- 24 minutes ago
When a successful Palm Springs art dealer goes missing, the search leads detectives through a complex web of charismatic conmen, luxury shopping sprees, and one small piece of evidence that uncovers an elaborate murder plot.
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00:10It was a big news story.
00:13Wealthy Palm Springs art dealer missing.
00:17There 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 in the 40s.
01:40And 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 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.
02:22He was very well known in the gay community.
02:25So when he didn't show up to that Christmas parade, his close friends were very concerned
02:30because 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
02:46haunt just down from his house, having 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.
02:57So 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.
03:12Reading the report, I noticed that his longtime friend, Edward, had reported him missing,
03:17hadn't heard from him for a couple of days.
03:18First thing you do if a missing person, try 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, contacting friends,
03:31see if anybody's heard from him.
03:33Nobody has.
03:35Over 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.
03:47And I couldn't think of anybody.
03:51I'm still expecting him to show up.
03:54But a couple of days went by, and I spoke with his friend, Edward again, who had the key to
03:58the house.
03:59So he allowed me to enter the house, and there was nothing unusual.
04:06There was no signs of force, nothing was thrown about.
04:10Everything 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.
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 out 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, I 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 and 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.
05:35And that afforded him to create relationships with a lot of celebrities.
05:41And later, he ended up going into the art world.
05:47He had actually worked to create this process where famous pieces of art could be available,
05:53basically 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.
06:25And his name was Travis.
06:27And Cliff really loved him and wanted him to carry his last name.
06:31So Travis Hobbs became Travis Lambert.
06:34They 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.
06:59And in 2008, it actually drove him to create a profile on Craigslist to begin looking for somebody to fill
07:11that 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,
07:27inquiring 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 that a house was
07:40gifted 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, he came back as a missing
07:52person.
07:54So at that point, I called my partner detective who does do fraud and property crime, Simon Mann, and asked
08:01him 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 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?
08:34And 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.
08:57But at this point, I'm asking, is Kashal Nerula involved in Cliff Lambert's disappearance?
09:07We're looking for proof of life.
09:09And oddly enough, there are transactions on Cliff's bank account, like somebody went on a spending spree.
09:16When we learn who the thumbprint belonged to and what happened to this man, it was terrifying for us.
09:35Cliff would always stay in touch with friends, always let somebody know when he would be out of town.
09:46But this time, none of that happened.
09:49We were all just very concerned.
09:53At this point in the investigation, there wasn't much to go on other than the fact that we have someone
09:59with the power of attorney signed by Cliff Lambert to Kashal Nerula in San Francisco.
10:05And he's trying to sell Mr. Cliff Lambert's house below market value.
10:10But at this time, instead of interviewing Kashal Nerula, I want to get more information about him.
10:16I want to know everything I can about who he is.
10:19That way I'm not going in blind.
10:23So I called the San Francisco Police Department and spoke to an investigator in their fraud unit.
10:29And immediately when I said the name Kashal Nerula, it was like an alarm that went off on the phone
10:36because Kashal had so many charges in San Francisco for fraudulent activities.
10:43Nerula was arrested a year prior.
10:45He had been locked in jail in the county.
10:47But at this time, Kashal Nerula is out of jail.
10:54Kashal Nerula is a convicted con man, very, very good looking, dressed impeccably.
11:01He would tell people that he was the Prince of Nepal and that he was exiled.
11:08Kashal Nerula had undertaken a con scheme where he conned someone out of over $400,000 worth of artwork.
11:16He ended up stealing $300,000 approximately worth of jewelry in order to pay the restitution for his art theft
11:24scheme.
11:26And in 2007, Kashal Nerula was responsible for swindling someone out of half a million dollars in Hawaii.
11:33He was a prolific fraudster, but does he have any involvement in the disappearance of Cliff Lambert?
11:45I asked the real estate agent if they could pause any sales because there is suspicious factors behind the disappearance.
11:52Then the real estate agent continued to tell me that an attorney by the name of David Replogle from the
11:59Bay Area, he had done this deal between Mr. Nerula and Mr. Cliff Lambert and that Mr. Nerula took on
12:07the part of attorney.
12:11So there's still no signs of Cliff, I'm looking for proof of life and I found that there are transactions
12:19on Cliff's bank account after he was reported missing.
12:25It looked like somebody went on a spending spree in San Francisco, they were buying chocolate, clothes, computer products, it
12:36looked like somebody was having a good old time.
12:39But when I received surveillance photos from ATMs, it was not Cliff Lambert, nowhere near Cliff Lambert is a picture
12:48of a Hispanic male on all of these transactions.
12:52I take a little clip of that and I send it to the San Francisco Police Department and the investigator
12:58up there immediately identifies these pictures as Danny Garcia.
13:04It says he was also involved in fraudulent activities with Nerula.
13:12We find out that Kushal Nerula and Danny Garcia, they've been under investigation by San Francisco Police Department amongst other
13:21police departments up in the Bay Area for many scams in which they defraud people out of their belongings.
13:28They are essentially part of a ring of con men.
13:33So now we had one more name, one more person of interest.
13:39With the names now, I go back to Mr. Lambert's good friend who reported missing and asked if he recognized
13:47any of the names.
13:48And lo and behold, he did recognize Danny Garcia and stated that Danny Garcia was a boyfriend of Mr. Lambert,
13:57but they had parted on bad terms several months before the disappearance.
14:06In April of 2008, Cliff told me that he met somebody from San Francisco on Craigslist and his name was
14:15Daniel Garcia.
14:16He described him as something different than he normally likes.
14:20He said, this boy is Hispanic and he has dark hair.
14:25Daniel came to the desert a handful of times to visit Cliff to see if they might get along or
14:32if there was a spark.
14:36But Daniel ended up making it clear that he was looking for an investor for a new business he wanted
14:44to open, meaning that he wanted his money.
14:47Cliff told him that's it. This is done. And he would have to leave.
14:56At this point, all I knew is that Danny Garcia was a connection to Cliff Lambert.
15:01But how was that related to Cliff's disappearance?
15:07Then on January 7th, I get a phone call from Cliff's neighbor that there is a U-Haul truck in
15:13front of Cliff's house.
15:16Frank comes to me and he tells me, Simon, there's somebody at Cliff's house with the U-Haul.
15:23They're trying to leave. We need to go get the U-Haul.
15:27I advise our patrol officers to quickly respond that somebody is trying to move the items out.
15:34As I'm driving towards the downtown area to get to his house, I notice a U-Haul truck driving southbound,
15:42away from the direction where his house would be.
15:45So between myself, Frank, and patrol, we tactically start setting up units to go intercept all the vehicles that are
15:55leaving.
15:56Is Cliff there? Is Cliff not there?
16:01Are we going to find somebody who shouldn't be there cleaning out this house?
16:18Clifford Lambert was missing, and we received a phone call.
16:22There's somebody at Cliff's house with the U-Haul trying to clean out his home. It's suspicious.
16:29And then I get another call from Detective Browning saying, hey, I got this U-Haul driving south, away from
16:37Cliff Lambert's house.
16:40I pull over the U-Haul truck. Simultaneously, officers are arriving on scene at Cliff's house.
16:48I get on scene, and I find a person talking to one of the patrol officers.
16:55And as I approach, he identified himself as Miguel Bustamante.
17:00And he said, we were hired to do a job, but it didn't look like movers.
17:06It looked like Miguel Bustamante at Cliff's home, trying to steal all the contents of the residence.
17:16A lot of Cliff's property, personal items of value, art.
17:21And we can't verify that any of this property was legitimately given to Miguel and his crew by the actual
17:28owner, Clifford Lambert.
17:30So Miguel Bustamante was detained at the scene and taken to the jail.
17:36Now we have one more person of interest in this case.
17:45Within an hour or so of Miguel Bustamante being arrested for the burglary, he called for detectives.
17:52He wanted to talk to us.
17:54Here we go.
17:55You know, I'm Detective Browning.
17:57And I was told that you wanted to talk to us.
18:00What is it that you want to volunteer and tell us?
18:08OK.
18:09I got to Palm Springs yesterday in the morning, so I went to hire a few Mexicans.
18:15We confirmed the two people driving the U-Haul trucks were, in fact, just hired.
18:20So they were not charged.
18:21Our main concern now is trying to get to what he knows about Cliff Lambert.
18:26OK, this is what I know.
18:28OK, this guy in here, name is Danny Garcia.
18:31Garcia.
18:33Garcia.
18:33The boyfriend of, of, of, Clint Lambert.
18:37He's another guy.
18:38His name is Cushel Nerula.
18:40These two guys have been working together again.
18:43For me, that was huge, because we never released the names of the people involved in this case.
18:48Now we have information that there is some kind of connection between Danny Garcia, Cushel Nerula, and Miguel Bustamante.
18:56So we're up to three people associated with this missing persons case with no sign of Cliff.
19:04His initial comments were that Cliff Lambert owed the cartel money and they took him to Mexico.
19:09So Cliff was kidnapped?
19:12Yeah, I think he was in Mexico.
19:13Who kidnapped him?
19:14The Mexicans.
19:16It's a crazy story.
19:18I did not believe whatsoever that Cliff was in Mexico and it was abducted for the cartel.
19:23So they went, the Mexicans and Cliff all went together?
19:25Yes, yes, yes, yes.
19:27That's why we couldn't, and Cushel hired me to keep his car, supposedly his car in my garage.
19:34He proceeded to volunteer permission that he had Lambert's Mercedes in his possession in Daly City in his apartment complex.
19:44So we had Daly City Police Department go to the residence and it was there.
19:51So now we had Cliff Lambert's vehicle.
19:54We were hoping that it would turn on some information on what happened to Cliff Lambert.
19:58Cliff Lambert's Mercedes was brought back to Palm Springs for processing.
20:04The technicians were able to find traces of blood in the trunk, but it was inconclusive at the time because
20:11it was very minute.
20:14So we obtained a search warrant to inspect Cliff's house.
20:21We recovered Cliff's toothbrush, his hairbrush, his fingerprints, and we uploaded it into CODIS, the database in missing persons cases,
20:35so that it can be used at a later time.
20:39Once law enforcement was able to do forensic testing of his house, they found the presence of blood.
20:46However, it didn't result in any DNA findings.
20:50It was inconclusive as to person, but it tested positive for blood.
20:56So it was enough to write a public cause declaration to continue the investigation into all the suspects identified in
21:06this case.
21:07Also, we did book Miguel for the burglary, and we asked the court that he be held in the county
21:14jail into his arraignment.
21:23A lot of Cliff's friends would talk to each other, trying to come up with scenarios where he may have
21:29gone on his own, and we were praying that one of them was true.
21:35We still hadn't interviewed Danny Garcia, still hadn't interviewed Nerula.
21:39We did have investigators from San Francisco Police Department just kind of keep an eye on them.
21:44They had no idea that we're on to them.
21:46First, I want to know exactly what happened to Cliff Lambert.
21:50That gives me a lot more ammunition for the interviews of them.
21:54At this time, Miguel Bustamante was still in the county jail.
21:57I received a phone call from an investigator explaining to me that he did have an inmate who was cellmates
22:04with Miguel Bustamante and had the truth on Mr. Lambert's disappearance.
22:11I went down to meet with the inmate, see what he was referring to, and he gave me a piece
22:16of paper with the names of Danny Garcia and Keshaw Nerula.
22:22And it did have a handwritten map on there, and according to the inmate, he was told by Miguel.
22:28That's where they dumped Mr. Lambert's body, somewhere in the desert.
22:33So, Detective Men and I went and searched the area identified in the map.
22:38I was pretty confident we had a murder investigation, but it's very hard to prove up a homicide without a
22:45body.
22:54We have a map at this point. We have information that Cliff Lambert was killed.
23:01A confession of an inmate to another inmate, but to me, that was pretty credible information, Al.
23:09We searched for Cliff's body for months. Using the map, we drove up and down the freeway.
23:17We were searching for anything that looked like a fresh burial site, but we were not able to find anything.
23:30I prayed every night that he would just walk back in with a little smile on his face and a
23:39smirk.
23:40Said, it's all right. I'm okay. Don't worry about me. I'm all right.
23:44Unfortunately, it didn't unfold that way.
23:48Without Cliff's body, this case became about documents. It was following the trail in bits and pieces of evidence.
23:59And the case was so convoluted that it required additional evidence to corroborate everything that they've done up to this
24:07point.
24:10When reviewing the power of attorney documents, I noticed a notary stamp.
24:14And now I'm thinking I need to speak to this person to see if Cliff Lambert did, in fact, sign
24:19his name and give Kashaw Nerula power of attorney.
24:26I'm a mobile notary, and I get calls all day long for people that want a notary to come to
24:31them, to their home or to their office.
24:35I received a call on the 20th of December asking if I could go to a residence in a neighborhood
24:40called Noe Valley.
24:42I grabbed my notary book and I got into my car and I drove to the location.
24:47When I get to the address, I rang one of the buzzers. There was no answer.
24:52And all of a sudden, this guy comes up and grabs the bag from behind and he says,
24:58Give me the bag! Give me the bag!
25:00And he's pulling me with the backpack and I'm being dragged down the sidewalk.
25:05All of a sudden, my head hits a telephone pole and I was in shock.
25:10And I said, Get the f*** away from me!
25:14And he went like this and he walked down the sidewalk.
25:18And I was like, What was that?
25:23And I called 911 and I told them what had happened.
25:27And I stood in the street. I was trembling. I had never been so scared.
25:32I was terrified.
25:35A few days later, my notary partner, Glenn, calls me and says,
25:39I just got a call from the Palm Springs Police Department and they want copies of your journal.
25:45Remember when we got a phone call from someone called Kashul Narula saying he would like to set an appointment
25:52for his friend Cliff Lambert.
25:53And we met those guys late at night in a hotel and we notarized a bunch of power of attorney
25:59documents.
26:00They want the signature and the thumbprints in your journal.
26:05The person who put their thumbprint and signed the power of attorney should be Cliff Lambert.
26:11So I asked if we could get that book analyzed.
26:14And we got the results relatively quick.
26:17But that thumbprint came back to David Replugo.
26:22David Replugo's name was crucial because up until then, he had claimed to be an attorney just brokering a deal
26:28for Narula and Cliff Lambert to sell the house.
26:33It was clearly the plan all along that someone was going to have to pose as Cliff Lambert in order
26:39to execute this power of attorney.
26:42Apparently, David Replugo later realized that he made a mistake leaving his own fingerprint as Cliff Lambert.
26:52So he decided that the new plan is to hire somebody to get that notary book back by force.
27:01If they were able to get that notary journal, there would be no proof whatsoever that the thumbprint belonged to
27:09David Replugo, not to Cliff Lambert.
27:15That event was a significant turning point in this investigation because it showed that David Replugo was posing as Cliff
27:25Lambert.
27:27It appears that the plan was to clean out all of Cliff Lambert's money as well as transfer the deed
27:33of his home into their control.
27:36But there was no evidence that these con men definitively killed Cliff Lambert.
27:45However, with that information from the notary, we were able to secure arrest warrants and search warrants for David Replugo,
27:54Kashaw Narula, and Danny Garcia for essentially defrauding Cliff Lambert and taking in excess of $300,000 from his bank
28:03accounts.
28:06At this point, we can't find Danny Garcia. We think he's hiding out somewhere.
28:13But we find out that Kashaw Narula and David Replugo will be in court because they had proceedings from prior
28:20events that Replugo was representing Narula on.
28:24So we go to San Francisco with the warrants in hand.
28:28We're at the Hall of Justice, and I'm standing in the hallway where Kashaw had his hearing.
28:36When the court recessed, they came out with everybody else, and both Replugo and Narula were arrested.
28:47Later that day, Kashaw Narula, he's in the county jail in San Francisco.
28:51We monitor their phone calls, so he did make a phone call to Danny Garcia, and the only thing he
28:57said was, run.
29:00He hung up.
29:12After arresting David Replugo and Kashaw Narula, Narula did make a phone call tipping off Danny Garcia.
29:20There was no idea that we're onto him.
29:23So, he was in the wind.
29:25Next, we interviewed both Narula and Replugo.
29:29They, of course, did claim not to know anything about Cliff Lambert or his murder.
29:35But Miguel Bustamante told another person at the jail that he knew Cliff Lambert was murdered and taken out to
29:43the desert.
29:46During our investigation, we find that Bustamante had a roommate by the name of Craig McCarthy.
29:57We found evidence that Craig McCarthy worked at a medical center in San Francisco.
30:04So, Detective Browning and I decided to go pay a visit, and we found him.
30:09So, we're speaking to Craig McCarthy to get understanding of what he knows first.
30:15And when we started asking, did Miguel participate in the disappearance of Cliff Lambert?
30:21And were you in Palm Springs with Miguel?
30:25Craig's demeanor is very soft-spoken.
30:29That's when Craig started telling us, oh yeah, we were hired to do a job by Danny Garcia.
30:38So, now we know that he was involved, and we have one more suspect.
30:44So, we asked Craig McCarthy if he knew anything about Danny Garcia's or abouts.
30:49He says he's hiding out with his friend in Sacramento.
30:53So, I put the warrant into the system.
30:56That triggered Sacramento to have a task force search for him.
31:01His phone was pinged by the task force.
31:04And they did, in fact, find him hiding in a closet in a friend's house,
31:08where they took custody of him and several electronics that he was holding there.
31:13He was arrested, and what was surprising was that there was multiple amounts of hard drives,
31:20laptops, cell phones in his possession at the time.
31:24They needed to be checked for any evidence.
31:30I interviewed Danny, and he claimed that Cliff was a good friend of his,
31:35and Cliff was going to help him invest into a software project that he had.
31:40But I know that Danny is lying to me because Cliff Lambert and Danny left on bad terms.
31:48Daniel Garcia is really the most critical element of this case.
31:52He is the link to Cliff Lambert and also the link to everyone else that was involved in this case.
31:57It took a very long time to inspect the data seized from these hard drives.
32:04But it would help us to uncover what actually occurred in this scheme.
32:11It was exceptionally complex.
32:14There was financial evidence, records, credit card receipts.
32:19There was also a lot of computer records that needed to be gone through.
32:24What struck me was just the large scale of the entire operation that these individuals perpetuated in order to kill
32:31Cliff Lambert.
32:34This plan, dubbed Operation Craigslist, was in play way before Cliff went missing.
32:44When Cliff met Danny online on a dating website, Cliff flew him down.
32:48They spent six days together.
32:50Danny did what Danny does and tried to pull a con on him.
32:53Cliff was not a dumb man. He sent him home.
32:56That's when Garcia and Nerula decide that in order to gain control of Cliff's estate, that Cliff must be killed.
33:06Sometime over the summer, Daniel Garcia and Cashal Nerula talk to David Rapogel.
33:11They come up with this story that Cliff Lambert has inherited this large amount of money and some works of
33:18art.
33:19Which is a fictitious inheritance ruse to get Cliff's signature.
33:23In early fall, Cashal Nerula adapts this persona of a lawyer and he reaches out to Cliff Lambert about this
33:31new fortune.
33:33Then they create legal documents that will transfer power of attorney to Cashal Nerula.
33:39Next, they recruit two individuals, Miguel Bustamante and Craig McCarthy, to act as the muscle who will actually kill Cliff
33:47Lambert.
33:48So on December 4th, Miguel Bustamante, Craig McCarthy, Cashal Nerula flew down from the San Francisco area to Palm Springs.
33:58They set up a deadly meeting.
34:01Hi, Mr. Lambert. I'm reconfirming for 5.30 California time tomorrow evening.
34:06And just looking forward to meeting with you.
34:08And the next day, they murder Cliff in his home.
34:14With Cliff out of the way and the documents signed and notarized, they now had full control and power to
34:21do whatever they wanted with his money, his home, basically his estate.
34:28What these con men put together was a really diabolical plan.
34:34Daniel Garcia, Cashal Nerula, Miguel Bustamante, David Rapogel, and Craig McCarthy were charged with murder, as well as financial crimes
34:43that were related to the death of Cliff Lambert.
34:48And then in subsequent interviews, Craig McCarthy tells us he is wanting to cut a deal for a reduced sentence.
34:55When we brought Craig McCarthy down from San Francisco to Palm Springs, he gave a full detail about what happened
35:03on the night of the murder.
35:09Cashal met Cliff at Cliff's home around 8.30 p.m.
35:15Craig and Miguel were hiding in the back of the house.
35:20This is where we have text messages between Cashal Nerula and Miguel Bustamante that indicates kill him, kill him now.
35:31And that was the signal for Miguel and Craig to enter the house.
35:36So I'm standing right here, Miguel's right here.
35:42So Nerula's like, just, just do the job, it'll be okay, it'll be done tomorrow, alright?
35:47And he walks out.
35:49He reenacted the entire murder on video.
35:53When he struck the first time, initially it was here.
35:57Cliff said, ah!
36:00And now Cliff, it comes to over here.
36:02Mm-hmm.
36:03And he just went over and he just started stabbing.
36:09And Cliff falls here.
36:10Yes.
36:12Cliff is on his floor dead.
36:16While Cashal was cleaning the house,
36:19Miguel and Craig wrap Cliff in this rug and put him in the trunk of Cliff's Mercedes.
36:28The next day, they drove about 100 miles away from Palm Springs,
36:31pulled off the side of the road, buried Cliff Lambert in a shallow grate,
36:36and drove off to San Francisco, hoping that this body would never be found again.
36:47When the news broke that Cliff had been murdered,
36:53the whole thing was such a shock.
36:55The details of how it happened in his own kitchen,
37:01such a horrific crime.
37:03It was heartbreaking.
37:05The men that did this to Cliff are sociopathic.
37:13They're animalistic.
37:15That they would just discard him without any remorse.
37:21He deserved better.
37:34Any time you have a case where you don't have the body,
37:37there's always a lingering issue of,
37:40where is this person?
37:42Are they still alive?
37:43And those are issues you have to overcome as a prosecutor.
37:48Fortunately, however, in this case,
37:49Daniel Garcia, Cashal Narula, Miguel Bustamante,
37:53David Rapogel were convicted of all the charges
37:56and were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
38:00Craig McCarthy ended up pleading to a lesser sentence,
38:0325 years in state prison.
38:06This was a group of monsters,
38:08nefarious and diabolical from the get-go.
38:12I was relieved some justice finally being served.
38:17And then, years later, the DA's office sent the news release to the station,
38:31and we all just gasped.
38:32It was, what?
38:34Can this really be happening?
38:36It's the case that just keeps on giving.
38:39How can this be another twist?
38:47Four men convicted in the murder of Clifford Lambert have been granted a new trial.
38:53An appeal filed on behalf of Narula,
38:56alleging comments Judge David Downing made in court proceedings
38:59that Garcia secretly recorded on his court-issued laptop
39:03about Narula having HIV and refusing to read his motions.
39:09The fair and right thing to do was to give them a new trial,
39:12because it was clear that the judge had some bias against them.
39:17It was shocking that they captured the judge making some homophobic statements.
39:22But the four top guys in this case were all going to get to be retried.
39:30I was perplexed.
39:31I thought, okay, a judge made an inappropriate comment, but they were guilty of murder.
39:39I can't help but feel angry with authorities.
39:43It's been eight years since a jury found Kashal Narula and Daniel Garcia
39:47guilty of murdering Palm Springs retiree Clifford Lambert.
39:51Authorities never able to find his body.
39:57Then, while the second trial was pending, remains were found that were connected to Cliff Lambert.
40:05I remember reading about a recovery of bones in the area of the 5 Freeway.
40:13I actually called L.A. County Sheriff.
40:16Can you please check the DNA and see if it matches our missing person?
40:23We received information that they had a presumptive hit for DNA on some bones that had been located in
40:31Castaic off the highway years beforehand.
40:35It was great news for the second trial that what we had believed all along was, in fact,
40:41now supported in the evidence definitively that Cliff Lambert had been killed.
40:49It was also exceptionally sad.
40:52To see someone of Cliff's stature left there, buried alongside discarded items and trash,
41:00absolutely gut-wrenching.
41:04Then, unbelievably, during the course of the retrial,
41:08Kashal Narula was murdered by his cellmate.
41:22Fortunately, at the second trial, all three of the defendants were convicted of all the charges,
41:27and were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
41:34To hear those three times guilty on every count was beyond reassuring because they were held accountable.
41:46Justice for Cliff Lambert would have been dying 95 years old in his bed,
41:49and there's no way I can achieve that for him, but I hope this is something.
41:57This was a highly sophisticated plan and scheme to murder someone, steal their identity,
42:06transfer all their assets for their own personal financial gain.
42:12For those of us that knew Cliff and loved him, it was just so sad and heartbreaking.
42:23But I hope that people will remember Cliff as a fun, easy-going guy that loved to laugh.
42:32He liked to do things for people.
42:35He liked to make people smile.
42:38And he was all around a good human being.
42:42He liked to love him.
42:42And he liked to love him to put in and go as an industry,
42:45and he holy art and love his own personal family.
42:45and that he loved him, he loved the same person for over us and over our ownthanks,
42:46He liked the family and summoned fromères and his fellow life andexisting.
42:46Here is this but with the willing sacrifice of his son,
42:47Who he liked to learn all about his family.
42:47Who was he liked to hold them.
42:49And he loved to command him?
42:49And he had to give away the strength,
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