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Short filmTranscript
00:10It was a big news story.
00:13Wealthy Palm Springs art dealer missing.
00:17There was no signs of force, nothing was thrown about.
00:21But his Mercedes was not in the garage.
00:24It's suspicious when you have a missing person,
00:27and all of a sudden their home is being sold out under them.
00:32We would be like, what the hell?
00:35How can this be another twist?
00:37Then witnesses tell me he was murdered
00:39and gave me a handwritten map.
00:42That's where they dumped the body.
00:44The location where these bones were located
00:47was exceptionally remote.
00:48It was unbelievable to me the elaborate scheme and plan
00:53that these guys went through.
00:55I was in shock.
00:58The plot was very complex.
01:00He was the next target in what they dubbed Operation Craigslist.
01:05In the county jail, he did make a phone call,
01:07and the only thing he said was, run.
01:28Palm Springs is a beautiful desert city with a long history.
01:34It became very popular with the celebrity crowd in the 40s and 50s.
01:42We're so close to Hollywood, 100 miles away.
01:45So you had people that came out here for the sun and fun and away from paparazzi,
01:50and that's why we have so many good stories about the stars being here.
01:59The Festival of Lights is a Christmas parade that is held every year in Palm Springs.
02:06It happens on the first weekend of December and brings the whole community together.
02:13My good friend Clifford Lambert really loved the Christmas parade that that year.
02:20Cliff didn't show up.
02:23He was very well known in the gay community, so when he didn't show up to that Christmas parade,
02:28his close friends were very concerned because that was his favorite thing.
02:35I was Cliff's hairdresser, and I had some friends and clients in the salon,
02:42and I remember somebody telling me that they had seen Cliff at his favorite haunt just down from his house,
02:48having dinner with somebody on December 4th,
02:52but they hadn't heard from him or hadn't been able to get a hold of him afterwards.
02:56So we started putting things together, and it was alarming.
03:04On December 12th, 2008, a missing person's report came across my desk by the name of Cliff Lambert.
03:11Reading the report, I noticed that his longtime friend, Edward, had reported him missing,
03:17hadn't heard from him for a couple of days.
03:19First thing you do with a missing person, try to call them and see if they're okay,
03:22and give them a call, and his voicemail box was full.
03:27I started conducting a more thorough investigation, contacting friends,
03:31to see if anybody's heard from him.
03:33Nobody has.
03:36Over the next several days, the police department spoke to many of us,
03:41asking if we knew of anybody that might harbor any resentment towards Cliff,
03:46and I couldn't think of anybody.
03:51I'm still expecting him to show up, but a couple of days went by, and I spoke with his friend,
03:57Edward, again, who had the key to the house.
04:00So he allowed me to enter the house, and there was nothing unusual.
04:06There was no signs of force, nothing was thrown about, everything was in the right place.
04:12His friend explained that the Rolls Royce was still in the garage, but his Mercedes was missing.
04:19I didn't notice that his mailbox had, like, mail protruding out, and there was papers on front of the door.
04:25But that, in and of itself, isn't suspicious. He could have been gone for the weekend and not told anybody.
04:33A few days, it goes by, and Cliff doesn't show up. We sent out the press release.
04:39We were hoping that it would turn out some information on him, but it didn't.
04:45Remember, social media wasn't a thing, so if we put it out now, we would be getting more people saying,
04:51I knew Cliff. I saw him at this party. There's no way he'd go missing. You know, things like that.
04:57But we didn't have those kind of tips or clues.
05:02At this point, I need to speak to his friends and learn all I could on Cliff Lambert.
05:09Cliff was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He had the biggest dreams and ambitions. He was going to be a
05:18celebrity.
05:19Cliff is a fascinating individual. You have to think about who he was and the time period that he grew
05:24up in.
05:25By all accounts, he was out through most of his life.
05:29He ended up getting a job on a radio show and that afforded him to create relationships with a lot
05:39of
05:40celebrities. And later, he ended up going into the art world.
05:46He had actually worked to create this process where famous pieces of art could be available basically as posters. And
05:55that was how he made his money.
05:59Cliff Lambert lives a very expensive lifestyle. When you would walk into his house, people described it like walking into
06:06Versailles.
06:09Cliff was a person that liked to have others around him. He would have dinner parties. He was happiest when
06:19he was in a relationship.
06:21He had a boyfriend for a very long time, 12 years or so.
06:26And his name was Travis. And Cliff really loved him and wanted him to carry his last name.
06:31So Travis Hobbs became Travis Lambert. They were both really happy with that.
06:38But then in 2007, Travis died in a drowning accident in the swimming pool.
06:47Cliff was just beside himself.
06:50He was just devastated. And I don't think he ever really got over it.
06:56Cliff was very lonely. And in 2008, it actually drove him to create a profile on Craigslist,
07:07to begin looking for somebody to fill that void.
07:20Our first big break didn't come through until I received a phone call at my desk from a real estate
07:26agent
07:26over in San Francisco, inquiring about Mr. Lambert and his residence in Palm Springs.
07:34He expressed that he had a client in San Francisco that had a power of attorney,
07:40that a house was gifted to him. And he wanted to do what he called a fire sale.
07:46The real estate agent was suspicious that when he ran Mr. Cliff Lambert's name,
07:51he came back as a missing person. So at that point, I called my partner detective,
07:57who does do fraud and property crime, Simon Mann, and asked him to come on board with this investigation.
08:06It's suspicious when you have a missing person and all of a sudden their home is being sold out
08:13under them. We received documents from the agent that pertain to Cliff's home here in Palm Springs.
08:22And there was a deed and a power of attorney with the name of Kashal Nerula from San Francisco.
08:31Who is Kashal Nerula in San Francisco? And why is he trying to claim ownership of Cliff Lambert's house?
08:38This was essentially the big break that led me to believe that there was something more nefarious
08:43was going on.
08:44There is a name that has no bearing on the residence itself. And there's a huge distance gap between
08:54Palm Springs and San Francisco. But at this point, I'm asking, is Kashal Nerula involved in Cliff Lambert's
09:02disappearance?
09:07We're looking for proof of life. And oddly enough, there are transactions on Cliff's bank account.
09:14Like somebody went on a spending spree.
09:17When we learn who the thumbprint belonged to and what happened to this man, it was terrifying for us.
09:39Cliff Lambert would always stay in touch with friends, always let somebody know when he would be out of
09:47town. But this time, none of that happened. We were all just very concerned.
09:56At this point in the investigation, there wasn't much to go on other than the fact that we have
10:02someone with the power of attorney signed by Cliff Lambert to Kashal Nerula in San Francisco.
10:08And he's trying to sell Mr. Cliff Lambert's house below market value.
10:13But at this time, instead of interviewing Kashal Nerula, I want to get more information about him.
10:19I want to know everything I can about who he is. That way, I'm not going in blind.
10:26So I called the San Francisco Police Department and spoke to an investigator in their fraud unit.
10:32And immediately when I said the name Kashal Nerula, it was like an alarm that went off on the phone,
10:39because Kashal had so many charges in San Francisco for fraudulent activities.
10:46And Nerula was arrested a year prior. He had been locked in jail in the county.
10:50But at this time, Kashal Nerula is out of jail.
10:57Kashal Nerula is a convicted con man. Very, very good looking, dressed impeccably.
11:05He would tell people that he was the Prince of Nepal and that he was exiled.
11:11Kashal Nerula had undertaken a con scheme where he conned someone out of over $400,000 worth of artwork.
11:19He ended up stealing $300,000 approximately worth of jewelry in order to pay the restitution for
11:26his art theft scheme. And in 2007, Kashal Nerula was responsible for swindling someone out of
11:34half a million dollars in Hawaii. He was a prolific fraudster,
11:38and he was a prolific fraudster, but does he have any involvement in the disappearance of Cliff Lambert?
11:48I asked the real estate agent if they could pause any sales, because there is suspicious
11:53factors behind the disappearance. Then the real estate agent continued to tell me that an attorney
11:59by the name of David Roplugo from the Bay Area. He had done this deal between Mr. Nerula and Mr.
12:06Cliff Lambert,
12:08and that Mr. Nerula took on the part of attorney.
12:14So there's still no signs of Cliff. I'm looking for proof of life, and I found that there are transactions
12:23on Cliff's bank account after he was reported missing.
12:28It looked like somebody went on a spending spree in San Francisco. They were buying chocolate, clothes,
12:37computer products. It looked like somebody was having a good old time. But when I received surveillance
12:44photos from ATMs, it was not Cliff Lambert, nowhere near Cliff Lambert. There's a picture of a Hispanic
12:52mail on all of these transactions. I take a little clip of that, and I send it to the San
12:58Francisco
12:59Police Department, and the investigator up there immediately identifies these pictures as Danny Garcia.
13:07And says he was also involved in fraudulent activities with Nerula.
13:15We find out that Cashaw Nerula and Danny Garcia, they've been under investigation by
13:22San Francisco Police Department, amongst other police departments up in the Bay Area,
13:26for many scams in which they defraud people out of their belongings. They are essentially part of a,
13:33like a ring of con men. So now we had one more name, one more person of interest.
13:42With the names now, I go back to Mr. Lambert's good friend who reported missing,
13:48and asked if he recognized any of the names. And lo and behold, he did recognize Danny Garcia.
13:55And stated that Danny Garcia was a boyfriend of Mr. Lambert, but they have parted on bad terms
14:03several months before the disappearance.
14:09In April of 2008, Cliff told me that he met somebody from San Francisco on Craigslist,
14:17and his name was Daniel Garcia. He described him as something different than he normally likes.
14:23He said, this boy is Hispanic and he has dark hair.
14:28Daniel came to the desert a handful of times to visit Cliff,
14:33to see if they might get along or if there was a spark.
14:39But Daniel ended up making it clear that he was looking for an investor for a new business he wanted
14:47to open, meaning that he wanted his money. Cliff told him that's it, this is done, and he would have
14:54to leave.
14:59At this point, all I knew is that Danny Garcia was a connection to Cliff Lambert.
15:04But how was that related to Cliff's disappearance?
15:10Then on January 7th, I get a phone call from Cliff's neighbor that there is a U-Haul truck in
15:16front of Cliff's house.
15:19Frank comes to me and he tells me, Simon, there's somebody at Cliff's house with the U-Haul.
15:26They're trying to leave. We need to go get the U-Haul.
15:30I advise our patrol officers to quickly respond that somebody is trying to move the items out.
15:37As I'm driving towards the downtown area to get to his house, I notice a U-Haul truck driving southbound,
15:44away from the direction of where his house would be.
15:48So between myself, Frank, and patrol, we tactically start setting up units to go intercept
15:57all the vehicles that are leaving. Is Cliff there? Is Cliff not there? Are we going to find
16:06somebody who shouldn't be there cleaning out this house?
16:23Clifford Lambert was missing and we received a phone call. There's somebody at Cliff's house
16:29with the U-Haul trying to clean out his home. It's suspicious. And then I get another call from
16:36Detective Browning saying, hey, I got this U-Haul driving south away from Cliff Lambert's house.
16:45I pull over the U-Haul truck. Simultaneously, officers are arriving on scene at Cliff's house.
16:53I get on scene and I find a person talking to one of the patrol officers.
17:00And as I approached, he identified himself as Miguel Bustamante. And he said, we were hired to do a job,
17:08but it didn't look like movers.
17:10It looked like Miguel Bustamante at Cliff's home trying to steal all the contents of the residence.
17:20A lot of Cliff's property, personal items of value, art. And we can't verify that any of this property was
17:30legitimately given to Miguel and his crew by the actual owner of Clifford Lambert.
17:34So Miguel Bustamante was detained at the scene and taken to the jail.
17:41Now we have one more person of interest in this case.
17:50Within an hour or so of Miguel Bustamante being arrested for the burglary,
17:54he called for detectives. He wanted to talk to us.
18:20We confirmed the two people driving the U-Haul trucks were in fact just hired, so they were not charged.
18:26Our main concern now is trying to get to what he knows about Cliff Lambert.
18:31Okay, this is what I know.
18:33Okay, this guy here, his name is Danny Garcia, the boyfriend of Cliff Lambert.
18:42His name is Cruceo Neruda.
18:45These two guys have been working together. Okay.
18:48For me, that was huge because we never released the names of the people involved in this case.
18:53We have information that there is some kind of connection between Danny Garcia,
18:58Kushal Nerula, and Miguel Bustamante.
19:01So we're up to three people associated with this missing persons case with no sign of Cliff.
19:09His initial comments were that Cliff Lambert owed the cartel money and they took him to Mexico.
19:21It's a crazy story. I did not believe whatsoever that Cliff was in Mexico and it was abducted for the
19:27cartel.
19:28So they went, the Mexicans and Cliff all went together?
19:31Yes, yes, yes, yes.
19:32That's why we could, and Cruceo hired me to keep his car, supposedly his car in my garage.
19:39He proceeded to volunteer information that he had Lambert's Mercedes in his possession
19:44in Daly City in his apartment complex.
19:49So we had Daly City Police Department go to the residence and it was there.
19:56So now we had Cliff Lambert's vehicle.
19:59We were hoping that it would turn on some information on what happened to Cliff Lambert.
20:03Cliff Lambert's Mercedes was brought back to Palm Springs for processing.
20:09The technicians were able to find traces of blood in the trunk,
20:14but it was inconclusive at the time because it was very minute.
20:20So we obtained a search warrant to inspect Cliff's house.
20:26We recovered Cliff's toothbrush, his hairbrush, his fingerprints, and we uploaded it into CODIS,
20:36the database in missing persons cases, so that it can be used at a later time.
20:44Once law enforcement was able to do forensic testing of his house, they found the presence of blood.
20:51However, it didn't result in any DNA findings.
20:55It was inconclusive as to person, but it tested positive for blood.
21:02So it was enough to write a public cause declaration to continue the investigation
21:08into all the suspects identified in this case.
21:12Also, we did book Miguel for the burglary,
21:15and we asked the courts that he be held in the county jail until his arraignment.
21:28A lot of Cliff's friends would talk to each other,
21:31trying to come up with scenarios where he may have gone on his own,
21:35and we were praying that one of them was true.
21:40We still hadn't interviewed Danny Garcia, still having interviewed Nerula.
21:44We did have investigators from San Francisco Police Department just kind of keep an eye on them.
21:49They have no idea that we're on to them.
21:51First, I want to know exactly what happened to Cliff Lambert.
21:55That gives me a lot more ammunition for the interviews of them.
21:59At this time, Miguel Bustamante was still in the county jail.
22:02I received a phone call from an investigator explaining to me that he did have an inmate
22:08who was cellmates with Miguel Bustamante and had the truth on Mr. Lambert's disappearance.
22:16I went down to meet with the inmate, see what he was referring to,
22:20and he gave me a piece of paper with the names of Danny Garcia and Keshaw Nerula.
22:27And it did have a handwritten map on there.
22:30And according to the inmate, he was told by Miguel.
22:33That's where they dumped Mr. Lambert's body, somewhere in the desert.
22:38So Detective Mennon and I went and searched the area identified in the map.
22:43I was pretty confident we had a murder investigation,
22:47but it's very hard to prove up a homicide without a body.
22:52A homicide without a body.
23:03We have a map at this point. We have information that Cliff Lambert was killed.
23:10A confession of an inmate to another inmate. But to me, that was pretty credible information now.
23:18We searched for Cliff's body for months. Using the map, we drove up and down the freeway.
23:26We were searching for anything that looked like a fresh burial site.
23:32But we were not able to find anything.
23:39I prayed every night that he would just walk back in with a little smile on his face and a
23:48smirk.
23:49Said, it's all right. I'm okay. Don't worry about me. I'm all right.
23:53Unfortunately, it didn't unfold that way.
23:57Without Cliff's body, this case became about documents. It was following the trail in bits and pieces of evidence.
24:07And the case was so convoluted that it required additional evidence to corroborate everything that they've done up to this
24:16point.
24:19When reviewing the power of attorney documents, I noticed a notary stamp.
24:23And now I'm thinking I need to speak to this person to see if Cliff Lambert did, in fact,
24:28sign his name and give Kashaw Nerula part of attorney.
24:35I'm a mobile notary.
24:37And I get calls all day long for people that want a notary to come to them, to their home
24:42or to their office.
24:44I received a call on the 20th of December, asking if I could go to a residence in a neighborhood
24:50called Noe Valley.
24:51I grabbed my notary book, and I got into my car, and I drove to the location.
24:56When I get to the address, I rang one of the buzzers. There was no answer.
25:01And all of a sudden, this guy comes up and grabs the bag from behind, and he says,
25:07Give me the bag! Give me the bag!
25:09And he's pulling me with the backpack, and I'm being dragged down the sidewalk.
25:14All of a sudden, my head hits a telephone pole, and I was in shock.
25:20And I said, Get the f*** away from me!
25:23And he went like this, and he walked down the sidewalk.
25:27And I was like, What was that?
25:32And I called 911, and I told them what had happened.
25:36And I stood in the street. I was trembling. I had never been so scared.
25:41I was terrified.
25:44A few days later, my notary partner, Glenn, calls me and says,
25:48I just got a call from the Palm Springs Police Department, and they want copies of your journal.
25:54I remember when we got a phone call from someone called Kashul Narula,
25:59saying he would like to set an appointment for his friend Cliff Lambert.
26:03And we met those guys late at night in a hotel, and we notarized a bunch of power of attorney
26:08documents.
26:08They want the signature and the thumbprints in your journal.
26:14The person who put their thumbprint and signed the power of attorney should be Cliff Lambert.
26:20So I asked if we could get that book analyzed, and we got the results relatively quick.
26:26But that thumbprint came back to David Replugo.
26:31David Replugo's name was crucial because up until then, he had claimed to be an attorney just
26:36brokering a deal for Narula and Cliff Lambert to sell the house.
26:42It was clearly the plan all along that someone was going to have to pose as Cliff Lambert
26:47in order to execute this power of attorney.
26:51Apparently, David Replugo later realized that he made a mistake leaving his own fingerprint
26:58as Cliff Lambert.
27:02So he decided that the new plan is to hire somebody to get that notary book back by force.
27:10If they were able to get that notary journal, there would be no proof whatsoever that the
27:17thumbprint belonged to David Replugo, not to Cliff Lambert.
27:24That event was a significant turning point in this investigation because it showed that
27:30David Replugo was posing as Cliff Lambert.
27:36It appears that the plan was to clean out all of Cliff Lambert's money, as well as transfer
27:42the deed of his home into their control. But there was no evidence that these conmen definitively
27:50killed Cliff Lambert.
27:54However, with that information from the notary, we were able to secure arrest warrants and search warrants
28:01for David Replugo, Kushal Nerula, and Danny Garcia for essentially defrauding Cliff Lambert and taking
28:09in excess of $300,000 from his bank accounts.
28:15At this point, we can't find Danny Garcia. We think he's hiding out somewhere.
28:22But we find out that Kushal Nerula and David Replugo will be in court because they had
28:28proceedings from prior events that Replugo was representing Nerula on. So we go to San Francisco with warrants in hand.
28:37We're at the Hall of Justice and I'm standing in the hallway where Kushal had his hearing.
28:45When the court recessed, they came out with everybody else and both Replugo and Nerula were arrested.
28:56Later that day, Kushal Nerula, he's in the county jail in San Francisco. We monitor their phone calls.
29:02So he did make a phone call to Danny Garcia. And the only thing he said was, run.
29:09He hung up.
29:25After arresting David Replugo and Kushal Nerula, Nerula did make a phone call tipping off Danny
29:33Garcia that were onto him. So he was in the wind. Next, we interviewed both Nerula and Replugo.
29:42They, of course, did claim not to know anything about Cliff Lambert or his murder.
29:48But Miguel Bustamante told another person at the jail that he knew Cliff Lambert was murdered and taken out to
29:56the desert.
29:59During our investigation, we find that Bustamante had a roommate by the name of Craig McCarthy.
30:10We found evidence that Craig McCarthy worked at a medical center in San Francisco.
30:17So Detective Browning and I decided to go pay a visit and we found him.
30:22So we're speaking to Craig McCarthy to get understanding of what he knows first. And when we started asking,
30:30did Miguel participate in the disappearance of Cliff Lambert? And were you in Palm Springs with Miguel?
30:38Craig's demeanor is very soft-spoken. That's when Craig started telling us,
30:44oh yeah, we were hired to do a job by Danny Garcia. So now we know that he was involved
30:54and we have
30:55one more suspect. So we asked Craig McCarthy if he knew anything about Danny Garcia's whereabouts.
31:02He says he's hiding out with his friend in Sacramento. So I put the warrant into the system. That triggered
31:10Sacramento to have a task force search for him. His phone was pinged by the task force and they did
31:17in fact find him hiding in a closet in a friend's house where they took custody of him and several
31:23electronics that he was hoarding there. He was arrested and what was surprising was that there was
31:30multiple amounts of hard drives, laptops, cell phones in his possession at the time. They needed to be
31:38checked for any evidence. I interviewed Danny and he claimed that Cliff was a good friend of his
31:48and Cliff was going to help him invest into a software project that he had. But I know that Danny
31:55is lying to me because Cliff Lambert and Danny left on bad terms. Daniel Garcia is really the most
32:03critical element of this case. He is the link to Cliff Lambert and also the link to everyone else
32:09that was involved in this case. It took a very long time to inspect the data seized from these hard
32:16drives.
32:17But it would help us to uncover what actually occurred in this scheme. It was exceptionally complex.
32:28There was financial evidence, records, credit card receipts. There was also a lot of computer records
32:36that needed to be gone through. What struck me was just the large scale of the entire operation
32:41that these individuals perpetuated in order to kill Cliff Lambert.
32:47This plan, dubbed Operation Craigslist, was in play way before Cliff went missing.
32:57When Cliff met Danny online on a dating website, Cliff flew him down. They spent six days together.
33:03Danny did what Danny does and tried to pull a con on him. Cliff was not a dumb man. He
33:08sent him home.
33:09That's when Garcia and Nerula decide that in order to gain control of Cliff's estate, that Cliff must be killed.
33:19Some time over the summer, Daniel Garcia and Cashal Nerula talk to David Rapogel.
33:25They come up with this story that Cliff Lambert has inherited this large amount of money and some
33:31works of art. Which is a fictitious inheritance ruse to get Cliff's signature.
33:36In early fall, Cashal Nerula adapts this persona of a lawyer and he reaches out to Cliff Lambert about
33:44this new fortune. Then they create legal documents that will transfer power of attorney to Cashal Nerula.
33:52Next they recruit two individuals, Miguel Bustamante and Craig McCarthy, to act as the muscle who will
33:59actually kill Cliff Lambert. So on December 4th, Miguel Bustamante, Craig McCarthy, Cashal Nerula flew down
34:07from the San Francisco area to Palm Springs. They set up a deadly meeting.
34:14Hi, Mr. Lambert. I'm reconfirming for 530 California time tomorrow evening.
34:19And just looking forward to meeting with you. And the next day, they murder Cliff in his home.
34:27With Cliff out of the way and the documents signed and notarized, they now had full control and power to
34:34do
34:35whatever they wanted with his money, his home, basically his estate.
34:41What these con men put together was a really diabolical plan.
34:47Daniel Garcia, Cashal Nerula, Miguel Bustamante, David Ropogel and Craig McCarthy were charged with
34:54murder as well as financial crimes that were related to the death of Cliff Lambert.
35:01And then in subsequent interviews, Craig McCarthy tells us he is wanting to cut a deal for a reduced
35:07sentence. When we brought Craig McCarthy down from San Francisco to Palm Springs, he gave a full
35:14detail about what happened on the night of the murder. Cashal met Cliff at Cliff's home around 8.30
35:27p.m. Craig and Miguel were hiding in the back of the house. This is where we have text messages
35:35between
35:36Cashal Nerula and Miguel Bustamante that indicates kill him, kill him now. And that was the signal for
35:46Miguel and Craig to enter the house. So I'm standing right here, Miguel's right here.
35:55So the rule is like, just, just do the job. It'll be okay. It'll be done tomorrow, all right? And
36:00he walks out.
36:02He reenacted the entire murder on video. When he struck the first time, initially it was here. Cliff said,
36:10Ah! And now Cliff, he comes to over here. And he just went over and he just started stabbing.
36:21And Cliff falls here. Yes.
36:25Cliff is on his floor dead. While Cashal was cleaning the house, Miguel and Craig wrap Cliff in this rug
36:35and put him in the trunk of Cliff's Mercedes. The next day, they drove about 100 miles away from Palm
36:44Springs,
36:45pulled off the side of the road, buried Cliff Lambert in a shower grate, and drove off to San Francisco,
36:52hoping that this body would never be found again.
37:00When the news broke that Cliff had been murdered,
37:06the whole thing was such a shock. The details of how it happened in his own kitchen, such a horrific
37:15crime.
37:16It was heartbreaking. The men that did this to Cliff are sociopathic.
37:26They're animalistic. That they would just discard him without any remorse. He deserved better.
37:47Any time you have a case where you don't have the body, there's always a lingering issue of,
37:53where is this person? Are they still alive? And those are issues you have to overcome as a prosecutor.
38:00Fortunately, however, in this case, Daniel Garcia, Cashal Narula, Miguel Bustamante,
38:06David Rapogo were convicted of all the charges and were sentenced to life in prison without the
38:11possibility of parole. Craig McCarthy ended up pleading to a lesser sentence, 25 years in state prison.
38:19This was a group of monsters, nefarious and diabolical from the get-go.
38:25I was relieved some justice finally being served.
38:39But then years later, the DA's office sent the news release to the station and we all just gasped.
38:45It was, what? Can this really be happening? It's the case that just keeps on giving.
38:52How can this be another twist?
39:01Four men convicted in the murder of Clifford Lambert have been granted a new trial.
39:07An appeal filed on behalf of Narula, alleging comments Judge David Downing made in court proceedings
39:13that Garcia secretly recorded on his court-issued laptop about Narula having HIV and refusing to read
39:21his motions. The fair and right thing to do was to give them a new trial because it was
39:27clear that the judge had some bias against them.
39:31It was shocking that they captured the judge making some homophobic statements. But the four
39:37top guys in this case were all going to get to be retried.
39:44I was perplexed. I thought, okay, a judge made an inappropriate comment, but they were guilty of
39:52murder. I can't help but feel angry with authorities.
39:57It's been eight years since a jury found Kashal Narula and Daniel Garcia guilty of murdering
40:02Palm Springs retiree Clifford Lambert. Authorities never able to find his body.
40:11Then, while the second trial was pending, remains were found that were connected to Cliff Lambert.
40:19I remember reading about the recovery of bones in the area of the Phi Freeway. I actually called
40:29LA County Sheriff. Can you please check the DNA and see if it matches our missing person?
40:37We received information that they had a presumptive hit for DNA on some bones that had been located
40:45in Castaic off the highway years beforehand. It was great news for the second trial that what we had
40:53believed all along was in fact now supported in the evidence definitively that Cliff Lambert had been killed.
41:03It was also exceptionally sad. To see someone of Cliff's stature left there buried alongside
41:11discarded items and trash, absolutely gut-wrenching.
41:18Then, unbelievably, during the course of the retrial, Kashal Narula was murdered by his cellmate.
41:25He was murdered by his cellmate. He was murdered by his cellmate. He was murdered by his cellmate.
41:36Fortunately, at the second trial, all three of the defendants were convicted of all the charges
41:41and were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
41:48To hear those three times guilty on every count was beyond reassuring because they were held accountable.
42:00Justice for Cliff Lambert would have been dying 95 years old in his bed,
42:03and there's no way I can achieve that for him, but I hope this is something.
42:11This was a highly sophisticated plan and scheme to murder someone, steal their identity,
42:20transfer all their assets for their own personal financial gain.
42:27For those of us that knew Cliff and loved him, it was just so sad and heartbreaking.
42:38But I hope that people will remember Cliff as a fun, easy-going guy that loved to laugh.
42:46He liked to do things for people. He liked to make people smile.
42:52And he was all around a good human being.
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