L.A. Man Whose Wife Is Missing Arrested After Woman's Torso Found in a Dumpster
A suspect — whose wife and in-laws are missing — has been taken into custody by the Los Angeles Police Department
A suspect was arrested on Wednesday after a woman’s dismembered torso was found in a dumpster in Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said that parts of a human body were discovered by a homeless person in a parking lot near Ventura Boulevard and Rubio Avenue Wednesday morning, NBC Los Angeles, KTLA and KABC-TV.
“When the officers responded they discovered a dismembered female wrapped in a plastic bag. It was just outside the dumpster, they confirmed that it was human remains,” LAPD Detective Efren Gutierrez said in a press conference, per NBC Los Angeles.
Authorities said the body was so dismembered that they were unable to identify the person, per NBC News. However, KTLA reported that they were able to determine that the dismembered body was murdered in the past few days.
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“If a murder suspect is dismembering a body, it’s to delay identification,” Guttierez told KTLA, while also noting that detectives were still working on identifying the body.
Detectives reviewed surveillance footage from the parking lot, leading them to a suspect, Samuel Haskell, who lived about five miles away in a home in Tarzana, per KABC-TV.
Gutierrez said, per NBC Los Angeles, that investigators searched the home where Haskell lived with his wife, Mei, and their three kids. There, they allegedly discovered "blood evidence and other items."
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A neighbor had also reported the day prior, at around 7:30 p.m., they had allegedly seen body parts in a bag outside the house. But when cops were sent to the house, the bags were gone, KTLA reported.
Haskell, 35, was arrested and taken into custody at a mall in Topanga on suspicion of murder, per the outlet.
Gutierrez said they are still searching for his wife, along with her mother, YanXiang Wang, 64, and father, Gaoshan Li, 72, who are all missing.
Wang and Li also lived at the home, according to KTLA and KABC-TV.
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The outlets reported that the police picked up the couple’s three children from school on Wednesday and placed them into custody of the county Department of Children and Family Services.
Haskell is being held at the Valley Jail in Van Nuys on $2 million bail, according to KTLA.
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