Disturbing surveillance footage depicts Telemundo reporter Adan Manzano being enticed into a hotel room by a woman known as the Bourbon Street Hustler – shortly before his untimely demise.
Journalist Manzano, 27, was last seen alive in the early hours of February 5 in New Orleans where he was on assignment for the Super Bowl.
Cops in Kenner said he returned to his room at the Comfort Suites hotel with Danette Colbert, 48, before she left an hour later.
Police have since released that footage and it showed the reporter standing behind Colbert who was wearing a denim outfit.
Manzano was wearing a shirt, jeans and gray Nike sneakers and was carrying a white plastic bag.
Police said the duo arrived at around 4:35am before Colbert left.
Colbert then returned to the room before leaving for a second time at 6am local time.
She didn’t return to the hotel room.
The reporter’s cause of death remains unknown, but investigators are probing to see if he was drugged.
Colbert allegedly used Manzano’s credit card in stores across New Orleans before she was arrested on February 6.
At the time of her arrest, she was on probation in relation to a 2021 case that took place in New Orleans.
Colbert pleaded guilty to stealing around $134,000 from David Butler, as reported by The New Orleans Advocate.
Butler believes he was drugged while enjoying a night out in the city’s well-known French Quarter.
Court docs, obtained by the outlet, revealed Butler started to feel “woozy” at a bar.
He left and a woman, later identified as Colbert, jumped in a cab with him.
Butler said he woke up at his rental home and discovered his watch, ring, phone and wallet missing.
Cops also revealed $80,000 in cryptocurrency had been moved to an iCloud account.
Investigators have described her as a “career criminal.”
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Locals have given Colbert the nickname the “Bourbon Street Hustler.”
In 2022, Colbert was charged with drugging a man and stealing $50,000 in cash from him in Las Vegas, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Manzano’s credit card and cell phone were found at her home in Slidell – located around 33 miles north of New Orleans.
The card was the same one Manzano used to book himself into the hotel, according to Keith Conley, the Kenner Police Department chief.
Authorities have verified that she is confronting multiple charges such as fraud and theft, although no accusations have been made linking her to Manzano’s passing.
His body was found by a hotel manager after not showing up to work.
Investigators said there were no signs of trauma.
Manzano’s death came just months after his wife Ashleigh LeAnn Boyd, 24, was killed in a car crash.
Boyd was killed in an accident in Topeka, Kansas, in April last year. The pair shared a young daughter.
He was preparing to cover his third Super Bowl for the Telemundo outlet KGKC.
Manzano joined the outlet as a sports anchor in 2021.
In one of his last social media posts, he shared a photo of his wife and their daughter.
Tributes poured in for Manzano as KDKC bosses described him as a “rising star.”
“We will deeply miss his passion for sports and the contributions he made to the local community,” execs said.
