and his child … and needed help …
Natalie Morales: Did he give you details … of what he did?
TJ Direda: He did.
Direda told detectives Pierre Haobsh said he had tried to put the bodies in his car, but they wouldn’t all fit and Henry was too heavy — details Ladinig says only the killer would know.
Ben Ladinig: How the killings were done, how the bodies were wrapped up … how he had the doctor’s phone …
Direda told detectives Pierre Haobsh had also revealed his motive: $20 million that he planned to drain from Henry’s accounts after killing the family. Direda says he didn’t know if what he was hearing was another one of Haobsh’s far-fetched stories. And until he knew for sure, he decided to play along.
TJ Direda: I just wanted to get him out of the house and confirm whether what he had just said was true or not. … I said let me work on it and I’ll call you later …
Once Pierre Haobsh was gone, Direda tried to reach Dr. Han and anyone who might have information, to no avail.
TJ Direda: I didn’t want to call the police because I didn’t — I wasn’t sure yet … it was chaotic. It was … it was scary and also … confusing.
Pierre Haobsh kept messaging him. Around 5 p.m., when Direda still hadn’t provided any assistance, Haobsh texted him with a proposition.
Natalie Morales: “Want to come to Vegas tonight? I’ll pay.” What did you think the reason for that all-of-a-sudden trip to Vegas?
TJ Direda: At that point, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t sound right … He was probably gonna kill me and somehow make it look like I had something to do with it.
Natalie Morales: You were gonna be the fall guy.
TJ Direda: Right.
Direda made up an excuse why he couldn’t go. And Haobsh would send him one final text at 7:35 p.m. that night: “Yep. Am screwed. They just found everything. My lives over. Only if I got to it all sooner.”
Ladinig says Pierre Haobsh had just returned to the crime scene with a big truck to transport the bodies, but law enforcement had beaten him to the scene.
Ben Ladinig: He knew his goose was cooked.
More Disturbing Details About the Han Family Murders Emerge
Pierre Haobsh’s arrest near Oceanside, California, had come at a critical juncture. He was armed with a 9-millimeter handgun that was in plain view on the driver’s side floorboard. He also had his passport and those duffel bags, which he had received from his father minutes earlier.
Ben Ladinig: Two “go bags.” … Basically, whatever you need, clothes … everything for the person to live for months.
Haobsh’s father was also detained and questioned, but he was released later that morning.
Ben Ladinig: We could’ve charged him … as an accessory, but we didn’t have any indication. … that dad … was involved in any way, shape, or form in the killing …
The next day, during a closer examination of Haobsh’s car at the crime lab, “You name it we found it in that car,” said Ladinig.
There was Henry’s wallet, credit card and Social Security number, along with an expended shell casing. There were also the victims’ phones and tablet, all wrapped in aluminum foil, in an attempt to evade tracking.
Ben Ladinig: And in the trunk … you lift up where the spare tire would be … the murder weapon … suppressor silencer, ammunition.
Dr Henry Han and his wife, Jennie.
The Santa Barbara Independent
A week after the murders, the autopsies revealed the victims had been shot 14 times — three each into Henry and Jennie, and most disturbing, eight in Emily.
Ben Ladinig: That ammunition … is the same stuff that we found at the crime scene, in the decedent’s bodies … Match, match, match, match, match. Everything.
Pierre Haobsh was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, making him eligible for the death penalty.
Defense attorney Christine Voss, who was with the Public Defender’s Office at the time, represented Haobsh.
Christine Voss: It was one of the most challenging cases, if not the most challenging case I ever came upon. …He really wanted to be vindicated. … To me, the goal was for him to not get death.
At the eleventh hour, the D.A.’s office agreed to waive the death penalty in exchange for a more expedient bench trial, which meant a judge, not a jury, would render a verdict.
On Oct. 25, 2021 more than five-and-a-half years after the murders, the prosecution delivered its opening statement and laid out its theory of the case — that Pierre Haobsh had plotted the murder of the Han family for financial gain. They painted him as a career con man who up until the murders flaunted his intelligence and supposed wealth.
Marla Palumbo: His entire life’s drive was being rich.
Ben Ladinig: He … sent … screenshots of his Chase account from anywhere from about $3 million up to $940 million dollars to various people attempting to dupe them that he’s this jet setting, billionaire.
Pierre Haobsh claimed he had received big offers for his energy technology.
Christine Voss: I’m not a scientist, but I don’t know that there’s a such thing as a perpetual energy machine.
But several years before the murders, Haobsh was actually being paid to build one.
Samantha Spidell: It was gonna be a new source of energy as if he was, you know, an Elon Musk …
Samantha Spidell met Pierre Haobsh circa 2012 when he moved into a penthouse apartment in a luxury high-rise she managed in Tempe, Arizona.
Samantha Spidell: He … pulled up … and had this … bright red Ferrari … it was very flashy.
Ladinig says Haobsh had duped a group of high-rolling investors into financing his invention, until they realized it didn’t actually work.
Ben Ladinig: He had basically defrauded all these people and the money dried up … When the murders were committed I think he had less than $500 to his name.
Prosecutors presented a detailed timeline retracing Haobsh’s movements, including his digital footprint, in the days before and after the murders. They say as early as March 17 — six days before the murders — he had looked into impersonating the doctor at his bank.
Ben Ladinig: He’s searching for Asian disguises and real flesh masks.
Natalie Morales: Like a “Mission Impossible” face mask.
Ben Ladinig: Right. Hundred percent. … this is his fantastical world that he lived in.
There’s no evidence he ever purchased a mask. But a time-stamped receipt and security video placed him at an Arizona gun store four days before the murders — purchasing ammunition and two firearms, including the alleged murder weapon.
Ben Ladinig: — a .22 pistol with a threaded barrel … for what is a silencer or suppressor …
On March 20, he was back in Oceanside, California, buying supplies before driving up to the Han’s house under the guise of installing the energy machine. Instead, Ladinig saysPierre Haobsh bugged Henry Han’s computer with a spyware app called a keylogger.
Ben Ladinig: What keyloggers do is every stroke, every click of the mouse, every navigation page you go, it documents all of it.
To their surprise, investigators also found the keylogger on Pierre Haobsh’s laptop. On March 21, while Haobsh was still at the Han’s home, the keylogger had recorded chilling search terms on his laptop.
Ben Ladinig: What part of the skull is more penetrable? … What ammunition would be better …
Natalie Morales: As a guest in Dr. Han’s house –
Ben Ladinig: A guest— he’d been staying there –
Natalie Morales: — for the two nights before … Planning, this execution-style murder.
Ben Ladinig: Yes.
Pierre Haobsh left the Han residence on March 22, but prosecutors allege he went back around 4 a.m. the next morning to carry out the murders. They say later that day he began frantically trying to siphon money from Henry Han’s accounts.
Ben Ladinig: He’s using phones. … He’s using fake email accounts. He’s doing all these things from … personal identifying information of Dr. Han’s that he stole earlier that week.
A Chase fraud alert had flagged an attempted payment for $72,000. Meanwhile, Pierre Haobsh also rented that big truck he allegedly drove to the crime scene hoping to move the bodies.
Ben Ladinig: There are black and whites all over that house. … The crime scene’s being processed.
The Palumbos say the meeting they were supposed to have with Henry Han just hours after he was murdered had foiled Pierre Haobsh’s plans.
Marla Palumbo: He thought … that he had that whole day to clean up his mess before Henry would be missed.
Mark Palumbo: He wasn’t fast enough.
Marla Palumbo: I think we screwed it up for him, happily.
That’s when prosecutors say he fled, driving south toward Oceanside. Ladinig argues Pierre Haobsh’s subsequent searches betray his guilty conscience: “is car searched entering tijuana”; “How Crime Scene Investigation Works“; and “how long do fingerprints take to process”. Incredibly,he even consulted an online psychic named Count Marco and asked him “will I get causght for what I did?”
Ben Ladinig: And Count Marco replies, well, what did you do, Pierre?
Pierre Haobsh never gave Count Marco an explanation, but on the stand, he couldn’t stop talking.
Pierre Haobsh Tells an Outlandish Story on the Stand
Christine Voss: This was a tough case … but that didn’t change the fact that Pierre was entitled to a vigorous defense.
Defense Attorney Christine Voss was in an unusual position.
Christine Voss: This was a really well investigated case. … Because my client wanted to have a trial and wanted me to turn every stone, I did.
Turn every stone and raise any possible reasonable doubt.
Natalie Morales: You argued that there were elements presented that were implausible … unprovable and simply impossible, those were your words.
Christine Voss: Yeah.
Voss expressed concerns that the alleged murder weapon and silencer found in Haobsh’s car didn’t match up.
Christine Voss: It absolutely did not connect to the firearm that they believed was the murder weapon.
She seized on discrepancies in the location data from Haobsh’s car and phone that the prosecution had used in its timeline.
Christine Voss: He could not possibly have been in San Diego and Santa Barbara simultaneously, or Thousand Oaks and Santa Barbara simultaneously. But that’s what the GPS data showed.
And she attacked the credibility of the prosecution’s star witness, TJ Direda. Voss questioned why Direda waited nearly two days to contact authorities, and argued in that time, he could have gotten details about the crime scene that the prosecution claimed only the killer knew.
Christine Voss: It was not the best kept crime scene … he was making various phone calls after he heard about the death of Dr. Han …
But Voss concedes much of Direda’s testimony was corroborated by the evidence.
Ben Ladinig: This case was over within the first 72 hours.
Pierre Haobsh during his murder trial. He testified over three days.
Santa Barbara Independent/Ryan P. Cruz
In fact, the only witness who provided testimony that someone other than Pierre Haobsh was the killer was Pierre Haobsh. During three days on the stand, he repeated the action-packed account he’d given detectives about having shootouts with shadowy figures. Now he said he was sure they were sent by the Department of Energy.
Natalie Morales: It sounds like there’d be a trail of bodies … But yet, is there proof of this trail of bodies anywhere to your knowledge?
Christine Voss: No. … which further made him believe it was the Department of Energy …
And what about all that evidence investigators found?
Ben Ladinig: The DOE … planted them … it’s all a frame, all that stuff is framed. The banking stuff, frame job. … What’s in my car, frame job.
Christine Voss: It was difficult for me to embrace Pierre’s testimony.
Natalie Morales: Do you think he himself believed some of the things … he was saying were true?
Christine Voss: Oh yeah, definitely.
Samantha Spidell: He was obsessed with the government.
Samantha Spidell attests there were some kernels of truth in his stories.
Samantha Spidell: Pierre mentions that his dad had ties to the CIA … And I could tell that he … wanted his dad’s … approval.
When his father died in 2023, his obituary stated he was, “a key player in clandestine Central Intelligence Agency operations during the 1980s.” Pierre Haobsh also told Spidell that his sister was going to star in a reality TV show.
Samantha Spidell: She got cast on a newlyweds reality show … and Pierre was gonna be in it … come to find out that was true.
In fact, both Haobsh and his father made appearances on the second season of the Bravo TV series“Newlyweds, The First Year.” Pierre was even shown giving his brother-in-law a cooking lesson.
But Prosecutor Ben Ladinig argued any grains of authenticity in Haobsh’s life were far outweighed by deceit.
Natalie Morales: You called him “a lying liar who lies about lying.”
Ben Ladinig: Right … Lie, lie, lie, lie hundreds of lies we found on him. … His life was a con.
On Nov. 24, 2021, Judge Brian Hill would get the case. None of Pierre Haobsh’s family members attended his trial. The judge made his ruling: guilty on all counts.
Natalie Morales: The judge, when he issued his ruling, said … his decision was beyond a shadow of a doubt, absolutely no doubt of Pierre Haobsh’s guilt.
Ben Ladinig: Yeah … very satisfactory to hear that.
Christine Voss: I wasn’t surprised.
Natalie Morales: And what was Pierre’s reaction upon hearing that ruling?
Christine Voss: Well, he was visibly disappointed.
Jennie, Henry and Emily Han
Isaac Hernandez, Mercury Press Inc./Isaiah Oregon
On April 15, 2022, Pierre Haobsh was sentenced to three life terms without the possibility of parole. It was little comfort to those still mourning Henry, Jennie and Emily.
Don Goldberg: I don’t understand how there really could be justice.
Isaiah Oregon: He’s still alive … and — and they’re not. … He took precious moments that … we’ll never get. (wipe tears from his eyes)
Marla Palumbo: I want him to feel every pain possible for what he did.
Mark Palumbo: Not enough bad things can happen for him.
Nearly a decade after the murders, the wounds are still raw.
Isaiah Oregon: It’s hard to think of them.
Dr. Glenn Miller: He was a really good man. … you don’t replace a Henry Han. No.
Don Goldberg: Pretty much every day I think of Henry and Jennie and Emily. … There’s an old … phrase that … a good man and a good family lives for limited time, but a good name shall live forever … They lived too short … but … their name lives on forever.
Haobsh’s conviction was upheld by the California Court of Appeal in January 2025.
He also petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to release him. The Court denied his petition.
On Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, TJ Direda died.
Produced by Gayane Keshishyan Mendez. Greg Fisher is the development producer. Iris Carreras and Hannah Vair are the field producers. Ken Blum and Diana Modica are the editors. Cameron Rubner is the associate producer. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
A woman in Missouri who already confessed to murdering the man she cheated with is now switching up her story and blaming her boyfriend!
According to multiple outlets, 25-year-old McKayla C. Archambeau pleaded guilty to first- and second-degree murder, armed criminal action, tampering with evidence, and tampering with a motor vehicle in August following the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Taylor Hawkins in 2022. Her boyfriend, 35-year-old Cordero T. Cervantes, was charged with tampering with evidence and tampering with a motor vehicle at the same time for his involvement in the incident. However, he did not get charged with murder… not until three years later!
KCTV reported that Cervantes is facing a second-degree murder charge for Hawkins’ death as of Monday. And it is all because Archambeau changed her story, telling police that it was her boyfriend who forced her to pull the trigger after she cheated on him with the victim a week before! Whoa! Here’s what happened…
The Day Of The Shooting
Police responded to a report of a shooting at a Platte City home back in October 2022. When cops arrived at the scene, they found Hawkins dead behind a barn on the property. A witness told law enforcement it was Archambeau who shot the victim, so they launched a search for both her and Cervantes, stating that it’s believed they were in a relationship and “armed and dangerous.”
The pair fled the state following the shooting. Per KCTV, Cervantes and Archambeau left the scene separately before reconnecting. Along the way, investigators discovered they ditched their electronic devices, and Archambeau threw the gun into a river in Illinois. They also drove to Columbia a day after the crime, where they printed off directions to get to Spruce Pine, North Carolina. They made it as far as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, before they heard they were wanted in Missouri. At that point, police said they started to head back to Platte County. The couple was ultimately arrested in Carlisle, Arkansas.
What The Witness Said
During the investigation over the years, police said a witness provided key details about what happened that day. The witness claimed the only people present for the shooting were himself, Hawkins, Archambeau, and Cervantes. Law&Crime reported that he was helping Hawkins unload boxes at the home when Hawkins and Cervantes started to argue. The situation allegedly escalated when the two men went behind the barn with Archambeau to hash things out. The witness alleged he heard Hawkins upset and say one last thing before he died:
“No, why’d you do it?”
Around the same time, according to law enforcement, a single shot rang out. The witness said Cervantes then reappeared from behind the barn “with a smirk on his face.” After that, the witness told cops he ran for his life.
How chilling…
Their Police Interviews
Despite Cervantes’ suspicious reaction, Archambeau was charged with the actual shooting. Law&Crime, KCTV, and KMBC reported that a probable cause affidavit stated police learned she and Hawkins slept together about a week before his death. They believed Hawkins came to the impression that Archambeau would leave Cervantes to be with him following their encounter. But per court filings, investigators claimed Archambeau and Cervantes were in an on-and-off again relationship, and she often stepped out to hook up with ex-boyfriends. This supposedly was nothing new for her…
Throughout their interviews with police, KCTV reported the Sheriff’s Office said both claimed Hawkins had raped her. And on the day of the shooting, Cervantes claimed Hawkins came to the home to fight him. He alleged Hawkins hit him, but he was a “pacifist,” so he did not retaliate.
For her part, investigators said Archambeau was not truthful during her interviews in July 2022. She allegedly told several different stories about how she shot Hawkins, but the evidence from the scene disputed all her claims. Police claimed Archambeau said Hawkins had a knife on him when they started to fight, so she ran to her bag, grabbed her firearm, and shot him in the abdomen. She then alleged Hawkins grabbed the knife and began to lunge for Cervantes, so she shot him in the back. Here’s the thing, though. Police said they never found a knife at the scene.
According to law enforcement, Archambeau also maintained she was the sole shooting and the only person responsible for Hawkins’ deaht for years. She ultimately pleaded guilty to all the charges in August 2025. However, that is not the end of this case!
Her Story Changes
A month later, investigators sat down to talk with Archambeau again — and she had a letter for them. When asked, law enforcement said she confirmed she wrote it and admitted she cheated on Cervantes with Hawkins and that he “was mad and made me kill him.” OMG! Archambeau claimed she was told to leave her weapon for Cervantes, and he would take Hawkins out to a field and convince him to commit suicide.
When Archambeau didn’t leave the firearm, he became angry and looked at her with “such rage in his eyes.” She reportedly thought “he wanted me to be the one to kill Taylor because I was the one that had slept with him and I didn’t leave the gun behind…” After Cervantes gave her the look, Archambeau said she became terrified, so she shot Hawkins. He started to run, so Cervantes allegedly ordered her to “finish him.” Awful…
Furthermore, when asked if Cervantes was ever abusive, Archambeau said she had come to believe he was in the years since the shooting. The affidavit stated she claimed Cervantes would hit her in bed while she was sleeping, but he always blamed it on nightmares. She noted she had noticed a pattern that the nightmare assaults only seemed to happen on nights after they had argued.
Arrest Warrant
At this time, there is a warrant out for Cervantes’ arrest. He is currently not in custody as he was released on probation following the lesser charges in 2022. Anyone with any information that could lead to his arrest is asked to report it to the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS. Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd said in a statement following the case update:
“This was a brutal and senseless killing. We allege this defendant played a direct role in the death of another man, and then fled the state to avoid justice. Platte County detectives and their law enforcement partners have worked tirelessly to allow us to bring these charges.”
Meanwhile, Archambeau is expected to be sentenced on November 14. Hopefully, prosecutors will get justice for Hawkins’ horrible death.
Two people charged in the January shooting death of a Lakewood woman took deals and pleaded guilty on Monday, according to court records.
Manelson Leonel Ramirez, 27, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder in a deal that dismissed three felony charges from his case: first-degree murder, tampering with evidence and witness/victim intimidation, court records show. The deal also dropped two violent crime sentence enhancers.
Flor Maria Contreras-Mujica, 26, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and criminally negligent homicide, both felonies, according to court records.
That deal dropped charges of first-degree murder, witness/victim intimidation, tampering with physical evidence and third-degree assault from her case. It also dismissed two violent crime sentence enhancers
Lakewood police officers responded to the shooting in the 1400 block of Kendall Street at about 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 14. When they arrived, officers found 26-year-old Nairelis “Junior” Castel suffering from a gunshot wound.
Paramedics took Castel to the hospital, where she later died from her injuries, police said.
Police said the three all knew each other before the shooting.
Alexa Bartell (Provided by Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department)
A Jefferson County judge refused to reduce the prison sentence for one of the men convicted in the killing of 20-year-old Alexa Bartell during a spree of rock-throwing attacks more than two years ago.
Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik, 21, was sentenced in May to 45 years in prison for Bartell’s death. She was killed in April 2023 when Karol-Chik and two other teenagers threw a 9.3-pound rock through her windshield as she drove on Indiana Street near the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. The rock struck Bartell in the head.
In September, Karol-Chik sought to knock 10 years off his sentence through a post-sentencing review, citing his good behavior in prison. He noted that he’d applied for a 10-year prison education program through which he expects to receive a bachelor’s degree in Christian studies and then work in chaplains’ offices across the prison system.
First Judicial District Court Judge Christopher Zenisek, who presided over Karol-Chik’s case and imposed the original 45-year prison sentence, opted against holding a hearing to listen to arguments about sentence reduction and instead denied Karol-Chik’s request in a brief Oct. 8 order.
“The court, in its discretion, determines that the sentence is appropriate as originally imposed due to the severity of the offense and community safety concerns,” Zenisek wrote.
Karol-Chik was convicted of second-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder in Bartell’s killing. He faced between 35 and 72 years in prison under the terms of his plea agreement.
The two other participants in the attack are also serving decades-long prison sentences.
All three men were 18 at the time of the rock-throwing spree. They rode together in a truck and egged each other on as they threw rocks first at parked cars and then at passing cars as the night went on. The driver of the truck sped up before the attacks, and Koenig whooped with excitement after Bartell was killed and her car drifted off the road, testimony at trial revealed.
Prosecutors argued during Koenig’s jury trial that he threw the rock that killed Bartell; his defense attorneys argued that Kwak threw it. Both sides acknowledged that all three teenagers could be convicted in Bartell’s killing regardless of who threw the rock.
Haro, 32, who initially pleaded not guilty, reversed course and pleaded guilty on Oct. 16 to one count each of murder, assault on a child under 8 causing death and filing a false police report, according to the Riverside County district attorney’s office.
He and his wife, Rebecca Haro, 41, reported that their son was kidnapped after someone attacked her in a Yucaipa parking lot on Aug. 14. But detectives quickly found holes in their story and charged both parents with murder.
On Monday, Haro received a sentence of 25 years to life for murder as well as a 180-day sentence for the false police report.
Because he committed these crimes while on probation, he must also serve a sentence of six years and eight months that he previously received in a child abuse case, prosecutors said.
Emmanuel Haro was reported kidnapped, but his parents later faced murder charges.
(San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department)
Haro was convicted of felony willful child endangerment in 2023 after his baby daughter was taken to the hospital in 2018 with a skull fracture, several healing fractures to her ribs, a brain hemorrhage, swelling in the neck and a healing tibia fracture in her leg, according to a police affidavit for an arrest warrant.
A judge later suspended that sentence — a decision that Riverside County Dist. Atty. Mike Hestrin lambasted at an Aug. 27 news conference.
“If that judge had done his job as he should have done, Emmanuel would be alive today,” Hestrin said. “That’s a shame and it’s an outrage.”
Haro has been credited with 551 days of time served and, as a result of the aggregated charges, will spend a minimum of 30 years in prison before he becomes eligible for parole.
Although baby Emmanuel’s body has yet to be found, prosecutors believe that multiple acts of abuse and physical assault led to the boy’s death.
The mother has maintained her not guilty plea to charges of murder and filing a false police report. She is due back in court for a felony settlement conference on Jan. 21, prosecutors said.
“The lies told in this case only deepened the tragedy of Emmanuel’s death,” Hestrin said in a Monday statement. “While today’s sentence represents a measure of accountability for Jake Haro, our office will continue to seek justice as the case against his co-defendant moves forward.”
Prosecutors allege that the couple deliberately faked the child’s kidnapping. When investigators with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department questioned the mother about inconsistencies in her police report, the couple stopped cooperating.
A week later, they were arrested at their Cabazon home. In August, authorities removed another 2-year-old child from the couple’s custody and scoured a field in Moreno Valley accompanied by Haro in a jail jumpsuit.
Baby Emmanuel’s remains have yet to be found.
Times staff writer Nathan Solis contributed to this report.
The daughter of a woman who was shot to death less than an hour after she went to the Boynton Beach police station seeking protection from her ex-boyfriend is suing the city.
Fridelene Daniel, 34, arrived at the police station on Nov. 8, 2023, telling officers that her ex-boyfriend, Robens Cesar, was going to kill her, according to the complaint and a probable cause affidavit. Cesar, who was stalking her, followed her into the station. But instead of separating the two, investigating Cesar or offering Daniel further protection, a police officer spoke to her for only a short time, made fun of her Haitian accent, and then let her leave with Cesar still following her, the complaint alleges.
Within an hour, Cesar had shot Daniel dead, according to police. He is facing first-degree murder charges.
Daniel’s daughter, Abigail Orelien, now 18, filed the wrongful death lawsuit Thursday, close to the two-year anniversary of her mother’s death.
“Fridelene was a strong and proud woman, who came to this country, built a life of purpose, became a U.S. citizen, and raised her daughter on her own,” Orelien’s attorney, Gary Susser, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “She achieved much through perseverance and integrity, yet her life was tragically and brutally cut short despite her efforts to seek protection from the harm she had, moments before, foretold.”
Police in Watsonville are searching for a suspect after a man was found fatally shot Wednesday evening.
Shortly after 8:30 p.m., officers were called to the 1300 block of Main Street. Police said the first officers arrived in less than a minute and found the victim with a gunshot wound.
Officers tried life-saving measures on the victim, but he died at the scene. The victim has been identified as a 34-year-old man, but his name has not been released.
In a statement Thursday, police said no arrests in the shooting have been made.
As officers investigated, police learned of two nearby incidents involving an assault and threats with a firearm. Officers arrested a 16-year-old and booked the teen into Juvenile Hall, but it was not known if the nearby incidents are connected to the fatal shooting.
Anyone with information about the shooting is urged to call Detective Collin Travers of the Watsonville Police at 831-768-3321.
Jorge Rueda Landeros was found guilty Thursday for the murder of American University accounting professor Sue Marcum in 2010.
Jorge Rueda Landeros was found guilty Thursday for the murder of American University accounting professor Sue Marcum in 2010.
Montgomery County prosecutors said a jury returned the guilty verdict after an eight-day trial.
Rueda Landeros, now 55, was Marcum’s Spanish and yoga teacher. It’s unclear to this day if the two were in a romantic relationship, though they did share a joint investment account. Rueda Landeros was also the sole beneficiary of a $500,000 life insurance policy that Marcum had taken out.
“They made investments using Marcum’s funds and over the course of approximately two years, Marcum lost $312,000 while Rueda Landeros gained a total of $252,000 from her,” the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Marcum, 52, was found dead in her Bethesda home on Oct. 25, 2010.
Prosecutors said Rueda Landeros attacked Marcum after a confrontation, then staged the scene to look like a burglary. The defense argued the crime was a botched burglary.
Investigators ruled Marcum’s cause of death to be blunt force trauma and asphyxiation.
After she was found inside her home, Rueda Landeros fled the country to Mexico, where he holds dual citizenship. He worked in Guadalajara as a yoga teacher and changed his name to Leon Ferrara.
After spending 12 years on the run and on the FBI’s “Most Wanted List,” Rueda Landeros maintained his innocence during his first appearances in court. However, investigators were able to link him to the murder through a DNA match.
Before opening statements, Circuit Court Judge Rachel McGuckian ruled jurors could not be told that between 2010, when prosecutors got an arrest warrant charging Rueda Landeros with first-degree murder, and 2022, when a tip led to his arrest in Juarez, Mexico, that he was on the FBI’s “Most Wanted List.”
Montgomery County prosecutors said Rueda Landeros used and manipulated Marcum for her money, and when it dried up, he killed her.
Rueda Landeros faces up to 30 years in prison for the second-degree murder charge. He’s scheduled to return to court for sentencing Feb. 6.
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