Hollywood twist in torso find
Busted hubby’s dad reps mega-stars
The married dad charged with murdering his wife after a woman’s torso was found in a Los Angeles dumpster is the son of a powerful Hollywood exec who has repped stars like George Clooney, Dolly Parton and Whoopi Goldberg.
Samuel Haskell IV, 35, was booked on suspicion of murder Wednesday hours after a homeless man scavenging for recyclables found the torso inside a dumpster about 5 miles from the suspect’s home in Tarzana.
His wife, Mei Haskell, 37, had already been reported missing along with her parents — mom Yanxiang Wang, 64, and dad Gaoshan Li, 72 — who remain unaccounted for.
Cops have since raided the Haskells’ home as it emerged that a witness reported seeing what appeared to be body parts in bags outside the property the night before the gruesome discovery of the torso dumped in a mall dumpster.
“Once officers made entry, what was discovered was evidence of a crime, including some blood evidence and other items that I’m not going to provide at this point,” LAPD Detective Efren Gutierrez told ABC 7.
The suspect, meanwhile, has been identified as the son of former William Morris Agency executive vice president Samuel Haskell III, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times.
Celebrity clients
The elder Haskell joined the leading Hollywood agency in 1978 and has represented a glitzy list of celebrities even including Clooney, Parton, Goldberg and even King Charles’ brother Prince Edward.
He became an executive vice president in 1997 and was also the agency’s worldwide head of television, his LinkedIn profile shows. The Emmy-winning producer retired from the agency in 2005 and is currently the president of Magnolia Hill Productions.
In his company biography, Haskell III — who also served as CEO of the Miss America organization from 2015 to 2017 — is said to be known as a Hollywood nice guy.
The exec does not appear to have yet addressed the charges against his son, which is not the younger Haskell’s first run-in with the law, according to records obtained by the LA Times.
This week, investigators were seen combing through his home for hours, going through belongings in his garage and placing down evidence markers.
The night before the torso was found, construction workers told police they saw what looked like a body in black bags near Haskell’s home, but when officers arrived the bags were gone.
“There was no evidence that allowed the officers to make entry into the home,” Detective Gutierrez told NBC4 about the initial call.
However, the bag containing the torso was consistent with the description of the bags reported by the workers, prompting police to establish a second crime scene at Haskell’s home, where investigators found “blood evidence.”
Police located the couple’s three kids at school Wednesday and turned them over to child services. Authorities are still working to identify the torso — expected to come through DNA — but believe it is that of Haskell’s wife.
“If a murder suspect is dismembering a body, it’s to delay identification,” Gutierrez said.
A neighbor, who asked not to be identified, told ABC 7 she had a friendship with Mei but always thought “something seemed so off” about Haskell before his wife’s disappearance.