The son of a former Hollywood agent has been charged with murdering his wife and her parents—just days after a woman’s dismembered body was found in a Los Angeles dumpster.
Samuel Bond Haskell IV, 35, was charged on Monday with three counts of murder for the grisly crime, which allegedly occurred around Nov. 6, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.
A criminal complaint, obtained by The Daily Beast, alleges that Haskell murdered his 37-year-old wife, Mei Li, and her parents, 64-year-old Yanxiang Wang and 71-year-old Gaoshen Li. The murders allegedly occurred at the Tarzana home where the Haskells, their three children, and Mei's parents all lived.
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“These shocking and gruesome crimes have sent shockwaves through our community. We stand with the victims’ loved ones during this unimaginably difficult time and will do everything in our power to ensure justice is served,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a Monday press release announcing the charges.
Haskell was arrested on Wednesday after authorities discovered a woman's dismembered torso inside a dumpster, but the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office said Monday that the remains had yet to be identified.
He made an initial appearance in court on Monday, where he was ordered to be held without bail. It is not immediately clear if he has retained a lawyer. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office told The Daily Beast that his arraignment is set for Dec. 8. If convicted, Haskell faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors allege that the day after the murders, Haskell hired four day laborers to haul away several black trash bags from his Los Angeles-area home. In an interview with NBC Los Angeles, a day laborer said Haskell paid them $500 to remove three large trash bags, which he said were filled with rocks.
“When we picked up the bags, we could tell they weren’t rocks,” the worker, who asked to remain anonymous, told the outlet in Spanish. Describing the 50-pound bags as soft and soggy, the laborer said they peeked inside and saw “body parts, a belly button.”
“I was astonished. Of course, I felt bad. We had been tricked,” he added.
The worker said that the group returned the bags and money to Haskell’s home, stating they did not “want to be involved.” The report states that while Haskell allegedly tried to pass off the body parts as “Halloween props,” the workers reported what happened to the California Highway Patrol—and then the police.
Prosecutors allege that later that day, Haskell “was allegedly observed and photographed a short distance from his home disposing [of] a large trash bag into a dumpster in the 16000 block of Ventura Boulevard.”
Los Angeles Detective Efren Gutierrez said at a press conference that officers were sent to the Tarzana home on Tuesday night after receiving reports about the bloody trash bags. When officers arrived, “nothing was located,” and there was no evidence that warranted entry into the home, the detective said.
The next morning, police said a person looking through dumpsters about five miles from Haskell’s home found a bag with a woman’s torso. The investigation led police back to the Haskell home, where they found blood and other evidence, according to KABC.
The alleged murder is not the first time Haskell has faced legal trouble. Court records show that Haskell was arrested and charged with two counts of possessing a deadly weapon in 2008. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to three years of probation in 2010.
One neighbor told The New York Post that Haskell had an “obsession” with weapons, including guns, samurai swords, and crossbows, that he would display around the house. “I know Mei didn’t like having those things inside the house and she wanted him to get rid of them,” neighbor Elle Benami told the outlet.
Benami added that the night before Haskell’s Nov. 8 arrest, her daughter heard a scream from his home. “My daughter said she heard a scream, ‘Help! Help! Hello?’ And then she heard a car door slam and screeching of tires and a car driving off,” the neighbor added.
Haskell is the son of a prominent Hollywood talent agent and film producer who once represented Whoopi Goldberg and George Clooney.
The former longtime head of the Miss America Organization, Samuel Haskell Sr., is now the president of Magnolia Hill Productions, a company known for producing a number of Dolly Parton’s specials.
