NEW ORLEANS (WVUE/Gray News) – Louisiana police say a woman is facing a murder charge in connection with the death of a sports reporter who died last month in New Orleans.
According to Kenner police, Danette Colbert has been charged with second-degree murder and an alleged accomplice, Rickey White, who was later found in Florida, is also under arrest.
Authorities said they are both facing charges following the death of Kansas City sports reporter Adan Manzano, who died days before Super Bowl LIX.
Manzano, 27, was found dead in a Kenner hotel room on Feb. 5, with his credit cards and cellphone missing.
Jefferson Parish coroner Gerry Cvitanovich said Tuesday that Manzano’s cause of death has been determined to be from “positional asphyxia,” indicating he choked or was smothered to death after ingesting a lethal combination of alcohol and Alprazolam (Xanax) that rendered him unconscious.
Police said the Telemundo reporter was found dead on the bed in his hotel room with the coroner saying he was facedown in his pillow.
Manzano’s blood-alcohol content at death was .232 — nearly three times the state’s legal limit of 0.08 to operate a motor vehicle — and his Xanax concentration (25 ng/ml) was “not an insignificant amount” in his system, Cvitanovich said.
“These are central nervous system depressants,” he said. “They have a combined effect. … When you add them up, they’re really bad. They’re additive effects.”
But pathologists stopped short of determining that the manner of death was either a homicide or an accidental overdose.
“Given the uncertain circumstances of this case, we felt the most appropriate manner is ‘undetermined,’” Cvitanovich said.
The coroner stressed that the “undetermined” manner of death conclusion could change if additional evidence is developed and that it does not on its own impede authorities from prosecuting a murder case.
“This does not get in the way of the judicial system doing what they have to do,” Cvitanovich said. “Particularly with the evidence they develop outside of what we have provided. We may find something that changes the opinion of our pathologists. But right now, that’s where we are.”
Colbert, 48, was arrested on Feb. 6, after investigators said they found evidence of her using a credit card belonging to the victim.
Police also recovered surveillance camera footage showing her with Manzano in the French Quarter before they returned to his hotel room together, and another video allegedly showing Colbert leaving Manzano’s room alone.
Kenner Police Chief Keith Conley said White was arrested last Friday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
White is currently jailed in Broward County, awaiting extradition back to Louisiana.
“We found correspondence and information going back and forth and we feel they were working in concert on this,” Conley said.
The allegations against White mirror those with which Colbert was booked, with the exception of the second-degree murder count levied against her Tuesday.
Colbert’s criminal history includes five felony convictions in Louisiana and an arrest in Las Vegas.
She is being prosecuted by the Louisiana Attorney General’s office in Orleans Parish.
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