Los Angeles cops have launched a probe into whether laborers who reported being paid $500 to dump body parts for accused killer Samuel Haskell were turned away from the police station and told to call 911 instead.
Haskell, 35, the son of a Hollywood hotshot of the same name, has been charged with three counts of murder in connection to the disappearance of his wife Mei Haskell, 37, and her parents.
Mei’s friends told DailyMail.com she had wanted to divorce Haskell for at least four years, but feared his powerful agent father would persuade courts to give him custody of their three children, aged six, eight and 12.
Now, LAPD is questioning why the Spanish-speaking laborers who became entangled in the case were apparently redirected and turned away from two police stations when they tried to report the bags of body parts.
Police Chief Michel Moore said he couldn’t think of any valid reason why cops at the stations would not have taken their reports, as the department investigates potential failings.
‘They didn’t have those bags with them, (which) were back at the individual’s home or location where they had been asked to do this service, and they believed that the bags, as I understand it, contained potentially human remains,’ Moore said during a news conference.
‘My concern is that very act right there, of having them go outside and call 911 versus summoning a unit via other available channels and ensuring that the people remain there with their cooperation.
‘The desk officer has at his or her disposal the watch commander on scene, so the supervisor there, they have radio communications that they can summon, communications that issue or dispatch units.’
Officers were eventually dispatched to look for the body bags but came back empty-handed – until a dismembered torso, believed to belong to Mei, was discovered in a dumpster miles away the next day.
The Spanish-speaking laborers said Haskell tried to trick them into removing the 50-pound sacks from his Tarzana home on November 7, after being told they were full of rocks and trash.
