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A Plan to Kill S02E06
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00:10It was a big news story.
00:13Wealthy Palm Springs art dealer missing.
00:18There was no signs of force.
00:20Nothing 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
01:37in 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
01:49and away from paparazzi.
01:51And that's why we have so many good stories
01:53about the stars being here.
01:59The Festival of Lights is a Christmas parade
02:02that is held every year in Palm Springs.
02:07It happens on the first weekend of December
02:09and brings the whole community together.
02:13My good friend, Clifford Lambert,
02:16really loved the Christmas parade.
02:18But that year, Cliff didn't show up.
02:23He was very well known in the gay community.
02:25So when he didn't show up to that Christmas parade,
02:28his close friends were very concerned
02:30because that was his favorite thing.
02:35I was Cliff's hairdresser,
02:37and I had some friends and clients in the salon.
02:42And I remember somebody telling me
02:44that they had seen Cliff at his favorite haunt
02:47just down from his house,
02:49having dinner with somebody on December 4th.
02:52But they hadn't heard from him
02:53or hadn't been able to get a hold of him afterwards.
02:57So we started putting things together,
03:00and it was alarming.
03:04On December 12th, 2008,
03:07a missing person's report came across my desk
03:09by the name of Cliff Lambert.
03:11Reading the report,
03:13I've noticed that his longtime friend,
03:14Edward, had reported him missing,
03:17had it heard from him for a couple of days.
03:19First thing you do with a missing person,
03:21try to call them and see if they're okay.
03:22And give him a call, and his voicemail box was full.
03:27I started conducting a more thorough investigation,
03:30contacting friends,
03:31see if anybody's heard from him.
03:33Nobody has.
03:36Over the next several days,
03:38the police department spoke to many of us,
03:41asking if we knew of anybody that might harbor any resentment towards Cliff.
03:47And I couldn't think of anybody.
03:51I'm still expecting him to show up.
03:54But a couple of days went by,
03:55and I spoke with his friend Edward again,
03:57who had the key to the house.
03:59So he allowed me to enter the house.
04:02And there was nothing unusual.
04:06There was no signs of force.
04:08Nothing was thrown about.
04:10Everything was in the right place.
04:12His friend explained that the Rolls Royce was still in the garage,
04:15but his Mercedes was missing.
04:19I didn't notice that his mailbox had like mail protruding out,
04:23and there was papers on front of the door.
04:25But that in itself isn't suspicious.
04:27He could have been gone for the weekend and not told anybody.
04:33A few days it goes by, and Cliff doesn't show up.
04:36We sent out the press release.
04:39We were hoping that it would turn on some information on him, but it didn't.
04:45Remember, social media wasn't a thing.
04:47So if we put it out now, we would be getting more people saying,
04:51I knew Cliff.
04:52I saw him at this party.
04:54There's no way he'd go missing.
04:56You 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
05:05and learn all I could on Cliff Lambert.
05:09Cliff was born in St. Louis, Missouri.
05:13He had the biggest dreams and ambitions.
05:16He was going to be a celebrity.
05:19Cliff is a fascinating individual.
05:21You have to think about who he was and the time period that he grew up 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
05:39with a lot of celebrities.
05:41And 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,
05:54basically as posters.
05:55And that was how he made his money.
05:59Cliff Lambert lives a very expensive lifestyle.
06:02When you would walk into his house, people described it like walking into Versailles.
06:09Cliff was a person that liked to have others around him.
06:14He would have dinner parties.
06:17He was happiest when he was in a relationship.
06:21He had a boyfriend for a very long time, 12 years or so.
06:26And his name was Travis.
06:28And Cliff really loved him and wanted him to carry his last name.
06:31So Travis Hobbs became Travis Lambert.
06:35They 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.
06:52And I don't think he ever really got over it.
06:56Cliff was very lonely.
06:59And in 2008, it actually drove him to create a profile on Craigslist,
07:07to begin looking for somebody to fill that void.
07:15And he said, you know, I'm not going to be able 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 over in San Francisco inquiring about Mr. Lambert and his residence in Palm Springs.
07:33He expressed that he had a client in San Francisco that had a power of attorney,
07:40that a house was gifted to him.
07:42And 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.
07:54So at that point, I called my partner detective, who does do fraud and property crime, Simon Mann,
08:00and asked him to come on board with this investigation.
08:07It's suspicious when you have a missing person, and all of a sudden, their home is being sold out under
08:14them.
08:15We received documents from the agent that pertained 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 was going on.
08:44There is a name that has no bearing on the residence itself.
08:51And there's a huge distance gap between Palm Springs and San Francisco.
08:56But at this point, I'm asking, is Kashal Nerula involved in Cliff Lambert's disappearance?
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.
09:16When we learned who the thumbprint belonged to, and what happened to this man, it was terrifying for us.
09:26We're looking for proof of life.
09:39Cliff would always stay in touch with friends, always let somebody know when he would be out of town.
09:49But 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 someone
10:02with 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.
10:27So 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.
10:46Nerula 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 his art theft
11:27scheme.
11:29And in 2007, Kashal Nerula was responsible for swindling someone out of half a million dollars in Hawaii.
11:36He 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 factors behind the disappearance.
11:55Then the real estate agent continued to tell me that an attorney by the name of David Replogle from the
12:02Bay Area,
12:02he had done this deal between Mr. Nerula and Mr. Cliff Lambert and that Mr. Nerula took on the part
12:10of attorney.
12:14So there's still no signs of Cliff.
12:17I'm looking for proof of life.
12:20And I found that there are transactions on Cliff's bank account after he was reported missing.
12:28It looked like somebody went on a spending spree in San Francisco.
12:32They were buying chocolate, clothes, computer products.
12:38It looked like somebody was having a good old time.
12:42But when I received surveillance photos from ATMs, it was not Cliff Lambert, nowhere near Cliff Lambert.
12:50There's a picture of a Hispanic male on all of these transactions.
12:55I take a little clip of that and I send it to the San Francisco Police Department.
13:00And 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 Kushal Nerula and Danny Garcia, they've been under investigation by San Francisco
13:23Police Department amongst other police departments up in the Bay Area for many scams in which to
13:28defraud people out of their belongings. They are essentially part of a, like a ring of con men.
13:36So 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 and asked if he
13:49recognized any of the names. And lo and behold, he did recognize Danny Garcia and stated that Danny
13:57Garcia was a boyfriend of Mr. Lambert, but they had parted on bad terms several months before the
14:04disappearance.
14:09In April of 2008, Cliff told me that he met somebody from San Francisco on Craigslist and his
14:17name 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. Daniel came to the desert a handful of times
14:32to
14:32visit Cliff to 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
14:55to leave.
14:59At this point, all I knew is that Danny Garcia was a connection to Cliff Lambert.
15:03But 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,
15:45away from the direction where his house would be.
15:48So between myself, Frank, and patrol, we tactically start setting up units to go intercept all the
15:57vehicles that are leaving. Is Cliff there? Is Cliff not there?
16:03Are we going to find somebody 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.
16:34And then I get another call from Detective Browning saying, hey, I got this U-Haul driving south,
16:41away 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 approach, he identified himself as Miguel Bustamante.
17:05And he said, we were hired to do a job, but 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.
17:21A lot of Cliff's property, personal items of value, art, and we can't verify that any of this property
17:29was legitimately given to Miguel and his crew by the actual owner of Clifford Lambert.
17:35So 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.
18:27Our 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 in here, his name is Danny Garcia, the boyfriend of Cliff Lambert.
18:42He's on over here, his name is Crucial 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.
19:01So we're up to three people associated with this missing person's case with no sign of Cliff.
19:09His initial comments were that Cliff Lambert owed the cartel money and they took him to Mexico.
19:14So Cliff was kidnapped?
19:17Yeah, I think he was in Mexico.
19:18Who kidnapped?
19:19The Mexicans.
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 the Mexicans and Cliff all went together?
19:39He proceeded to volunteer information that he had Lambert's Mercedes in his possession
19:45in 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, but it was inconclusive at the time
20:16because 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. So it was enough to write a
21:04public cause declaration to continue the investigation into all the suspects identified in this case.
21:12Also, we did book Miguel for the burglary, and we asked the courts that he be held in the county
21:19jail
21:19into his arraignment.
21:28A lot of Cliff's friends would talk to each other, trying to come up with scenarios where he may have
21:34gone on his own, and we were praying that one of them was true.
21:40We still hadn't interviewed Danny Garcia, still hadn't interviewed Nerula. We did have investigators
21:46from San Francisco Police Department just kind of keep an eye on them. They had no idea that we're
21:50on to them. First, I want to know exactly what happened to Cliff Lambert. That gives me a lot more
21:56ammunition for the interviews of them. At 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, and he gave me a piece
22:21of paper
22:22with the names of Danny Garcia and Keshaw Nerula, and it did have a handwritten map on there,
22:30and according to the inmate, he was told by Miguel. That's where they dumped Mr. Lambert's body,
22:35somewhere in the desert. So Detective Min and I went and searched the area identified in the map.
22:43I was pretty confident we had a murder investigation, but it's very hard to prove
22:49about a homicide without a body. A 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 out.
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, but we were not able to find anything.
23:39I prayed every night that he would just walk back in
23:46with a little smile on his face and a smirk. He said, it's all right. I'm okay. Don't worry about
23:51me. I'm all right.
23:53Unfortunately, it didn't unfold that way.
23:58Without Cliff's body, this case became about documents. It was following a trail in bits and pieces of evidence.
24:07And the case was so convoluted that it required additional evidence to corroborate everything that
24:15they've done up to this point.
24:19When reviewing the power of attorney documents, I noticed a notary stamp. And now I'm thinking
24:25I need to speak to this person to see if Cliff Lambert did in fact sign his name and give
24:30Keshaw Narula part of attorney.
24:35I'm a mobile notary and I get calls all day long for people that want a notary to come to
24:40them,
24:41to their home or 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
24:50Noe 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! And 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, I just got a call from the
25:50Palm Springs Police Department and they want copies of your journal.
25:54I remember when we got a phone call from someone called Kashul Narula saying he would like to set
26:00an appointment for his friend Cliff Lambert. And we met those guys late at night in a hotel and we
26:06notarized a bunch of power of attorney documents. They want the signature and the thumbprints in your
26:12journal.
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. 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
26:46as Cliff Lambert in order to execute this power of attorney.
26:51Apparently, David Replugo later realized that he made a mistake leaving his own fingerprint
26:59as 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
27:16that the thumbprint belonged to David Replugo, not to Cliff Lambert.
27:24That event was a significant turning point in this investigation because it showed that David
27:31Replugo was posing as Clifford 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 for
28:01David Replugo, Kashaw Narula, and Danny Garcia for essentially defrauding Cliff Lambert and taking
28:09in excess of $300,000 from his bank accounts.
28:16At this point, we can't find Danny Garcia. We think he's hiding out somewhere.
28:22But we find out that Kashaw Narula and David Replugo will be in court because they had
28:28proceedings from prior events that Replugo was representing Narula on.
28:33So we go to San Francisco with the warrants in hand.
28:37We're at the Hall of Justice. And I'm standing in the hallway where Kashaw had his hearing.
28:45When the court recessed, they came out with everybody else.
28:49And both Replugo and Narula were arrested.
28:56Later that day, Kashaw Narula is in the county jail in San Francisco.
29:00We monitor their phone calls. So he did make a phone call to Danny Garcia.
29:06And the only thing he said was, run.
29:09And he hung up.
29:25After arresting David Replugo and Kashaw Narula,
29:30Narula did make a phone call tipping off Danny Garcia
29:34that we're onto him. So he was in the wind.
29:39Next, we interviewed both Narula and Replugo.
29:42They, of course, did claim not to know anything about Cliff Lambert or his murder.
29:48But Miguel Gustamante told another person at the jail that he knew Cliff Lambert was murdered
29:55and taken out to the desert.
30:00During 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.
30:28And when we started asking, did Miguel participate in the disappearance of Cliff Lambert?
30:34And we're in Palm Springs with Miguel. Craig's demeanor is very soft-spoken.
30:42That's when Craig started telling us, oh yeah, we were hired to do a job by Danny Garcia.
30:51So now we know that he was involved, and we have one more suspect. So we asked Craig McCarthy
31:00if he knew anything about Danny Garcia's whereabouts. He says he's hiding out with his friend in
31:05Sacramento. So I put the warrant into the system. That triggered Sacramento to have a task force
31:12search for him. His phone was pinged by the task force, and they did in fact find him hiding in
31:19a
31:19closet in a friend's house where they took custody of him and several electronics that he was holding
31:25there. He was arrested, and what was surprising was that there was multiple amounts of hard drives,
31:33laptops, cell phones in his possession at the time. They needed to be checked for any evidence.
31:43I interviewed Danny, and he claimed that Cliff was a good friend of his, and Cliff was going to help
31:50him invest into a software project that he had. But I know that Danny is lying to me because Cliff
31:57Lambert and Danny left on bad terms. Daniel Garcia is really the most critical element of this case.
32:05He is the link to Cliff Lambert and also the link to everyone else that was involved in this case.
32:12It took a long time to inspect the data seized from these hard drives, but it would help us to
32:20uncover
32:20what actually occurred in this scheme.
32:24It was exceptionally complex. There was financial evidence, records, credit card receipts. There was
32:33also a lot of computer records that needed to be gone through. What struck me was just the large
32:39scale of the entire operation that 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. Danny did
33:04what
33:04Danny does and tried to pull a con on him. Cliff was not a dumb man. He sent him home.
33:09That's when Garcia and Narula decide that in order to gain control of Cliff's estate, that Cliff must be killed.
33:19Sometime over the summer, Daniel Garcia and Cashel Narula talk to David Rapogel. They come up with this story
33:27that Cliff Lambert has inherited this large amount of money and some works of art. Which is a fictitious
33:33inheritance ruse to get Cliff's signature. In early fall, Cashel Narula adapts this persona
33:40of a lawyer and he reaches out to Cliff Lambert about this new fortune. Then they create legal documents
33:49that will transfer power of attorney to Cashel Narula. Next they recruit two individuals, Miguel
33:55Bustamante and Craig McCarthy, to act as the muscle who will actually kill Cliff Lambert.
34:01So on December 4th, Miguel Bustamante, Craig McCarthy, Cashel Narula flew down from the San
34:08Francisco area to Palm Springs. They set up a deadly meeting.
34:14Hi, Mr. Lambert. I'm reconfirming for 5.30 California time tomorrow evening.
34:19And just looking forward to meeting with you.
34:22And 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
34:34and power to do whatever 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, Cashel Narula, Miguel Bustamante, David Ropogel and Craig McCarthy were charged
34:54with murder, 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.
35:08When we brought Craig McCarthy down from San Francisco to Palm Springs, he gave a full detail
35:15about what happened on the night of the murder.
35:22Cashel met Cliff at Cliff's home around 8.30 p.m. Craig and Miguel were hiding in the back of
35:32the house.
35:33This is where we have text messages between Cashel Narula and Miguel Bustamante that indicates,
35:41kill him, kill him now. And that was the signal for Miguel and Craig to enter the house.
35:49So I'm standing right here, Miguel's right here.
35:55So Narula's like, just do the job, it'll be okay, it'll be done tomorrow, all right? And he walks out.
36:02He reenacted the entire murder on video.
36:06When you struck the first time, initially it was here. Cliff said, ah.
36:13And now Cliff had punched over here.
36:15Mm-hmm.
36:16And he just went over and he just started stabbing.
36:22And Cliff falls here.
36:23Yes.
36:25Cliff is on his floor dead.
36:29While Cashel was cleaning the house, Miguel and Craig wrap Cliff in this rug and put him in the trunk
36:37of
36:37Cliff's Mercedes.
36:41The next day, they drove about a hundred miles away from Palm Springs, pulled off the side of the road,
36:46buried Cliff Lambert in a shallow grave, and drove off to San Francisco, hoping that this body would
36:53never be found again.
37:00When the news broke that Cliff had been murdered, the whole thing was such a shock.
37:08The details of how it happened in his own kitchen, such a horrific crime.
37:16It was heartbreaking.
37:18The men that did this to Cliff are sociopathic, they're animalistic,
37:28that they would just discard him without any remorse.
37:34He 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?
37:55Are they still alive?
37:56And those are issues you have to overcome as a prosecutor.
38:01Fortunately, however, in this case, Daniel Garcia, Cashel Narula, Miguel Bustamante,
38:06David Rapogel were convicted of all the charges and were sentenced to life in prison without
38:11the possibility of parole.
38:13Craig 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?
38:49It's the case that just keeps on giving.
38:52How can this be another twist?
39:01How can this be another twist?
39:02Four 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 his
39:21actions.
39:23The fair and right thing to do was to give them a new trial because it was clear that the
39:28judge had
39:29some bias against them.
39:31It was shocking that they captured the judge making some homophobic statements.
39:36But the four top 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 murder.
39:53I 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 Palm Springs
40:03retiree 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 a recovery of bones in the area of the 5 Freeway.
40:27I actually called LA 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
40:52had believed 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.
41:25The case 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.
41:59Justice 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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