A girl has been charged with second-degree homicide within the dying of a tv reporter final month whereas he was on task to cowl the Tremendous Bowl in New Orleans, authorities mentioned Tuesday.
Adan Manzano, a 27-year-old reporter and anchor for Telemundo based mostly in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, was discovered lifeless Feb. 5 in his lodge room within the New Orleans suburb of Kenner. The following day, police arrested Danette Colbert, 48, on costs that she had stolen Manzano’s cellphone and financial institution playing cards.
Kenner Police Chief Keith Conley informed a information convention streamed on-line Tuesday {that a} cost of second-degree homicide had been added in opposition to Colbert, who remained jailed since her arrest final month. He mentioned a suspected confederate had been arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on theft and fraud costs.
The choice to cost Colbert in Manzano’s dying was made regardless of preliminary post-mortem outcomes being inconclusive as as to if he was killed or died by accident.
An lawyer for Colbert, Stavros Panagoulopoulos, didn’t instantly reply to an electronic mail message searching for remark Tuesday. He mentioned final month that police had been making “assumptions and guesses” to hyperlink Colbert to Manzano’s dying.
Dr. Gerry Cvitanovich, the Jefferson Parish coroner, informed reporters that the post-mortem discovered Manzano died from “positional asphyxia” as he was mendacity face down on a pillow and unable to breathe after ingesting a mix of alcohol and the depressant Xanax.
“Each of them are central nervous system depressants, and whenever you add them up, they’re actually dangerous,” the coroner mentioned, including: “One of many risks is you find yourself able the place you might be obstructing your capability to breathe.”
Conley mentioned he was “very assured” authorities have sufficient proof to efficiently prosecute Colbert for homicide, although he declined to debate specifics of their case.
Police have beforehand mentioned safety video from the lodge the place Manzano was staying confirmed him and Colbert coming into his room collectively the day of his dying. Footage confirmed Colbert leaving with out him about an hour later. Authorities have mentioned Colbert later used Manzano’s bank card to make a purchase order at a New Orleans gasoline station and several other shops within the space.
Police have additionally mentioned Manzano’s medical data confirmed no prescriptions for Xanax or different depressants, and that they recovered the drug from Colbert’s house.
“Look, there’s plenty of items on this puzzle,” the police chief mentioned. “We acknowledge it may be a circumstantial case.”
As for the person charged with theft and fraud alongside Colbert, Conley mentioned solely that police had discovered “correspondence and data the place they had been going forwards and backwards. So, we predict they had been working hand-in-hand in live performance with one another.”
Final 12 months, a Louisiana jury discovered Colbert responsible of theft and fraud costs in an unrelated case.
In 2022, Colbert was twice arrested in Las Vegas on felony costs of grand larceny and administering a drug to help in a felony crime, court docket data present. In each instances, she was accused of drugging males of their lodge rooms and stealing from them. The costs had been dismissed as a result of the victims didn’t wish to testify in court docket, Colbert’s lawyer for these instances, Daniel Lippmann, informed The Related Press.
