Three years earlier than she was linked to the loss of life of a journalist masking Tremendous Bowl LIX in New Orleans, Danette Colbert reportedly confronted costs of drugging a person in addition to stealing $100,000 in money, jewellery, upscale baggage and on line casino chips from his Las Vegas lodge room.
Colbert made bond – then allegedly drugged one other man and stole his $60,000 watch, on line casino chips and bank cards after he invited her to his lodge room in Las Vegas.
Neither of these legal instances – nor numerous others towards her – led to substantial penalties for Colbert, 48, a resident of the suburban New Orleans group of Slidell. Now police are attempting to determine whether or not she fatally drugged the tv sports activities reporter Adan Manzano, 26, who was discovered useless and robbed in his lodge close to the New Orleans airport 4 days earlier than the Tremendous Bowl.
Police within the New Orleans suburb of Kenner, the place town’s worldwide airport is, have stated Manzano’s path had crossed that of Colbert’s by early Wednesday. The 2 had met in New Orleans’ downtown space earlier than going to Manzano’s lodge room about 13 miles (21km) away on the Consolation Suites Airport in Kenner.
A sworn courtroom assertion later filed by Kenner police stated Colbert finally left alone. Manzano – a widower with a two-year-old daughter, and a local of Mexico – missed a gathering the following day pertaining to his work for the Spanish-language tv channel Telemundo Kansas Metropolis masking that metropolis’s staff, the Chiefs, enjoying the Philadelphia Eagles in Sunday’s Tremendous Bowl at New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome.
The lodge’s employees checked on Manzano, discovered him useless and known as authorities. Investigators established that the bank card he had used to verify in to the lodge was lacking, as was his cellphone.
After figuring out Colbert as the lady seen on the lodge with Manzano, police tracked Manzano’s cellphone to inside about one-tenth of a mile from her recognized handle. Authorities obtained a choose’s permission to go looking her dwelling, about 40 miles (64km) north-east of Kenner, the place they discovered Manzano’s cellphone.
Additionally they recovered his bank card, which had been used to cost $8.48 at a gasoline station on the sting of downtown New Orleans after the time Colbert had left Manzano’s lodge.
Randy Smith, the sheriff whose jurisdiction consists of that space of Slidell, stated investigators had found Xanax together with different medicine in Manzano’s lodge room. Officers are analyzing whether or not any of these medicine could have been used to incapacitate the reporter earlier than his loss of life.
“I realize that it is everybody’s suspicion that the victim was drugged,” stated Gerry Cvitanovich, the coroner of Jefferson parish, Louisiana, which incorporates Kenner. “But I can’t confirm that until I get [the results of toxicology tests conducted on Manzano] back,” including that that would take a number of weeks.
Although the instances had substantial variations, a minimum of some native officers had been reminded of an unrelated, lethal 2017 drugging and theft in Metairie, Louisiana, which is adjoining to Kenner, that despatched a pair to federal jail and generated nationwide headlines.
Kenner police stopped in need of accusing Colbert of inflicting Manzano’s loss of life. After she was arrested exterior a wig store in jap New Orleans on Thursday, Colbert was booked on costs associated to theft and credit-card fraud, Kenner police chief Keith Conley stated.
However Conley’s company didn’t deny that its idea of what occurred had been described by Cvitanovich. A sworn assertion laying out the Kenner police division’s choice to arrest Colbert alluded to information tales documenting allegations of her having drugged and robbed males in Las Vegas.
Because the Las Vegas Assessment-Journal wrote in January 2022, police alleged {that a} man had invited Colbert and one other girl to his lodge room. The person was purportedly drugged, misplaced consciousness and woke as much as discover practically $100,000 in money, fancy baggage, jewellery and on line casino chips lacking.
Colbert denied the allegations, made bond – after which once more was invited alongside one other girl to a person’s lodge room at a Las Vegas on line casino. That man recounted being drugged, passing out and waking as much as discover his $60,000 watch in addition to $1,500 in on line casino chips lacking. His bank cards had been lacking, too, and so they had been used for unauthorized purchases, the Assessment-Journal reported.
As soon as once more, Colbert made bond. Then, police arrested her on allegations that she had pushed a automobile by way of a Las Vegas faculty zone at practically 100mph, resulting in costs of dashing, aggressive driving and missing insurance coverage or a driver’s license, the native information outlet KSNV reported.
Prosecutors in Las Vegas in the end dismissed the theft and drugging instances, in accordance with courtroom data first reported by Folks.com. The college-zone dashing case stays unresolved, and Colbert was needed on a warrant on the time of her arrest in New Orleans for having missed a January 2023 courtroom listening to.
Kenner police famous that Colbert had been given probation in a minimum of 4 instances within the New Orleans space for a variety of allegations together with theft, aggravated battery and bank card fraud, amongst different points.
Manzano’s loss of life prompted an outpouring of condolences for his family members and colleagues. His spouse, Ashleigh Boyd, had been killed in a automobile crash in Topeka, Kansas, on 11 April 2024. The couple’s survivors embrace their two-year-old daughter.
An emotional TV phase in Spanish on Telemundo Kansas Metropolis on Friday stated Manzano had lined that market’s skilled sports activities franchises with zeal.
Along with his work masking the Chiefs, his Fb web page confirmed him smiling broadly whereas masking Kansas Metropolis’s Royals baseball staff and its Sporting Kansas Metropolis soccer membership.
In August 2023, Manzano’s favourite Mexican soccer league staff, Toluca, had performed Sporting KC in Kansas Metropolis; when Toluca gained the match 4-1, Manzano wrote on social media: “YES SIR!!!”
Telemundo Kansas Metropolis’s phase on Manzano reported that his mantra had been: “Don’t fear success.”
Battling tears, Telemundo Kansas Metropolis anchor Gustavo Jaimes concluded the phase by saying: “The world hasn’t just lost an unrivaled journalist. It also lost a father, a son, and a friend. All our solidarity for the family of Adan Manzano, and to him, a hug wherever he is.”
