A Tarzana man due in court on Monday, July 14, in connection with the 2023 killings of his wife and her parents was found dead in custody, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Samuel Haskell, 37, committed suicide.
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Haskell was scheduled to be in court on Monday to have a date set for a preliminary hearing, a proceeding when a judge determines if enough evidence exists for the case to go to trial, according to court records.
Instead, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench dismissed the case against him, DA spokesman Greg Risling said.
Deputies at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, near downtown Los Angeles, found Haskell’s body about 4:20 a.m. Saturday morning, Lt. Michael Modica said on Monday. The department declined to comment further and deferred questions to the Medical Examiner’s office, which would officially determine the manner of death.
Haskell was charged in November 2023 with three counts of murder in the deaths of his wife and her parents.
Police said they had determined Haskell paid day laborers on Nov. 7 that year to remove trash bags from his home. After discovering a torso in one of them, the day laborers returned to the home with the bags and the money.
The day laborers told Los Angeles police what they saw and officers went to investigate Haskell’s home, but they did not find any bags. The next morning, a homeless man told police he found a torso in a garbage bag inside a dumpster in Encino.
Haskell was arrested and charged.
The body parts were identified by the Medical Examiner’s Office to be those of Haskell’s wife, 37-year-old Mei Haskell.
The bodies of her parents, Gaoshan Li, 72, and Yanxiang Wang, 64, have not been found.
All three victims lived with Haskell in the 4100 block of Coldstream Terrace in Tarzana along with the couple’s three children, police said.
Haskell’s attorney, Joseph A. Weimortz Jr., put out a statement on Monday saying Haskell was willing to enter into a plea agreement with prosecutors and wanted to protect his children.
“My client was not afraid of prison, but he was afraid of an even larger media spectacle,” Weimortz said. “He was not afraid for himself, he was afraid for his boys. He was afraid that every photo taken, every word written, would be a permanent scar his children would have to live with.
“He was afraid that every gory, salacious detail, regardless of its truth or falsity, would be used for public entertainment,” he continued. “In order to avoid more media exposure, he was willing to (plead).
“My client’s acts were not acts of cowardice or lunacy,” the attorney said. “Ultimately, my client was even willing to take his own life, believing that it would end this terrible chaos.”
Haskell was the son of noted Hollywood producer and agent Sam Haskell, who represented Kathie Lee Gifford, Whoopi Goldberg, Dolly Parton, George Clooney and others.
Staff writer Ruby Gonzales and City News Service contributed to this report.