Woman booked with murder in death of KC Super Bowl reporter, alleged accomplice arrested
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Kenner police on Tuesday (March 18) booked Danette Colbert with second-degree murder and announced the arrest of an alleged accomplice who they say fled to Florida following the death of Kansas City sports reporter Adan Manzano days before Super Bowl LIX.
Kenner Police Chief Keith Conley said the alleged accomplice -- Rickey White of Gretna -- was arrested last Friday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., by US Marshals, a US Secret Service task force and KPD detectives.
Manzano, 27, was found dead in a Kenner hotel room on Feb. 5, with his credit cards and cellphone missing.
Jefferson Parish coroner Gerry Cvitanovich said Tuesday that Manzano’s cause of death has been determined to be from “positional asphyxia,” indicating he choked or smothered to death after ingesting a lethal combination of alcohol and Alprazolam (Xanax) that rendered him unconscious. He said the Telemundo reporter’s body was found face-down in a pillow on his hotel bed.
Cvitanovich said Manzano’s blood-alcohol content at death was .232 -- nearly three times the state’s legal limit of 0.08 to operate a motor vehicle -- and that his Xanax concentration (25 ng/ml) was “not an insignificant amount” in his system.
“These are central nervous system depressants,” Cvitanovich said. “They have a combined effect. ... When you add them up, they’re really bad. They’re additive effects.”
But pathologists stopped short of determining that the manner of death was either a homicide or an accidental overdose.
“Given the uncertain circumstances of this case, we felt the most appropriate manner is ‘undetermined,’” Cvitanovich said.
The coroner stressed that the “undetermined” manner of death conclusion could change if additional evidence is developed, and that it does not on its own impede authorities from prosecuting a murder case.
“This does not get in the way of the judicial system doing what they have to do,” Cvitanovich said, “particularly with the evidence they develop outside of what we have provided. We may find something that changes the opinion of our pathologists. But right now, that’s where we are.”
Colbert, 48, was arrested Feb. 6, after investigators say they found evidence of her using a credit card belonging to the victim. Police also recovered surveillance camera footage showing her with Manzano in the French Quarter before they returned to his hotel room together, and another video allegedly showing Colbert leaving Manzano’s room alone.
White is jailed in Broward County, awaiting extradition to Louisiana. Conley said White also will be booked with simple robbery, bank fraud, computer fraud, access device fraud and illegal transmission of monetary funds.
“We found correspondence and information going back and forth, and we feel they were working in concert on this,” Conley said.
The allegations against White mirror those with which Colbert was booked, with the exception of the second-degree murder count levied against her Tuesday. Asked whether White also could face a murder accusation, Conley said, “We don’t speculate, we go where evidence leads us. So, we’ll see where we are a month from now.”
Colbert’s criminal history includes five felony convictions in Louisiana, including for fraud and theft, an arrest in Las Vegas, and open cases in Orleans, Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes. She is being prosecuted by the Louisiana Attorney General’s office in Orleans Parish, where a multiple bill has been filed seeking to deem her a habitual offender deserving of enhanced sentences.
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Conley said Colbert is a career criminal known for allegedly drugging victims and theft.
“We don’t want Ms. Colbert to see the light of day again,” Conley said. “There’s a lot of pieces in this puzzle. We recognize this is going to be a circumstantial case, but I feel very confident in our investigation.”
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