was pointing the finger of guilt at his sister, an actress and mother who was in hollywood star dumb and who had never had problem with the law. this was hard to believe, except for the intended victim of the murder plot, who believe that claudia was behind it from the get-go. there is only one person who wanted this done to me. he felt this way even as investigations pointed in every direction, until finally, five years after the shooting, detectives arrested claudia haro. i do think to myself, thank god. finally i don t feel crazy anymore. but he was in for another shock. prosecutors did not feel the case was strong enough. because manny haro had not agreed to testify against claudia. at the da s office declined to file charges. yeah but that s not the worst of it. i was proud to call we garrett
that i am confided in. and i told her about my molestations thing that happened to me when i was younger. had claudia manipulated manny by telling him on the part of the story? did she ever let you know that the judge, you know, someone independent in her child custody case had found that the allegations that she was making against garret were false, did you ever tell you that? i never asked and she never told me. so i think she knew how to hit the nerve that he was molesting her. so i think she knew who was hitting the nerve that way because i never really talked about it. manny said his sisters exact language was that she wanted garrett warren taken out. i don t i m almost positive she didn t use the word murder or kill. but it s like me telling you, i want you to take him out. you know what that means in that slaying. it means, take him out, it means kill. manny a small time criminal,
ex-husband. whoever gave that information doesn t know claudia haro. he says if she s guilty of anything, it s guilty of having a career criminal for a brother. i believe manny haro was angry about being abused and molested as a child and desperate to maintain his street credibility as a drug dealer and then when he got caught tried to blame it on his sister to gain freedom for himself. not only that but the hit notes written by claudia. i m convinced these are forgeries, she never wrote a hit note to anybody, nobody talked to her about whacking someone or murdering someone or shooting someone. he was ready with those arguments and more and who knows what a jury might have done. remember, my cousin vinny when he got his client acquitted of murder charges.
and in claudia s letters, the word is misspelled the exact same way. augora. claudia insisted she had never given any notes or maps to miguel quiroz. did you give him anything on paperwork? not that i can think of, no. if we have some of the address written in your handwriting i don t know. not from me. i don t know. she claimed to know very little about what her brother manny haro may have been up to. why would your brother who never met garrett want to kill him? i don t know. it s not why would he tell us you re the one that asked him to be killed and arrange it? i don t know. did you ever give your brother a large amount of money? no. any amount whatsoever? i don t think i ever had a large amount of money. as we said, every hollywood
i don t know. that s only the start of the twists in this hollywood mystery. this is one of those stranger-than-fiction kind of things. certainly nobody would write a consistent like this. the most stunning twist was what didn t happen. my mom said, don t you [ bleep ] die. that hit me harder than the bullets. my mom never swore. i m lester holt, and this is dateline. tonight, as they say in hollywood, the plot thickens. here s josh mankowitz. ready, and action. ugh! ah! action. action! action! it rank second only to money as the single-most important word in hollywood. and here in l.a. where life and art are often the same thing, there s a real-life drama that rivals any action movie with a plot that includes all the elements of classic film noir. cut. a mystery featuring an assassin, a femme fatale, a hollywood star, and a stuntman who takes the fall. and as for the money, we ll get to that. let s start with the biggest name on the marquee, joe p