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00:05It was a big news story.
00:08Wealthy Palm Springs art dealer missing.
00:12There was no signs of force.
00:15Nothing was thrown about.
00:16But his Mercedes was not in the garage.
00:19It's suspicious when you have a missing person,
00:22and all of a sudden, their home is being sold out under them.
00:27We would be like, what the hell?
00:30How can this be another twist?
00:32Then witnesses tell me he was murdered and gave me a handwritten map.
00:37That's where they dumped the body.
00:40The location where these bones were located was exceptionally remote.
00:43It was unbelievable to me the elaborate scheme and plan that these guys went through.
00:50I was in shock.
00:52The plot was very complex.
00:55He was the next target in what they dubbed Operation Craigslist.
01:00In the county jail, he did make a phone call, and the only thing he said was, run.
01:23Palm Springs is a beautiful desert city with a long history.
01:28It became very popular with the celebrity crowd in the 40s and 50s.
01:37We're so close to Hollywood, 100 miles away, so you had people that came out here for the sun and
01:44fun and away from paparazzi.
01:45And that's why we have so many good stories about the stars being here.
01:54The Festival of Lights is a Christmas parade that is held every year in Palm Springs.
02:01It happens on the first weekend of December and brings the whole community together.
02:08My good friend Clifford Lambert really loved the Christmas parade, but that year, Cliff didn't show up.
02:18He was very well-known in the gay community, so when he didn't show up to that Christmas parade, his
02:23close friends were very concerned because that was his favorite thing.
02:30I was Cliff's hairdresser, and I had some friends and clients in the salon, and I remember somebody telling me
02:39that they had seen Cliff at his favorite haunt just down from his house, having dinner with somebody on December
02:464th, but they hadn't heard from him or hadn't been able to get a hold of him afterwards.
02:52So we started putting things together, and it was alarming.
02:59On December 12th, 2008, a missing person's report came across my desk by the name of Cliff Lambert.
03:06Reading the report, I noticed that his longtime friend, Edward, had reported him missing, had it heard from him for
03:12a couple of days.
03:14First thing you do if a missing person, try to call him and see if they're okay, and give him
03:18a call, and his voicemail box was full.
03:22I started conducting a more thorough investigation, contacting friends, seeing if anybody's heard from him. Nobody has.
03:30Over the next several days, the police department spoke to many of us, asking if we knew of anybody that
03:39might harbor any resentment towards Cliff, and I couldn't think of anybody.
03:47I'm still expecting him to show up, but a couple of days went by, and I spoke with his friend,
03:52Edward, again, who had the key to the house.
03:55So he allowed me to enter the house, and there was nothing unusual.
04:01There was no signs of force. Nothing was thrown about. Everything was in the right place.
04:07His friend explained that the Rolls Royce was still in the garage, but his Mercedes was missing.
04:14I did notice that his mailbox had, like, mail protruding out, and there was papers on the front of the
04:19door.
04:20But that, in and of itself, isn't suspicious. He could have been gone for the weekend and not told anybody.
04:28A few days, it goes by, and Cliff doesn't show up. We sent out the press release.
04:34We were hoping that it would turn out some information on him, but it didn't.
04:40Remember, social media wasn't a thing, so if we put it out now, we would be getting more people saying,
04:46I knew Cliff. I saw him at this party. There's no way he'd go missing. You know, things like that.
04:52But we didn't have those kind of tips or clues.
04:57At this point, I need to speak to his friends and learn all I could on Cliff Lambert.
05:04Cliff was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He had the biggest dreams and ambitions. He was going to be a
05:13celebrity.
05:14Cliff is a fascinating individual. You have to think about who he was and the time period that he grew
05:19up in.
05:20By all accounts, he was out through most of his life.
05:24He ended up getting a job on a radio show, and that afforded him to create relationships with a lot
05:34of celebrities.
05:36And later, he ended up going into the art world.
05:41He had actually worked to create this process where famous pieces of art could be available basically as posters.
05:50And that was how he made his money.
05:54Cliff Lambert lives a very expensive lifestyle.
05:57When you would walk into his house, people described it like walking into Versailles.
06:04Cliff was a person that liked to have others around him. He would have dinner parties. He was happiest when
06:14he was in a relationship.
06:16He had a boyfriend for a very long time, 12 years or so.
06:21And his name was Travis. And Cliff really loved him and wanted him to carry his last name.
06:26So Travis Hobbs became Travis Lambert. They were both really happy with that.
06:33But then in 2007, Travis died in a drowning accident in the swimming pool.
06:42Cliff was just beside himself. He was just devastated.
06:46And I don't think he ever really got over it.
06:50Cliff was very lonely.
06:54And in 2008, it actually drove him to create a profile on Craigslist to begin looking for somebody to fill
07:06that void.
07:15Our first big break didn't come through until I received a phone call at my desk from a real estate
07:21agent over in San Francisco inquiring about Mr. Lambert and his residence in Palm Springs.
07:29He expressed that he had a client in San Francisco that had a power of attorney that a house was
07:35gifted to him.
07:37And he wanted to do what he called a fire sale.
07:41The real estate agent was suspicious that when he ran Mr. Cliff Lambert's name, he came back as a missing
07:47person.
07:49So at that point, I called my partner detective who does do fraud and property crime, Simon Mann, and asked
07:56him to come on board with this investigation.
08:01It's suspicious when you have a missing person and all of a sudden their home is being sold out under
08:09them.
08:10We received documents from the agent that pertained to Cliff's home here in Palm Springs.
08:17And there was a deed and a power of attorney with the name of Kashal Nerula from San Francisco.
08:26Who is Kashal Nerula in San Francisco?
08:29And why is he trying to claim ownership of Cliff Lambert's house?
08:33This was essentially the big break that led me to believe that there was something more nefarious was going on.
08:40There is a name that has no bearing on the residence itself.
08:46And there's a huge distance gap between Palm Springs and San Francisco.
08:52But at this point, I'm asking, is Kashal Nerula involved in Cliff Lambert's disappearance?
09:02We're looking for proof of life.
09:04And oddly enough, there are transactions on Cliff's bank account.
09:09Like somebody went on a spending spree.
09:11When we learn who the thumbprint belonged to and what happened to this man, it was terrifying for us.
09:30Cliff would always stay in touch with friends, always let somebody know when he would be out of town.
09:41But this time, none of that happened.
09:44We were all just very concerned.
09:48At this point in the investigation, there wasn't much to go on other than the fact that we have someone
09:54with the power of attorney signed by Cliff Lambert to Kashal Nerula in San Francisco.
10:00And he's trying to sell Mr. Cliff Lambert's house below market value.
10:05But at this time, instead of interviewing Kashal Nerula, I want to get more information about him.
10:11I want to know everything I can about who he is.
10:14That way, I'm not going in blind.
10:19So I called the San Francisco Police Department and spoke to an investigator in their fraud unit.
10:24And immediately when I said the name Kashal Nerula, it was like an alarm that went off on the phone
10:31because Kashal had so many charges in San Francisco for fraudulent activities.
10:38Kashal Nerula was arrested a year prior.
10:40He had been locked in jail in the county.
10:43But at this time, Kashal Nerula is out of jail.
10:49Kashal Nerula is a convicted con man.
10:53Very, very good looking, dressed impeccably.
10:57He would tell people that he was the Prince of Nepal and that he was exiled.
11:03Kashal Nerula had undertaken a con scheme where he conned someone out of over $400,000 worth of artwork.
11:11He ended up stealing $300,000 approximately worth of jewelry in order to pay the restitution for his art theft
11:19scheme.
11:21And in 2007, Kashal Nerula was responsible for swindling someone out of half a million dollars in Hawaii.
11:28He was a prolific fraudster.
11:31But does he have any involvement in the disappearance of Cliff Lambert?
11:40I asked the real estate agent if they could pause any sales because there is suspicious factors behind the disappearance.
11:47Then the real estate agent continued to tell me that an attorney by the name of David Replogle from the
11:54Bay Area,
11:54he had done this deal between Mr. Nerula and Mr. Cliff Lambert and that Mr. Nerula took on the bar
12:02of attorney.
12:06So there's still no signs of Cliff.
12:09I'm looking for proof of life and I found that there are transactions on Cliff's bank account after he was
12:18reported missing.
12:20It looked like somebody went on a spending spree in San Francisco.
12:26They were buying chocolate, clothes, computer products.
12:31It looked like somebody was having a good old time.
12:34But when I received surveillance photos from ATMs, it was not Cliff Lambert, nowhere near Cliff Lambert.
12:42There's a picture of a Hispanic male on all of these transactions.
12:47I take a little clip of that and I send it to the San Francisco Police Department.
12:52And the investigator up there immediately identifies these pictures as Danny Garcia.
12:59And says he was also involved in fraudulent activities with Nerula.
13:07We find out that Kushal Nerula and Danny Garcia, they've been under investigation by San Francisco Police Department,
13:15amongst other police departments up in the Bay Area, for many scams in which to defraud people out of their
13:21belongings.
13:23They are essentially part of a, like a ring of con men.
13:28So now we had one more name, one more person of interest.
13:34With the names now, I go back to Mr. Lambert's good friend who reported him missing and asked if he
13:41recognized any of the names.
13:43And lo and behold, he did recognize Danny Garcia.
13:47And stated that Danny Garcia was a boyfriend of Mr. Lambert.
13:53But they have parted on bad terms several months before the disappearance.
14:01In April of 2008, Cliff told me that he met somebody from San Francisco on Craigslist.
14:09And his name was Daniel Garcia.
14:12He described him as something different than he normally likes.
14:15He said, this boy is Hispanic and he has dark hair.
14:20Daniel came to the desert a handful of times to visit Cliff.
14:25To see if they might get along or if there was a spark.
14:31But Daniel ended up making it clear that he was looking for an investor for a new business he wanted
14:39to open.
14:39Meaning that he wanted his money.
14:42Cliff told him that's it.
14:44This is done.
14:46And he would have to leave.
14:51At this point, all I knew is that Danny Garcia was a connection to Cliff Lambert.
14:56But how was that related to Cliff's disappearance?
15:02Then, on January 7th, I get a phone call from Cliff's neighbor that they're the U-Haul truck in front
15:08of Cliff's house.
15:11Frank comes to me and he tells me,
15:13Simon, there's somebody at Cliff's house with the U-Haul.
15:18They're trying to leave.
15:19We need to go get the U-Haul.
15:22I advise our patrol officers to quickly respond as somebody is trying to move the items out.
15:29As I'm driving towards the downtown area to get to his house, I notice a U-Haul truck driving southbound,
15:37away from the direction where his house would be.
15:40So, between myself, Frank, and patrol, we tactically start setting up units to go intercept all the vehicles that are
15:50leaving.
15:51Is Cliff there?
15:54Is Cliff not there?
15:56Are we going to find somebody who shouldn't be there cleaning out this house?
16:13Cliff Lambert was missing.
16:15And we received a phone call.
16:17There's somebody at Cliff's house with the U-Haul trying to clean out his home.
16:22It's suspicious.
16:24And then I get another call from Detective Browning saying, hey, I got this U-Haul driving south, away from
16:32Cliff Lambert's house.
16:36I pull over the U-Haul truck.
16:39Simultaneously, officers are arriving on scene at Cliff's house.
16:43I get on scene and I find a person talking to one of the patrol officers.
16:50And as I approached, he identified himself as Miguel Bustamante.
16:55And he said, we were hired to do a job, but it didn't look like movers.
17:01It looked like Miguel Bustamante at Cliff's home trying to steal all the contents of the residence.
17:10A lot of Cliff's property, personal items of value, art, and we can't verify that any of this property was
17:20legitimately given to Miguel and his crew by the actual owner of Clifford Lambert.
17:25So Miguel Bustamante was detained at the scene and taken to the jail.
17:31Now we have one more person of interest in this case.
17:40Within an hour or so of Miguel Bustamante being arrested for the burglary, he called for detectives.
17:47He wanted to talk to us.
17:49Here we go.
17:50You know, I'm Detective Browning.
17:52And I was told that you wanted to talk to us.
17:55What is it that you want to volunteer and tell us?
18:03OK.
18:05OK.
18:05I got to Palm Springs just in the morning.
18:07So I went to hire a few Mexicans.
18:10We confirmed the two people driving the U-Haul trucks were, in fact, just hired.
18:15So they were not charged.
18:17Our main concern now is trying to get to what he knows about Cliff Lambert.
18:21OK, this is what I know.
18:23OK, this guy in here, name is Danny Garcia.
18:26Garcia.
18:28Garcia.
18:28The boyfriend of, of, of, Clint Flambert.
18:32He's another guy.
18:33His name is Cushel Nerula.
18:35These two guys have been working together, OK?
18:38For me, that was huge, because we never released the names of the people involved in this case.
18:43Now we have information that there is some kind of connection between Danny Garcia, Cushel Nerula, and Miguel Bustamante.
18:51So we're up to three people associated with this missing persons case with no sign of Cliff.
19:00His initial comments were that Cliff Lambert owed the cartel money and they took him to Mexico.
19:05So Cliff was kidnapped?
19:07Yeah, I think he was in Mexico.
19:08Who kidnapped him?
19:09The Mexicans.
19:11It's a crazy story.
19:13I did not believe whatsoever that Cliff was in Mexico and it was abducted for the cartel.
19:18So the Mexicans and Cliff all went together?
19:21Yes, yes, yes, yes.
19:22That's why we couldn't, Cushel hired me to keep his car, supposedly his car in my garage.
19:28He proceeded to volunteer information that he had Lambert's Mercedes in his possession in Daly City in his apartment complex.
19:39So we had Daly City Police Department go to the residence and it was there.
19:46So now we had Cliff Lambert's vehicle.
19:49We were hoping that it would turn on some information on what happened to Cliff Lambert.
19:52Cliff Lambert's Mercedes was brought back to Palm Springs for processing.
19:59The technicians were able to find traces of blood in the trunk, but it was inconclusive at the time because
20:06it was very minute.
20:10So we obtained a search warrant to inspect Cliff's house.
20:16We recovered Cliff's toothbrush, his hairbrush, his fingerprints, and we uploaded it into CODIS, the database in missing persons cases,
20:30so that it can be used at a later time.
20:34Once law enforcement was able to do forensic testing of his house, they found the presence of blood.
20:41However, it didn't result in any DNA findings.
20:45It was inconclusive as to person, but it tested positive for blood.
20:52So it was enough to write a public cause declaration to continue the investigation into all the suspects identified in
21:01this case.
21:02Also, we did book Miguel for the burglary, and we asked the court that he be held in the county
21:09jail until his arraignment.
21:18A lot of Cliff's friends would talk to each other, trying to come up with scenarios where he may have
21:24gone on his own.
21:25And we were praying that one of them was true.
21:30We still hadn't interviewed Danny Garcia, still hadn't interviewed Nerula.
21:34We did have investigators from San Francisco Police Department just kind of keep an eye on him.
21:39They had no idea that we're on to him.
21:42First, I want to know exactly what happened to Cliff Lambert.
21:44That gives me a lot more ammunition for the interviews of them.
21:49At this time, Miguel Bustamante was still in the county jail.
21:52I received a phone call from an investigator explaining to me that he did have an inmate who was cellmates
21:59with Miguel Bustamante and had the truth on Mr. Lambert's disappearance.
22:06I went down to meet with the inmate, see what he was referring to, and he gave me a piece
22:11of paper with the names of Danny Garcia and Keshaw Nerula.
22:17And it did have a handwritten map on there, and according to the inmate, he was told by Miguel.
22:23That's where they dumped Mr. Lambert's body, somewhere in the desert.
22:28So Detective Min and I went and searched the area identified in the map.
22:33I was pretty confident we had a murder investigation, but it's very hard to prove up a homicide without a
22:40body.
22:50We have a map at this point.
22:52We have information that Cliff Lambert was killed.
22:56A confession of an inmate to another inmate.
23:01But to me, that was pretty credible information, Al.
23:05We searched for Cliff's body for months.
23:08Using the map, we drove up and down the freeway.
23:13We were searching for anything that looked like a fresh burial site.
23:18But we were not able to find anything.
23:25I prayed every night that he would just walk back in with a little smile on his face and a
23:34smirk,
23:35said, it's all right, I'm okay, don't worry about me, I'm all right.
23:39Unfortunately, it didn't unfold that way.
23:44Without Cliff's body, this case became about documents.
23:49It was following the trail in bits and pieces of evidence.
23:54And the case was so convoluted that it required additional evidence to corroborate everything that they've done up to this
24:02point.
24:05When reviewing the power of attorney documents, I noticed a notary stamp.
24:10And now I'm thinking I need to speak to this person to see if Cliff Lambert did in fact sign
24:14his name and give Kashaw Nerula power of attorney.
24:21I'm a mobile notary.
24:23And I get calls all day long for people that want a notary to come to them, to their home
24:28or to their office.
24:30I received a call on the 20th of December asking if I could go to a residence in a neighborhood
24:36called Noe Valley.
24:37I grabbed my notary book and I got into my car and I drove to the location.
24:42When I get to the address, I rang one of the buzzers, there was no answer.
24:47And all of a sudden, this guy comes up and grabs the bag from behind and he says,
24:53Give me the bag! Give me the bag!
24:55And he's pulling me with the backpack and I'm being dragged down the sidewalk.
25:00All of a sudden, my head hits a telephone pole.
25:04And I was in shock.
25:06And I said, Get the... away from me!
25:09And he went like this and he walked down the sidewalk.
25:13And I was like, What was that?
25:18And I called 911 and I told them what had happened.
25:22And I stood in the street. I was trembling.
25:25I had never been so scared.
25:27I was terrified.
25:30A few days later, my notary partner Glenn calls me and says,
25:35I just got a call from the Palm Springs Police Department and they want copies of your journal.
25:40Remember when we got a phone call from someone called Kashul Narula saying he would like to set an appointment
25:47for his friend Cliff Lambert.
25:48And we met those guys late at night in a hotel and we notarized a bunch of power of attorney
25:54documents.
25:55They want the signature and the thumbprints in your journal.
26:00The person who put their thumbprint and signed the power of attorney should be Cliff Lambert.
26:06So I asked if we could get that book analyzed.
26:09And we got the results relatively quick.
26:12But that thumbprint came back to David Replugo.
26:17David Replugo's name was crucial because up until then he had claimed to be an attorney just brokering a deal
26:23for Narula and Cliff Lambert to sell the house.
26:28It was clearly the plan all along that someone was going to have to pose as Cliff Lambert in order
26:34to execute this power of attorney.
26:37Apparently, David Replugo later realized that he made a mistake leaving his own fingerprint as Cliff Lambert.
26:48So he decided that the new plan is to hire somebody to get that notary book back by force.
26:56If they were able to get that notary journal, there would be no proof whatsoever that the thumbprint belonged to
27:04David Replugo, not to Cliff Lambert.
27:10That event was a significant turning point in this investigation because it showed that David Replugo was posing as Clifford
27:20Lambert.
27:22It appears that the plan was to clean out all of Cliff Lambert's money as well as transfer the deed
27:29of his home into their control.
27:31But there was no evidence that these con men definitively killed Cliff Lambert.
27:40However, with that information from the notary, we were able to secure arrest warrants and search warrants for David Replugo,
27:49Kashaw Nerula and Danny Garcia for essentially defrauding Cliff Lambert and taking in excess of $300,000 from his bank
27:58accounts.
28:02At this point, we can't find Danny Garcia.
28:05At this point, we can't find Danny Garcia.
28:05We think he's hiding out somewhere.
28:09But we find out that Kashaw Nerula and David Replugo will be in court because they had proceedings from prior
28:15events that Replugo was representing Nerula on.
28:19So we go to San Francisco with the warrants in hand.
28:23We're at the Hall of Justice, and I'm standing in the hallway where Kashaw had his hearing.
28:31When the court recessed, they came out with everybody else, and both Replugo and Nerula were arrested.
28:42Later that day, Kashaw Nerula, he's in the county jail in San Francisco.
28:46We monitor their phone calls, so he did make a phone call to Danny Garcia, and the only thing he
28:53said was, run.
28:55He hung up.
29:07After arresting David Replugo and Kashaw Nerula, Nerula did make a phone call tipping off Danny Garcia that were onto
29:17him.
29:17So he was in the wind.
29:20Next, we interviewed both Nerula and Replugo.
29:24They, of course, claimed not to know anything about Cliff Lambert or his murder.
29:30But Miguel Bustamante told another person at the jail that he knew Cliff Lambert was murdered and taken out to
29:38the desert.
29:42During our investigation, we find that Bustamante had a roommate by the name of Craig McCarthy.
29:52We found evidence that Craig McCarthy worked at a medical center in San Francisco.
29:59So Detective Browning and I decided to go pay a visit, and we found him.
30:04So we're speaking to Craig McCarthy to get understanding of what he knows first.
30:10And when we started asking, did Miguel participate in the disappearance of Cliff Lambert?
30:16And were you in Palm Springs with Miguel?
30:20Craig's demeanor is very soft-spoken.
30:24That's when Craig started telling us, oh yeah, we were hired to do a job by Danny Garcia.
30:33So now we know that he was involved, and we have one more suspect.
30:39So we asked Craig McCarthy if he knew anything about Danny Garcia's whereabouts.
30:44He says he's hiding out with his friend in Sacramento.
30:48So I put the warrant into the system.
30:51That triggered Sacramento to have a task force search for him.
30:57His phone was pinged by the task force, and they did in fact find him hiding in a closet in
31:02a friend's house,
31:03where they took custody of him and several electronics that he was holding there.
31:08He was arrested, and what was surprising was that there was multiple amounts of hard drives, laptops, cell phones,
31:17in his possession at the time.
31:19They needed to be checked for any evidence.
31:25I interviewed Danny, and he claimed that Cliff was a good friend of his,
31:30and Cliff was going to help him invest into a software project that he had.
31:35But I know that Danny is lying to me because Cliff Lambert and Danny left on bad terms.
31:43Daniel Garcia is really the most critical element of this case.
31:47He is the link to Cliff Lambert and also the link to everyone else that was involved in this case.
31:53It took a very long time to inspect the data seized from these hard drives,
31:59but it would help us to uncover what actually occurred in this scheme.
32:06It was exceptionally complex.
32:10There was financial evidence, records, credit card receipts.
32:15There was also a lot of computer records that needed to be gone through.
32:19What struck me was just the large scale of the entire operation that these individuals perpetuated in order to kill
32:26Cliff Lambert.
32:29This plan, dubbed Operation Craigslist, was in play way before Cliff went missing.
32:39When Cliff met Danny online on a dating website, Cliff flew him down.
32:43They spent six days together.
32:45Danny did what Danny does and tried to pull a con on him.
32:48Cliff was not a dumb man. He sent him home.
32:52That's when Garcia and Nerula decide that in order to gain control of Cliff's estate, that Cliff must be killed.
33:01Sometime over the summer, Daniel Garcia and Cashel Nerula talk to David Rapogel.
33:07They come up with this story that Cliff Lambert has inherited this large amount of money and some works of
33:13art.
33:14Which is a fictitious inheritance ruse to get Cliff's signature.
33:19In early fall, Cashel Nerula adapts this persona of a lawyer and he reaches out to Cliff Lambert about this
33:26new fortune.
33:29Then they create legal documents that will transfer power of attorney to Cashel Nerula.
33:35Next they recruit two individuals, Miguel Bustamante and Craig McCarthy, to act as the muscle who will actually kill Cliff
33:42Lambert.
33:43So on December 4th, Miguel Bustamante, Craig McCarthy, Cashel Nerula flew down from the San Francisco area to Palm Springs.
33:54They set up a deadly meeting.
33:56Hi, Mr. Lambert. I'm reconfirming for 5.30 California time tomorrow evening.
34:01And just looking forward to meeting with you.
34:04And the next day, they murder Cliff in his home.
34:09With Cliff out of the way and the documents signed and notarized, they now had full control and power to
34:17do whatever they wanted with his money, his home, basically his estate.
34:23What these con men put together was a really diabolical plan.
34:29Daniel Garcia, Cashel Nerula, Miguel Bustamante, David Rapogel, and Craig McCarthy were charged with murder, as well as financial crimes
34:38that were related to the death of Cliff Lambert.
34:43And then in subsequent interviews, Craig McCarthy tells us he is wanting to cut a deal for a reduced sentence.
34:50When we brought Craig McCarthy down from San Francisco to Palm Springs, he gave a full detail about what happened
34:58on the night of the murder.
35:04Cashel met Cliff at Cliff's home around 8.30 p.m.
35:10Craig and Miguel were hiding in the back of the house.
35:15This is where we have text messages between Cashel Nerula and Miguel Bustamante that indicates kill him, kill him now.
35:26And that was the signal for Miguel and Craig to enter the house.
35:31So I'm standing right here and Miguel's right here.
35:37So Nerula's like, just do the job, it'll be okay, it'll be done tomorrow, all right?
35:42And he walks out.
35:44He reenacted the entire murder on video.
35:48When you struck the first time, initially it was here.
35:52Cliff said, ah, ah, ah.
35:55And now Cliff had punched over here.
35:57Mm-hmm.
35:58And he just went over and he just started stabbing.
36:04And Cliff falls here.
36:05Yes.
36:07Cliff is on his floor dead.
36:11While Cashel was cleaning the house, Miguel and Craig wrap Cliff in this rug and put him in the trunk
36:19of Cliff's Mercedes.
36:23The next day, they drove about 100 miles away from Palm Springs, pulled off the side of the road, buried
36:29Cliff Lambert in a shallow grave, and drove off to San Francisco, hoping that this body would never be found
36:36again.
36:42When the news broke that Cliff had been murdered, the whole thing was such a shock.
36:50The details of how it happened.
36:53The details of how it happened in his own kitchen, such a horrific crime.
36:58It was heartbreaking.
37:00The men that did this to Cliff are sociopathic, they're animalistic, that they would just discard him without any remorse.
37:16He deserved better.
37:29Any time you have a case where you don't have the body, there's always a lingering issue of where is
37:36this person?
37:37Are they still alive?
37:38And those are issues you have to overcome as a prosecutor.
37:43Fortunately, however, in this case, Daniel Garcia, Cashel Narula, Miguel Bustamante, David Rapogel were convicted of all the charges and
37:51were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
37:55Craig McCarthy ended up pleading to a lesser sentence, 25 years in state prison.
38:01This was a group of monsters, nefarious and diabolical from the get-go.
38:07I was relieved some justice finally being served.
38:21But then years later, the DA's office sent a news release to the station and we all just gasped.
38:27It was, what? Can this really be happening?
38:31It's the case that just keeps on giving.
38:34How can this be another twist?
38:42Four men convicted in the murder of Clifford Lambert have been granted a new trial.
38:48An appeal filed on behalf of Narula, alleging comments Judge David Downing made in court proceedings that Garcia secretly recorded
38:57on his court-issued laptop about Narula having HIV and refusing to read his motions.
39:04The fair and right thing to do was to give them a new trial because it was clear that the
39:09judge had some bias against them.
39:12It was shocking that they captured the judge making some homophobic statements.
39:16But the four top guys in this case were all going to get to be retried.
39:25I was perplexed.
39:27I thought, okay, a judge made an inappropriate comment, but they were guilty of murder.
39:34I can't help but feel angry with authorities.
39:38It's been eight years since a jury found Kashal Narula and Daniel Garcia guilty of murdering Palm Springs retiree Clifford
39:45Lambert.
39:46Authorities never able to find his body.
39:52Then, while the second trial was pending, remains were found that were connected to Cliff Lambert.
40:00I remember reading about a recovery of bones in the area of the 5 Freeway.
40:08I actually called L.A. County Sheriff.
40:11Can you please check the DNA and see if it matches our missing person?
40:18We received information that they had a presumptive hit for DNA on some bones that had been located in Castaic
40:27off the highway years beforehand.
40:30It was great news for the second trial that what we had believed all along was, in fact, now supported
40:37in the evidence definitively that Cliff Lambert had been killed.
40:44It was also exceptionally sad.
40:47To see someone of Cliff's stature left there, buried alongside discarded items and trash, absolutely gut-wrenching.
40:59Then, unbelievably, during the course of the retrial, Kashal Narula was murdered by his cellmate.
41:17Fortunately, at the second trial, all three of the defendants were convicted of all the charges and were sentenced to
41:24life in prison without the possibility of parole.
41:29To hear those three times guilty on every count was beyond reassuring because they were held accountable.
41:41Justice for Cliff Lambert would have been dying 95 years old in his bed, and there's no way I can
41:46achieve that for him, but I hope this is something.
41:52This was a highly sophisticated plan and scheme to murder someone, steal their identity, transfer all their assets for their
42:04own personal financial gain.
42:08Justice for Cliff Lambert
42:08For those of us that knew Cliff and loved him, it was just so sad and heartbreaking.
42:19Justice for Cliff Lambert
42:19But I hope that people will remember Cliff as a fun, easy-going guy that loved to laugh.
42:27He liked to do things for people.
42:30He liked to make people smile.
42:33And he was all around a good human being.
42:36Justice for Cliff Lambert
42:42Right!
42:42You
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