Dismembered Body Confirmed as Wife of Ex-Hollywood Exec’s Murder-Suspect Son
Samuel Haskell IV is accused of murdering his wife and her parents, whose bodies are yet to be found.
Irfan Khan/Getty
The Los Angeles County medical examiner has positively ID’d 37-year-old Mei Li Haskell as the woman whose dismembered remains were recovered in a Los Angeles dumpster in November.
Authorities said they determined previously that Mei was slain by her husband, Samuel Haskell IV, who was also charged last month with the killing of her parents.
Haskell, 35, is the son of the prominent ex-Hollywood agent Samuel Haskell III, who retired nearly two decades ago after a career of representing A-listers like Dolly Parton, Whoopi Goldberg, George Clooney, and more.
The younger Haskell had his first court appearance in downtown Los Angeles on Dec. 8 to answer to three counts of murder in connection with the disappearance of his wife and in-laws but had his arraignment postponed to January. He faced a judge wearing an anti-suicide smock around his waist, which left his chest exposed.
Side-by-side headshots of Mei Lei Haskell and her parents, Yanxiang Wang and Gaoshan Li.
Los Angeles Police Department
Police said Haskell was captured on video dumping his wife’s dismembered body into a dumpster at a Los Angeles strip mall—footage discovered only after a homeless man discovered a body part while searching for recyclables and alerted authorities. The bodies of her parents, 64-year-old Yanxiang Wang and 72-year-old Gaoshen Li, remain missing.
Haskell, his three alleged victims, and his three kids all lived in the same home in Tarzana—an L.A. suburb between Encino and Woodland Hills. The children were found unharmed by police and are being cared for by relatives as their dad is held without bail.
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Police said previously they suspected the remains found in the dumpster belonged to Mei, but her body was so dismembered they couldn’t say for certain last month.
A publicly released autopsy report now says Mei, an Asian woman, was found dead in a parking lot on Nov. 8—the same day police announced they’d discovered a maimed torso in the dumpster. A cause of death was not listed on the report.
Haskell was arrested the same day the torso was found, two days after Mei and her parents were reported missing, and one day after laborers said he hired them to remove heavy trash bags they fear may have contained body parts. In an interview with NBC Los Angeles, a day laborer said Haskell paid them $500 to remove three large trash bags that he said were filled with rocks.
A search of the Haskell family home turned up “blood evidence” suggesting a crime was committed there, said LAPD Detective Efren Gutierrez in a press conference last month.
If found guilty on each count of murder, Haskell could spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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