Third arrest made in drugging death of Telemundo reporter near New Orleans
On Friday, the Kenner police department in Louisiana announced the arrest of 33-year-old Christian Anderson on allegations that he had a role in the death of Adan Manzano, 27, whose body was found on 5 February in his hotel room in the city just west of New Orleans.
Police alleged that Anderson 'played an active role in a coordinated pattern of targeting victims, drugging them and stealing personal property including phones and financial account access', the Louisiana news station WBRZ reported.
Anderson's arrest follows that of Danette Colbert, 48, and Rickey White, 34, in Manzano's death. Colbert was charged with second-degree murder while White was arrested on robbery and fraud charges stemming from Manzano's death.
In a statement, Kenner police said that a car used by Colbert on the day of Manzano's death had been rented under Anderson's name. Police also said that additional evidence showed Anderson 'provided logistical support, engaged in post-crime communication, and assisted in attempts to financially benefit from the victim's stolen assets', including Manzano's credit card.
Sign up to Headlines US
Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning
after newsletter promotion
After his arrest, Anderson was booked on counts including principal to simple robbery, purse snatching, access device fraud, illegal transmission of monetary funds, bank fraud and computer fraud. He was being held at the jail in Jefferson parish, Louisiana, which includes Kenner, alongside Colbert and White, according to lockup records.
Manzano, a reporter based in Kansas City, Missouri, was found suffocated while lying face down on a pillow. Autopsy reports revealed that Manzano – who was in New Orleans to cover the Kansas City Chiefs football team's participation in the 9 February Super Bowl – had alcohol and the depressant Xanax in his system.
Later investigations showed that Colbert had been captured on security footage leaving Manzano's hotel room.
In May, Colbert was sentenced to 25 years in prison in an unrelated case that involved non-fatal drugging and robbery charges.
'The evidence was overwhelming that this woman was a serial fraudster and took advantage of multiple tourists and innocent people over many years in the French Quarter' neighborhood in New Orleans, where she first met Manzano, Louisiana attorney general Liz Murrill said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
TV tonight: the wife of a serial killer speaks out in a grim documentary
9pm, Sky Crime Between April 1984 and August 1985, Richard Ramirez murdered at least 15 people in California. He died in 2013 while awaiting execution on San Quentin's death row. In this two-parter, interviews with Ramirez's wife (Doreen Lioy), friends, female admirers and family members, along with those with his victims' family members, are aired for the first time. It also examines 80s fan culture, and why he was celebrated by some like a rock star. Hollie Richardson 6.20pm, BBC Two 'One, two, three. One, two, three.' It's a celebration of waltzes in this special lineup to mark 200 years since the birth of 'waltz king' Johann Strauss II. The programme starts with his Die Fledermaus overture and ends with By the Beautiful Blue Danube, performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra. HR 7.15pm, BBC One More remarkable wildlife parenting lessons from David Attenborough, this time in the oceans. He starts on a reef with Banggai cardinal fish – the mother lays eggs in the father's mouth then he protects them for four weeks, unable to eat anything. And after they hatch, they don't leave his mouth until it's safe. HR 8pm, ITV1 Adrian Dunbar's eponymous retired detective returns for a second series. In the opener, a violent jewellery heist escalates into murder when a key witness is killed. Ridley and his former protege, DI Carol Farman (Bronagh Waugh), mount an undercover sting to stop the criminal mastermind behind the gang, before more lives are snuffed out. Ali Catterall 8pm, Channel 4 One for real Titanic heads, this two-part documentary series focuses not on the world's most infamous maritime disaster, but on subsequent efforts to find its wreck. Texas oil magnate Jack Grimm funded a cutting-edge mission in the 80s – but why was he so insistent on bringing a monkey with him? Hannah J Davies 9.15pm, BBC One Dorrigo is having a very bad week in the penultimate episode of the torrid Australian miniseries. His illicit affair with Amy is rudely interrupted when his call-up papers arrive – and before long he's shipped off to a Japanese PoW camp to face some brutal realities, leaving him haunted by loss in every sense. AC Jimmy's Hall, 1.10am, Film4 Eight years after his 2006 film The Wind That Shakes the Barley delved into the 1920s Irish war of independence and civil war, Ken Loach returned to the country to assess its uneasy peace circa 1932. In an absorbing, fact-based story, communist Jimmy (Barry Ward) returns from the US to his County Leitrim home to reopen a community hall, which exposes the continuing rift between the working class and 'the masters and the pastors' who dictate their lives and block democratic change. Simon Wardell Community Shield Football: Crystal Palace v Liverpool, 2pm, TNT Sports 1 At Wembley Stadium.
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
What drove an Italian mother to murder her son
It's a country where men are doted on by their adoring mothers, who cook and clean for them until they are finally ready to leave home. There is even a word for it: mammoni – mummy's boys, pampered princes who don't fly the nest until well into their thirties. So the nation was shocked when it emerged that a 61-year-old hospital nurse had murdered her grown-up son, cut him into pieces with a hacksaw, covered the remains in lime and crammed them into a bin. Lorena Venier confessed to the crime in her first hearing with prosecutors, telling them she had done 'a monstrous thing'. Neighbours in Gemona del Friuli, in the region of Friuli-Venezia-Guili in north-eastern Italy, said that news of the killing was shocking and baffling. 'She's a very affable woman and we had good relations with her,' said Alberto Guillan, a former soldier. 'We never heard any arguments coming from the house. The whole thing is inexplicable.' Ms Venier told police her son Alessandro, 35, had drug and alcohol problems and had become increasingly abusive to her and to his Colombian partner Mailyn Castro Monsalvo, 30, the mother of his six-month-old daughter. He was unemployed and refused to lift a finger around the house he and Ms Monsalvo shared with his mother, Ms Venier claims. And when he started talking about moving to Colombia, she feared that he might do his partner and child harm. 'Mailyn is the daughter that I never had,' Ms Venier, who raised her son alone after his Egyptian father abandoned them when he was young, told magistrates at a hearing on Aug 2. 'Mailyn was being beaten up, insulted and threatened many times with death. My son downplayed the post-natal depression she was suffering from. Alessandro was violent, Mailyn's life was in danger. 'I could not have allowed them to go to Colombia, Mailyn and the baby would have run very serious risks there. The only way to stop him was to kill him.' It was Ms Monsalvo, who Ms Venier said helped her in the killing, who alerted the authorities to what had happened. Mr Venier was killed on July 25, and on July 31, unable to keep the secret any longer, Ms Monsalvo told emergency services that her boyfriend had been murdered by his mother and they could find his remains in a barrel in the garage. The women allegedly gave Alessandro a glass of lemonade into which they had slipped a tranquilliser. It made him groggy but it didn't knock him out. Next, Ms Venier allegedly injected her son with two doses of insulin, which she says she obtained from the hospital where she worked. An insulin overdose, if untreated, it leads to coma, irreversible brain damage and death. Despite the injection, Mr Venier was still alive. The women allegedly finished him off first by smothering him with a pillow and then strangling him with a pair of his own bootlaces, according to his mother's testimony. 'I took care of the dismemberment myself,' she told police. 'I used a hacksaw and a sheet to hold the blood. I dissected him into three pieces.' She wrapped up the hunks of body, shoved them into a plastic barrel and covered them in lime. She was hoping that her son would not be missed – that the town would assume he had followed his plan to move to South America, but left behind his girlfriend and daughter. But she had not foreseen that her daughter-in-law, already in a fragile mental state because of post-natal depression, would break down and decide to confess all. Ms Venier, who is now in custody, accused of murder and concealing a body. Ms Monsalvo is suspected of instigation to murder. 'My client has made a full confession to the prosecutor,' Giovanni De Nardo, Ms Venier's lawyer, told Italy's national news agency, Ansa. 'She was lucid and aware during her confession, explaining in detail exactly what prompted her to act, her motives.' He has requested that his client undergo a psychiatric evaluation.' David Wilson, a prominent British criminologist, says it is a very singular case. 'In Western countries, only 10 per cent of people who kill are female. This case is a filicide, meaning a parent who kills a child, which is unusual. Among those cases, it is mostly parents killing young children. Killing a grown-up child is even more unusual.' The gruesome way in which the body was disposed of is striking, added Prof Wilson. 'The insulin, the tranquilliser – that is very typical of how women commit murder,' he said. 'But to chop up the body, that is a further stage and very unusual. It usually happens with someone who has medical training because it is actually very difficult to cut up a body. Her training as a nurse would also have given her the psychological robustness to do it.' Both women are now in custody, and Ms Monsalvo's baby is being looked after by social services back in Gemona. 'She is in a state of great difficulty,' said Ms Monsalvo's lawyer, Federica Tosel. 'She has been very confused and not able to face up to what happened. ' On Tuesday judges, lawyers and forensic experts will meet to determine when to carry out the post-mortem examination. There is no indication yet of a trial date.
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Loved ones of paddleboarder killed in Maine to hold a celebration of life
Friends and family of a Maine woman whose killing on a rural pond shocked the community plan to celebrate her life with a maritime service on Sunday. Sunshine Stewart, 48, of St. George, went missing in July while paddleboarding on Crawford Pond, a popular summer destination in Union. She was later found dead, and police charged Deven Young, 17, of Frankfort, Maine, with murder in connection with her death. Stewart's loved ones are calling Sunday's memorial a 'maritime celebration of life.' They are holding the memorial at 10:30 a.m. in the Tenants Harbor section of St. George, where Stewart lived. The event will include a procession of vessels in the vicinity of Tenants Harbor, according to the organizers. 'On August 10, 2025, family, friends, and community will gather on the sea to honor and remember the radiant life of Sunshine 'Sunny' Stewart — a woman whose light touched every soul she met,' promoters of the event said in a social media post. The Office of the Maine Attorney General has said it is seeking to try Young as an adult. A judge will need to rule on that request. Young is due in court for a status conference on Aug. 22. Young made a brief initial court appearance last month in which he entered a denial to the murder charge. His attorney, Jeremy Pratt, has declined to comment. Authorities have released few details about the killing and have not publicly speculated about a motive. Maine State Police spokesperson Shannon Moss said the investigation into Stewart's death is still active and 'will be for some time.' Stewart lived about 20 miles (34 kilometers) from the pond where she was killed. The pond is popular with boaters and fishermen and is the site of a campground. Police have said a medical examiner determined Stewart's cause of death was strangulation and blunt force trauma. In the weeks since the killing, friends of Stewart have memorialized her as an independent spirit, a dedicated friend and a lover of the ocean and the outdoors. She took a varied career path through life, working as a biologist, fisherman, carpenter and in many other roles, friends said. Bethany Leach Parmley, a lifelong friend, described Stewart as 'a really loyal, wonderful friend.'
