Son of Hollywood exec arrested after body part found in dumpster. Wife and in-laws are missing
The search continues for a missing woman and her parents after her husband was arrested on suspicion of murder when police tracked a body part found in a dumpster back to their Los Angeles area home, authorities said.
Mei Li Haskell, 37, Gaoshan Li, 71, and Yanxiang Wang, 64, are missing, and officers have arrested Samuel Haskell, 35, after someone looking through a dumpster found a bag containing an unidentified female torso, the Los Angeles Police Department said.
Investigators say they tracked the bag back to the home Mei Li Haskell and Samuel Haskell shared with their three children and her parents. When officers went to the home Wednesday, police say they discovered blood and other evidence inside the residence, CNN affiliate KABC reported.
Samuel Haskell is being held on $2,000,000 bail, police said. It is unclear if he has an attorney. He’s due in court Monday, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Inmate Information Center.
Haskell is the son of Emmy-winning producer and Hollywood agent Sam Haskell, who served as an agent for Kathie Lee Gifford, Whoopi Goldberg, Dolly Parton, George Clooney and others. CNN has reached out to the senior Haskell for comment.
The children are being cared for by family members, according to police.
Investigators told KABC that no additional body parts beyond the torso have been discovered and that DNA results from the torso are pending, but Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Scot Williams said the torso is assumed to be Mei Li Haskell, the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Typically if someone, a murder suspect, is dismembering a body, it’s to delay identification,” LAPD Detective Efren Gutierrez told CNN affiliate KCBS Wednesday. “So that by implication would mean that they may have been known to each other.”
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