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Dateline NBC S32E12 The End of the Affair H 264
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00:09Tonight on Dateline.
00:11It's not a place that you normally think of when you think of the glitz and glamour of Miami.
00:15It's scary, it's lonely, and that's where a lot of people go to dump bodies.
00:21There was a big fire, a big brush fire, and then we see a dead body.
00:26The shocking news is someone had murdered your brother.
00:28It was very, very shocking.
00:30We were just completely lost.
00:31Everybody was kind of astonished.
00:33He was just a regular, everyday guy who had a wife and a young child.
00:38There was a side of him you didn't know.
00:39He was having an affair.
00:41Exactly.
00:41Nobody knew.
00:43She was beautiful.
00:44She was elegant.
00:46She had everything.
00:47The yachts, the mansions, the Louis Vuitton bags.
00:49They bought burner phones.
00:51They would meet up in hotels.
00:53You've got a love triangle here.
00:55You've got a dead guy who's got a girlfriend who's somebody else's wife.
00:58Yes.
00:58You start to see things unfold before you.
01:01The MMA fighters.
01:02The rich supermarket owner.
01:04Who was who and who did what?
01:05Two women that was kind of face-off in the courtroom.
01:07Such an emotional moment.
01:10It was almost unfathomable that someone could have orchestrated this horrible murder.
01:16Secret lovers and a sinister crime.
01:19A twisted tale of murder in Miami.
01:22I'm Lester Holt.
01:24This is Dateline.
01:33Here's Dennis Murphy with The End of the Affair.
01:40Money.
01:41Sex.
01:42Jealousy.
01:43Rage.
01:44This case had all the elements of a bad Hollywood movie.
01:49It was an immigrant success story.
01:52Born and raised in Cuba, came here, the immigrant story, American dream.
01:56A dream that became an American tragedy.
01:59The body was still on fire.
02:01That's a sight you can't unsee.
02:03Unfortunately, no, it's not.
02:04It really was just dripping with drama.
02:09From waterfront mansions to the sawgrass swamps of the Everglades,
02:13this is not one of those stories that could happen anywhere.
02:17This is an only in Miami kind of case.
02:20Only in Miami.
02:24Camilo Salazar was a lucky man, living a life of second chances.
02:29He was married less than a year, living in a beautiful home in Coconut Grove,
02:34when his wife, Daisy, gave birth to a baby girl, Camila's sister, Carolina.
02:39Tell me about the arrival of Skylar.
02:41Wow, well, yeah, we were all super excited about it.
02:44And, yeah, Daisy was, you know, ecstatic about it.
02:48June 1, 2011 was just three weeks after Skylar was born.
02:52A routine morning, as routine as any day can be for a couple with a newborn.
02:57Daisy, an event planner, was already back in her office.
03:01She calls your brother and says, you know, can you bring the baby over?
03:04Correct.
03:04I want to nurse him.
03:05I've got some time now.
03:06And he does that.
03:07Right.
03:08Dropped off the baby.
03:09He actually ended up going back to the car because he forgot the pacifier.
03:13So he ran back to the car and then went back into the building to give the pacifier, you know,
03:19to Daisy.
03:20Camila kissed them goodbye and left.
03:22That was a little after 10 a.m.
03:24The Salazar's routine day ended then and there.
03:28At dinnertime, Daisy was at home when she called Carolina asking if she'd heard from Camilo.
03:33And I said, no.
03:35And I said, what's going on?
03:36She goes, nobody's heard from him.
03:38And she had told me that she had already started to call some hospitals and just seeing what's going on.
03:44Yeah, and then I then, of course, you know, I got worried.
03:48Friends and family fanned out looking for Camilo.
03:52His mother searched on foot near the house while others went to Daisy's office.
03:57Camilo's mother, Inez.
03:59They spent some time kind of canvassing the area and walking around and even opening up car doors that were
04:06unlocked just to see if he could be in there.
04:09They were looking everywhere.
04:12No sign of Camilo, but his mother would not stop.
04:15She kept walking and walking.
04:19She actually wore out the soles of her shoes.
04:22That evening, after he'd been gone around nine hours, the family called the City of Miami Police Department to report
04:31Camilo missing.
04:32The officer at the time really was treating it as it was not a big deal.
04:38One of these, call us tomorrow at noon and we'll see what's going on.
04:41Exactly.
04:41I don't think they really thought anything was wrong.
04:45And I think they thought Daisy was over-exaggerating what was happening.
04:50The officer said it was too early for a missing person investigation.
04:54But he didn't know Camilo.
04:56This was not his M.O.
04:57He was always in touch.
04:59But friends and family were getting desperate.
05:01They went back to Daisy's office and expanded the search.
05:05They started, you know, sort of backtracking.
05:08And then they realized, wait a minute, his car's right there.
05:10It never, it never left.
05:12The vehicle was parked on the street.
05:15The driver's side window was down.
05:17No keys inside.
05:18All right.
05:19There's obviously something really wrong here.
05:21And then everything started.
05:23They notified police about the vehicle.
05:25And that's when an investigation into Camilo's disappearance officially started.
05:30An officer came to the scene just before midnight and had the SUV towed the following morning for the forensics
05:36team.
05:39But nobody at Camilo's house knew that another discovery had already been made in the far reaches of the county.
05:46About an hour's drive from where friends and family were searching.
05:49It's not a place that you normally think of when you think of the glitz and glamour of Miami.
05:53It's scary, it's lonely, and that's where a lot of people go to, dumb bodies.
06:12As day turned to night, Camilo Salazar's family knew something was terribly wrong.
06:17He'd been missing for hours.
06:20One reason for concern, Camilo would never do anything to make them worry.
06:25No way.
06:25Children of immigrants, Latin family values, you put your family first for everything.
06:30So my brother was always the one to be there for us.
06:36Camilo was born in Colombia during the rise of Pablo Escobar's Medellin drug cartel.
06:41They were treacherous times.
06:44And that was one of the reasons that led us to make the move to come to Miami.
06:49The Salisars made the most of their new life in America.
06:53Camilo worked for his dad's import-export business, then found success on his own selling window treatments.
07:00Camilo always seemed to have a charmed life.
07:03He was a good student, made friends easily.
07:05He was surrounded by friends all the time, always smiling, always had something funny to say, or, you know, kind
07:14of made things light.
07:15He was also a star athlete, even as an adult.
07:19One sport in particular, which people probably didn't even realize was a sport back then, frisbee.
07:24Right, yes.
07:24He was a frisbee champion.
07:26He was, they would play get-together in a park in Miami for many years, and then they formed a
07:32league.
07:33They were called the Miami Refugees.
07:35Camilo was popular, fun, always smiling, and now he was missing.
07:41At the same time Camilo's family was searching for him,
07:45Lieutenant Angelo Andrade of the Miami-Dade Police was on assignment in a remote part of the county.
07:51He knew nothing about a missing person.
07:53He was in his patrol car looking for drug smugglers.
07:57We were doing an interdiction detail for narcotics through the zone of Okeechobee Road and Chrome Avenue from Southwest 8th
08:02Street.
08:02Nowhere land, right? That's the edge of the Everglades, right?
08:05Lieutenant Andrade was about an hour's drive and a world away from Camilo's beautiful home in Coconut Grove.
08:11I'm driving, so I look over to the horizon and I see a cloud of smoke.
08:16Was it a smoky fire or a fire with flames?
08:18It was a fire with flames.
08:20As Lieutenant Andrade headed toward the flames, he called in a request for a fire rescue.
08:26It was pretty far in there, maybe 500 feet.
08:29500 feet and to the right I remember it.
08:31And the brush was on fire.
08:34There was huge smoke coming out.
08:36You could see flames?
08:37Oh yeah, I felt it.
08:38Are there firefighters here yet?
08:39Not yet.
08:40You're ahead of everybody.
08:41Lieutenant Andrade felt the heat, but was stopped in his tracks by something else.
08:46At the center of the fire was a sight he'll never forget.
08:49A body.
08:50Where's the body?
08:51What are you seeing?
08:52I remember it on the floor.
08:54Still a little bit in flames.
08:57You're seeing flames coming out of the body?
08:59Yes, I see the brush and the body.
09:01Everything's engulfed.
09:03Then that's when fire rescue comes and they extinguish the fire.
09:07Andrade secured the scene and called for the homicide unit.
09:11Detective Chris Villano got the call and headed out.
09:14There was an unidentified white male who had his hands bound behind his back.
09:19On his back or his stomach?
09:21He was laying on his stomach.
09:23We could see that he had a slit throat.
09:26At that time, somebody had made a comment that it resembles that of a Colombian necktie.
09:33I've heard that phrase forever.
09:34Is that urban legend or is it true?
09:35I don't know.
09:36I, that was the first time I had heard it.
09:39It's too grotesque to describe, but a Colombian necktie is a type of murder supposedly carried
09:45out by drug cartels.
09:47Urban legend or not, there was no question this was a dangerous area known for drug trafficking
09:52and unhappy endings.
09:54It's a little bit of a lawless area.
09:56Back in 2011, David Ovalle was a reporter for the Miami Herald.
10:01It is a place where many, many bodies have been dumped over many, many decades in Miami-Dade County.
10:09In fact, another burned body was found nearby just a week earlier.
10:13As Detective Villano took a closer look at the body dumped near Okeechobee Road, the brutality of this murder came
10:20into focus.
10:20You had some blunt force trauma to the head and face.
10:25The pelvic region or the genital region of the victim was burnt extensively.
10:31There's a message.
10:32This is probably pretty personal with somebody.
10:34Personal?
10:35Seemed likely.
10:37But what exactly did it mean?
10:39Hard to say without even knowing who this man was.
10:42That's the next big question.
10:43Who do we have here, right?
10:44Correct.
10:45There was no personal items on him to include any sort of identification.
10:50The next morning, Detective Villano went to the morgue to observe the autopsy.
10:54A City of Miami police detective happened to be there, too.
10:58He was working a missing person case.
11:01He was there with a flyer of a white male affixed to a missing persons flyer.
11:07A missing persons flyer.
11:07Have you seen this guy, that kind of thing?
11:09Correct.
11:10It didn't take long to connect the flyer to the murdered man at the morgue.
11:14It was Camilo Salazar.
11:16He was just 43 years old.
11:20Carolina was at Camilo's house when detectives arrived with the dreadful news.
11:25I remember Daisy and my mom and there were other people that were in the living room inside the house.
11:30And the detectives had come inside and they told them the news.
11:35And I just remember hearing just loud screaming coming from the house.
11:40I saw my mother.
11:42I saw Daisy.
11:42Everybody was just wailing.
11:45So, uh...
11:46Did any of that make sense?
11:48No.
11:49No.
11:50We were just completely lost.
11:52So it was definitely a shock.
11:54For Camilo's mother, it was the cruelest possible ending to the American dream she'd wanted for her family.
12:00Always I figured in my mind that we are a table with four chairs.
12:05But now there was an empty chair at Inez's family table.
12:10Camilo's chair.
12:12Camilo's chair.
12:12Everything was done.
12:14We never had peace.
12:19Terrible pain.
12:20Collapsed my life.
12:21There's no really getting over that, is there?
12:23No.
12:25Camilo's murder was a tragedy for his family, a mystery for police.
12:29And for those who followed the case as it unfolded, it was unlike anything they'd ever seen.
12:35If this saga was a movie, this whole saga would be some sort of only-in-South-Florida telenovela.
12:44Very melodramatic and very tragic.
12:47And this woman was about to take center stage.
13:03The fiery scene where Camilo Salazar's body was found didn't yield any forensic evidence.
13:09But there was another potential crime scene about 40 miles away, the spot where Camilo's abandoned SUV was discovered.
13:17We processed that vehicle at the city of Miami.
13:19They were able to obtain a latent print off of the victim's vehicle.
13:25So that's promising.
13:26Yes.
13:26And you ran it, and what happened?
13:28We did not get any hits on that.
13:31So with no meaningful forensic evidence, Detective Vialano and his partner, Sergeant Doug McCoy, did a deep dive into Camilo's
13:38life.
13:40Starting where they always do in cases like this, with the victim's marriage.
13:44We don't have a whole lot to go on.
13:47And so we typically start with the victim.
13:49We learn all we can.
13:51When detectives asked people about Camilo and Daisy's relationship, they heard pretty much the same thing from everyone.
13:57They had a really good friendship.
14:00Whenever I saw them, they seemed very happy.
14:02They seemed like they were having, you know, fun.
14:04Since Camilo's body was found in an area known for drug trafficking, the detectives pursued that angle.
14:10As we spoke to family and friends, he didn't have any enemies.
14:15He was not in the drug business.
14:17It did not appear that he was involved in any criminal activity.
14:23He was just a regular, everyday guy.
14:25Just a regular guy.
14:27Nothing to explain why he ended up dead.
14:29So Detective McCoy pushed Daisy to tell them anything about Camilo that might not be so squeaky clean.
14:35She told them about something that happened five years earlier.
14:39His wife, Daisy, tells us about a land deal the victim was involved in in 2006.
14:45And it went sideways in some manner?
14:47It did go sideways.
14:48So that's of interest.
14:49It was, because he stood to make $100,000 in this investment.
14:54It did not work out.
14:56There was a lot of money at stake when the deal went belly up.
14:59More than that, it looked like the developer in charge was involved in some shady financial dealings.
15:05That caught the attention of the FBI.
15:08And back in 2006, they started looking into the deal.
15:12Camilo cooperated with the investigation.
15:14Does that sound like the kind of thing that could get a guy killed?
15:16I guess it all depends who you're dealing with.
15:19Remember that burned body discovered not far from Camilo's just days before his murder?
15:24Turned out, that victim was also a witness cooperating with authorities in a criminal case.
15:30Did the similar circumstances mean the two murders were connected?
15:35Investigators are going to be able to cross-reference the cases to see if, in fact,
15:38there is any possible relationship between the two cases.
15:43Detectives could find no connection and no evidence that Camilo was killed because of that shady land deal.
15:49After speaking with the FBI, they had interviewed several individuals, bankers, that were part of the land deal.
15:57And there was no threats made to any of those individuals, nor were there any threats made to Camilo.
16:04The lead went nowhere.
16:05So what did detectives have?
16:07One unidentified fingerprint.
16:10In other words, they had nothing unless...
16:12Unless there was some secret life that he was living.
16:18A secret life?
16:20Well, just days after Camilo was killed,
16:22detectives heard from a woman named Jenny Marin who shed light on that.
16:26It was a huge break in the case.
16:30When detectives met with her, Jenny started with a coincidence that was hard to believe.
16:34Her husband was missing, too.
16:37His name was Manny Marin, co-owner of Presidente,
16:40a popular chain of supermarkets catering to the Hispanic community in South Florida.
16:46Manny is a big deal in this community.
16:49He was.
16:51Gail Levine, a veteran prosecutor in the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office,
16:55would work hand-in-glove with Detectives Villano and McCoy on the case.
17:00Levine learned a lot about Manny Marin.
17:03He was like the successful Cuban 茅migr茅 story.
17:07Arriving with nothing and ending up with the whole bank.
17:09Exactly. Hard-working guy.
17:12Came with nothing.
17:14Started supermarkets in New Jersey.
17:17Moved to Miami.
17:19More supermarkets, more money,
17:21and contributing to the Optimist Club, the Little League teams.
17:26Well-recognized, well-respected.
17:29When Jenny met Manny, he was still married to his first wife.
17:32He was also 20 years older than Jenny, but Manny fell hard for her.
17:37He pursued her. She was beautiful.
17:41She was elegant.
17:42She said, if you divorce your wife, you know, we can talk about it.
17:46He came in with the divorce papers, flew to New Jersey, and swept her off her feet.
17:50So he's down on one knee with both divorce papers and the ring, huh?
17:53Exactly.
17:55Come back with me. Now's the time.
17:56And she went.
17:58Manny and Jenny lived in a spectacular waterfront house on a double lot in Lighthouse Point,
18:02about an hour or so north of Miami.
18:05They had two children together and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle.
18:09The way Jenny explained it is Manuel Mar铆n was a great father and just a great supporter.
18:14Christian Colon followed the story for both NBC's Miami affiliate WTVJ
18:19and its Spanish-language Telemundo station.
18:22He provided everything to Jenny.
18:26So when it comes to typical Miami stuff, I mean, you have the yachts, you have the mansions.
18:31She wanted nothing in the way of luxuries.
18:33I mean, she had it all.
18:34The six bedrooms, the Louis Vuitton bags.
18:36So she had everything. She didn't have to work.
18:38What didn't she have? What was wrong in the marriage?
18:40Love. She didn't have that love from Manuel Mar铆n.
18:44Jenny's marriage was a mess.
18:46There was infidelity, jealousy, and constant infighting.
18:50But what did that have to do with Camilo Salazar?
18:53Only everything.
18:54And Jenny was about to tell the detectives all about it.
19:15Detectives investigating Camilo Salazar's murder were contacted by a woman named Jenny Mar铆n.
19:21She told them about her marriage to supermarket mogul Manny Mar铆n.
19:24It was dysfunctional, broken beyond repair.
19:27Jenny is restless. She's not feeling any warmth.
19:31She's feeling very lonely and isolated.
19:33She didn't have any, you know, friends.
19:35But Jenny did have at least one friendship, a man in her social circle she'd known for years.
19:41Eventually, their casual relationship turned into a very secret affair.
19:46They did everything under the radar.
19:49You know, they bought burner phones so they could talk to each other.
19:52They would meet up in hotels, you know, near one of the shopping malls where she would go every day.
19:58And so it was a very, very hush-hush kind of thing.
20:01Despite those efforts, Manny found out about the affair.
20:04He was furious and confronted Jenny.
20:07He's on a six-lane highway.
20:09She wants to jump out of the car.
20:11It's dangerous.
20:13She screams for him to pull over.
20:14And he pulls so close to the guardrail that she can't even open the door.
20:19So she actually jumps out the window.
20:21She flees the husband through the car window?
20:24That's right.
20:24She's on the side of the road?
20:25That's right. On a very, very busy Miami highway.
20:29Even after that drama on the highway, Jenny and Manny stayed together.
20:34But things didn't get better.
20:36And months later, aboard their yacht, they got into it again.
20:39He told her in Spanish the affair was a disgracia, a disgrace, and ordered her to end it.
20:46But Jenny decided to end her marriage instead.
20:49And when Manny disappeared a few days later, she felt the time was right and paid a visit to a
20:54divorce lawyer.
20:55She told the divorce lawyer, I have a boyfriend.
20:58My husband found out.
21:00I was supposed to stop the affair.
21:02I didn't.
21:03Jenny said not only was her husband missing, but now her lover wasn't answering her calls and texts.
21:09Her lawyer did an internet search on the boyfriend.
21:12Went on to Google and saw that there was a Crimestoppers tip.
21:16Does anybody have any information?
21:18Would this be your lover?
21:20Yep.
21:21The Crimestoppers website was asking for tips about a murder case.
21:25The victim's name was Camilo Salazar.
21:28Yes, that Camilo Salazar.
21:31He was Jenny's secret lover.
21:33It was a stunning turn of events.
21:35Jenny had gone to the lawyer seeking a divorce, then confessed to an affair,
21:40and learned that her lover had been the victim of a grisly murder, all in one meeting.
21:45Her lawyer said this wasn't a story for a divorce attorney.
21:48Jenny needed to talk to the police.
21:50And that's how detectives investigating Camilo's murder ended up talking to Jenny Maron.
21:55You've got a love triangle here, apparently.
21:57You've got a dead guy who's got a girlfriend who's somebody else's wife.
22:00Yes.
22:01And there was more.
22:02Manuel Maron's passport was missing.
22:05And the reason she knew that is because she was the person who kept all the passports.
22:10She had also, during the interview, provided us the telephone number to her husband.
22:15With those leads, detectives were able to learn that just days after Camilo's murder,
22:20Manny Maron had flown to Paris, a round-trip ticket, but he never returned.
22:25So Manny, the supermarket, wealthy mogul guy, is now in Europe?
22:30Correct.
22:30Off the grid?
22:31Nobody knows where he is?
22:32No one knows where he is.
22:33But now they knew that he was the odd man out in a love triangle, and his disappearance was of
22:39his own doing.
22:41That was a game-changer.
22:42Do these suspicious circumstances make him the number one person of interest on your list?
22:47Yes.
22:48He's now someone wanted for the murder of Camilo.
22:51At that point, he is a person of interest or a main suspect in our case.
22:56Jenny's story had turned her husband into a suspect.
22:59And when she gave detectives Manny's cell phone number, it led to all sorts of new leads.
23:05In today's world, I hate to tell all the possible criminals in the world, but your phone tells everything.
23:11Now you start issuing subpoenas to the cell phone companies.
23:15And where was that trail leading you to?
23:17It led us to three particular individuals who seemed to be receiving and making all of the calls at the
23:25time.
23:26The cell phone records did not include any GPS or tracking data to show where the phones were.
23:31But it did show that on the day Camilo was murdered, Manny Maron's phone was blowing up with calls to
23:37and from three men.
23:39All of them involved in the mixed martial arts fight game.
23:43So this all moves into the kind of weird world of mixed martial arts and gyms.
23:47Manny always had a special place for wrestling.
23:50And he became friendly with a young guy that had won the bronze medal in the Atlanta Olympics.
23:56For Cuba.
23:57For Cuba.
23:58And he helped him defect through Puerto Rico.
24:00And this is a guy named?
24:02Alexis Vila Perdoma.
24:04Vila Perdoma.
24:05Vila gained notoriety in America as a mixed martial arts fighter.
24:10Manny Maron's phone records also led to Ariel Gandula, another Cuban mixed martial arts fighter who trained in the same
24:17gym with Vila.
24:18And then there was Roberto Isaac.
24:20He was Vila's friend and one of his corner men in the fight game.
24:24Detectives brought Isaac in for questioning.
24:26Are you asking him the whereabouts question?
24:28Where were you on June 1st?
24:29We didn't even get that far.
24:31He invoked his rights.
24:31So we didn't garner any new information from that interview.
24:36They interviewed the other two men and didn't get much from them either.
24:40But the detectives felt certain the three men had something to do with Camilo's murder, even though they had no
24:45evidence to prove it.
24:47And Manny Maron, the man they believe was behind the whole thing, he was still nowhere to be found.
24:53The authorities knew who it was, probably.
24:55Mm-hmm.
24:56But couldn't put their hands on him and bring him into a courtroom.
24:58Right, yeah.
24:59And that was very frustrating.
25:01That frustration wouldn't last forever.
25:03Detectives were about to track down a witness with an incredible story about the day Camilo was murdered.
25:08Was Camilo struggling or fighting or screaming, yelling?
25:29It was a love triangle that ended in a grisly death.
25:32A case with no arrests, but a lot of leads.
25:36A big one came from cell phone tower records.
25:39We did find Manny's phone pinging in the area in and around where the victim's body was found.
25:46Devastating evidence or just interesting smoke?
25:50Prosecutor Catherine Fernandez-Rundle is the Miami-Dade state attorney.
25:54It's a circumstantial case. Does that worry you?
25:56What you're really worried about is you don't really have eyewitnesses at that point.
26:01Another big worry for investigators was their prime suspect.
26:05Manuel Marin was still outstanding.
26:08But two years after the murder, detectives and prosecutors got a lead that changed that.
26:14After Manny fled the U.S., his wife Jenny filed for divorce.
26:18Manny responded with documents filed overseas.
26:22All the documents are in Spanish and notarized with a Spanish seal.
26:26I figure he's in Spain.
26:28Do you have an address for him in Spain?
26:30Absolutely not.
26:31The Spanish government didn't offer to search for him.
26:34So Levine asked the FBI for help.
26:37She didn't get the answer she wanted.
26:38Their response is, call us back when you have an address.
26:42It was a promising lead, but it just didn't pay off.
26:45And the investigation stalled.
26:47But then in 2015, four years after Camilo's murder, Detective Villano went back to the case file and noticed something.
26:55We had a fingerprint still left.
26:58The unidentified fingerprint found on Camilo's SUV.
27:02Villano decided to run the print again, and bingo.
27:06This time, there was a hit.
27:08Who left that print?
27:09Ariel Gandula.
27:11Ariel Gandula, the mixed martial arts fighter who was on the phone with Manny the day of the murder.
27:16After Camilo's murder, Gandula had been arrested on a drug charge, and now his fingerprint was in a national database.
27:24Would think that would be a big deal.
27:25It was a very big deal.
27:26I remember that day like it was yesterday.
27:29The fingerprint connected him directly to Camilo Salazar.
27:33But detectives couldn't find Gandula.
27:35Like Manny, he had also disappeared.
27:38The detectives now believe they had a winning case.
27:41But prosecutors said it still wasn't enough to bring charges.
27:45For Carolina and her family, waiting for justice wasn't easy.
27:50It felt like forever, and I just kept thinking we have to be patient.
27:55The case languished with no new evidence.
27:57But Detectives Villano and McCoy kept pushing prosecutors.
28:01And finally, in 2018, after years of internal debate, the state attorney's office decided to charge the four suspects with
28:09murder.
28:10You got to go with what you had.
28:12So we charged people.
28:13We charged all four of them.
28:14Manny and Absentia.
28:16Gandula and Absentia.
28:17And we knew we had Vila and Isaac.
28:20They brought Vila and Isaac into custody, but still needed to find Gandula and Manny.
28:24He was somewhere in Spain and living a comfortable life with money, they discovered, being provided by his son, Yadiel,
28:32who was back in Florida.
28:33So Gail Levine brought charges against the son for aiding and abetting.
28:37Ah, the son.
28:38Mm-hmm.
28:39The aider and abetter, as you think about it.
28:40That's right.
28:41Is he shaking in his boots?
28:42I don't know, but he's getting a lot of bad press.
28:45The pressure on the son must have been felt all the way to Spain, because on August 24th, 2018, Manny
28:52Marin decided to give up his life in exile.
28:55All of a sudden, Manny shows up in the Spanish embassy and says, I'm wanted in the United States.
29:00Gives himself up?
29:02Gives himself up.
29:03Finally, after seven long years, Manny was in custody and back in Florida, charged with the murder of Camilo Salazar.
29:11Three of the four suspects were now behind bars, but they weren't talking.
29:15Maybe prosecutors would have better luck with Ariel Gandula, but he was still at large.
29:20You've got to find the weak link here.
29:22Gandula.
29:22You've got to find the person that's going to flip on the others.
29:24That's right.
29:25So they set out to find Gandula.
29:28So where's this guy Gandula?
29:30Vancouver, Canada.
29:31How did you learn that?
29:32Google.
29:33The prosecutors in this country use Google to make their cases?
29:35You use whatever you can.
29:37The team made the six-hour flight to Canada, and Gandula agreed to talk to them in a Vancouver police
29:43station.
29:43Can we call you Ariel, or do you prefer Mr. Gandula?
29:47Ariel.
29:48His answers are not lining up with the evidence that we have.
29:53So after several hours of hearing his story, we now start presenting him with the evidence that we have.
30:02And now his story starts to change.
30:05His demeanor starts to change.
30:06Did he just fold before your eyes?
30:07He sits back in his chair.
30:09He folds his arms.
30:10His head goes down.
30:12You can see that we're on the right track, and he knows it.
30:17Gandula cracked and started telling a harrowing story.
30:21He said back on that June day in 2011, his friend Roberto Isaac told him he needed help intimidating a
30:28man who owed someone money.
30:30It was Camilo, a man they'd never met, but they had a photo of him and an address.
30:35After Camilo dropped his newborn off at Daisy's office, he walked to his SUV where the men were waiting for
30:40him.
30:41Mr. Isaac acted as he was possibly a police officer or some sort of law enforcement.
30:47They then abducted Mr. Salazar, put him in the back of the truck.
30:53Gandula said they zip-tied his hands behind his back and held him hostage for hours, then met Manny at
30:59an empty lot in an industrial area where there'd be no witnesses.
31:03Gandula says Manny dragged Camilo into his Mercedes.
31:06Mr. Gandula says, you know, when Camilo sees Manuel Marin, he starts to freak out.
31:11The victim says, oh my God, that's the woman I'm having in affairs with, what husband?
31:19This was way bigger than collecting a debt.
31:22This was about jealousy and revenge.
31:26Was Camilo struggling or fighting or screaming, yelling?
31:37When Gandula realized why this was happening, he said he was done.
31:42He's no longer going to have anything to do with this.
31:45So he actually gets into the truck, he pulls the truck away and he drives home.
31:50Gandula leaves.
31:51He leaves.
31:51And that's where Gandula's story ended.
31:54He said he did not witness the murder, never made it to that horrible scene in the Everglades where Camilo's
31:59body was found, 30 miles away from where he met up with Manny.
32:04Still, it was an incredible story.
32:06An eyewitness Gandula had placed Manny Marin in the middle of it.
32:10While they were still at the police station in Vancouver, Levine made a snap decision.
32:15So right then and there, I make the quickest deal I ever made in my life.
32:19I'll give you three years for kidnapping if he walks across the border.
32:23Tells the story.
32:25Gandula took the deal and would become a witness for the prosecution.
32:29But it was the two women at the center of the storm who were getting the headlines.
32:33And they were about to tell their dramatic stories at Manny Marin's trial.
32:53It was a brutal, cruel, disgusting murder case.
32:59It was almost unfathomable that someone could have orchestrated this horrible murder.
33:06Almost 12 years after Camilo Salazar's murder, the case found its way to a jury.
33:11In the spring of 2023, alleged mastermind Manny Marin was on trial, charged with second-degree murder.
33:19Prosecutor Justin Funk took the lead.
33:21It was revenge.
33:22It was machismo.
33:24Manny had been wronged.
33:25His wife was cheating on him and this was the man who did it and we're going to deal with
33:29it.
33:29Prosecutors said Manny hired the MMA muscle to kidnap Camilo at Daisy's office.
33:34Manny later met them at that empty industrial lot, drove out to the Everglades and viciously murdered him.
33:41It's a desperate man who believes he's been disgraced.
33:45And he knew that the loyalty of some of these people was going to help effectuate what he wanted to
33:51achieve.
33:52Prosecutors wanted the jury to hear firsthand from the two women at the heart of this tragic love triangle.
33:57Daisy, Camilo's wife, and Jenny, his lover.
34:01Their stories would provide the motive for the murder.
34:04You could probably hear a pin drop in that room that day when that happened because it was just, I
34:10think there was a lot of anticipation.
34:11Daisy, the heartbroken widow, told the jury about her last moments with Camilo when he brought their baby to her
34:18office.
34:18He forgot her pacifier.
34:21So he ran back out, grabbed that, brought it to me.
34:25He was, and then he said, I'll see you soon.
34:29Did he give you a kiss goodbye?
34:31Yes.
34:32No one saw him again.
34:34Did you have any idea that your husband was involved with someone else while you were with him?
34:40No.
34:41We were very happy, very present.
34:44He was present all the time.
34:46The prosecution then called Jenny to show the jury how her affair had triggered her husband's rage.
34:53Manny Moran gave you everything you could have wanted, correct?
34:57Yes.
34:57But you fell out of love with him?
34:59Yes.
35:00You disrespected him?
35:02Yes.
35:03He loved you?
35:06Yes, right.
35:07And you cheated on him?
35:08Yes.
35:09You're still alive?
35:12Yes.
35:13And Camilo's dead, right?
35:15Yes.
35:16Jenny described how she misunderstood something Manny said during that argument about her affair on their yacht.
35:23That confrontation was just hours before Camilo was killed.
35:27Reporter Christian Colon was in the courtroom.
35:30Manuel Marin says, Jenny, if you don't stop what you're doing, you're going to cause a desgracia.
35:34What is the word that he used in Spanish for disgrace?
35:38Desgracia.
35:39And Jenny took it as, you're going to cause a disgrace.
35:42But in Cuban slang, desgracia is known as a calamity, or in another word, a tragedy.
35:47It means that I'm going to commit a tragedy because of this.
35:51So that was a big thing.
35:53It was almost like an admission.
35:55It was almost like a confession before it happened, huh?
35:57Correct.
35:58Confession or not, it was a calamity.
36:01Prosecutors argued it was a crime of passion carried out against Camilo in a merciless way by enraged husband Manny
36:08Marin.
36:09I believe they turned him over and lit him on fire from his penis.
36:15You only do that if you have one thing in mind, revenge.
36:20Not only was there a strong motive, prosecutors said there was evidence that Manny was there the day Camilo was
36:26murdered.
36:26Ariel Gandula told the jury about seeing him at that industrial lot.
36:31And prosecutors said the cell phone data put Manny at the spot where they found Camilo's body.
36:36There was no way that any was going to be able to explain the cell phone, the flight by Manny,
36:44Ariel Gandula's testimony.
36:45You just couldn't explain that away.
36:46When it came time for the defense, Baron's attorney, Jose Qui帽on, disputed all of the state's evidence and told the
36:53jury that Manny had nothing to do with the murder.
36:56Not a single one piece of evidence points to Mr. Marino.
37:02Nothing.
37:02The defense did admit Manny was at that industrial lot, not to take part in a murder, but to watch
37:08Camilo take a beating.
37:09This was indeed nothing more and nothing less than an attempt to scare Mr. Salazar in order to stop the
37:20affair.
37:21And no one will come into this courtroom and testify that Mr. Marino killed Camilo Salazar.
37:31The defense attorney said Manny was not at the location where Camilo's body was found.
37:36He said the cell phone data was simply not precise.
37:39It could be anywhere in this big two-mile radius. It could be anywhere.
37:44And Ariel Gandula? The defense called him a liar.
37:48You need to watch out. He's trying to strike a deal with the prosecutors. He has tremendous motive to lie.
37:58As for the affair, the defense berated Jenny on the witness stand, chastising her for her role in the tragedy.
38:05Were you ready to break up with Camilo at that time and just devote yourself to your kids and your
38:10husband?
38:10I wanted to, yes.
38:13Why didn't you do it?
38:15You could have done it.
38:16You're right.
38:17What was preventing you?
38:18When you want something that is accessible, that is reachable, that the husband is asking you to do, why don't
38:23you do it?
38:24He's asking you to do it.
38:25You can do it.
38:26It is there.
38:27Why not?
38:28Tell me.
38:29Why not?
38:31I don't know. I don't know how to answer that question.
38:35After nearly two weeks of testimony, it was time for closing arguments. The prosecution went first.
38:43Manny Marin is the reason why they're here.
38:45We're not talking about the hired answers.
38:47This is the architect. We are here because of Manuel Marin's own ego.
38:52But the defense said Manny was no architect, no killer.
38:56He's a peaceful guy, no violence, none of this. This is not who he is, as opposed to this other
39:03individual who is a violent person.
39:07The defense said that other individual was Roberto Isaac. He was the one who killed Camilo.
39:13After a six-hour deliberation, the jurors walked back into the courtroom, verdict sheet in hand.
39:19The defendant is guilty of manslaughter, a lesser-included crime.
39:24Guilty, but not of second-degree murder. They went for the manslaughter charge.
39:28They did manslaughter with a weapon. They still found him guilty of the death of Camilo Salazar.
39:34Once they read the verdict, it was just as like, finally, you know, finally after all these years, it's finally
39:42coming to a close.
39:43But do you ever really shed the awfulness of what happened?
39:45It's not going to bring my brother back, that's for sure.
39:49Sixty-nine-year-old Manny Marin was given a life sentence.
39:53Vila Perdomo and Isaac were tried separately. Isaac was found guilty of murder.
39:57Vila, guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.
40:00The felony charges against Marin's son, Yadiel, were dropped.
40:04I think the outcome is what, you know, not for us as the detective or the department, but more importantly,
40:11the closure for the family.
40:14But closure is not always an easy thing, especially for a mother who lost her only son.
40:20Inez, how are you doing after all of this?
40:23Survive day after day.
40:26Survive day after day.
40:29Carolina tries to honor her brother by remembering his big smile, infectious laugh, and the way he embraced life.
40:38When Camilo was with you, it was like you've known him for your whole life.
40:44Right now, he'd be sitting down, joking with you, making you laugh, making you smile.
40:48The world could use a lot of those people.
40:50Really could, yeah.
40:53They really could.
40:59That's all for this edition of Dateline.
41:02We'll see you again Friday at 9, 8 central.
41:05And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News.
41:08I'm Lester Holt.
41:10For all of us at NBC News, goodnight.
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