Video Places Suspect In Room Of Dead Telemundo Reporter

Adan Manzano was in New Orleans to cover Super Bowl LIX, but the sports reporter was found dead in his hotel room before kickoff. Police are trying to figure out what happened and what, if anything, “a career criminal” police say is known to run fraud schemes in the city’s French Quarter had to do with his death.

The 27-year-old sports reporter had been working for the local Telemundo station in Kansas City for nearly four years and came to New Orleans to report on the big game.

The Kansas City Chiefs would end up failing to achieve their dream of a historic three straight Super Bowl championships Sunday, losing to the Philadelphia Eagles, but Marzano never got to report on the game’s outcome. Wednesday afternoon, days before kickoff, he was found dead in his hotel room in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner, Louisiana, according to police.

Investigators are looking into the possibility that Manzano was drugged before his death, police said Monday.

Manzano was seen entering his room at a Comfort Suites hotel with a woman who police later determined to be Danette Colbert at about 4:35 a.m. Wednesday, security cameras in the hotel showed. According to Kenner Police, Colbert left a short time later, then returned. At 6 a.m., police said, she left again and did not come back. Manzano was never seen leaving the room.

Colbert and Manzano had met earlier Wednesday in New Orleans and were seen together in several places around the city, according to police.

Kenner Police Chief Keith Conley told reporters Monday that investigators “do have two or three pieces of information, video footage coming out of New Orleans that she was with him in the French Quarter.” Police are also awaiting results of autopsy.

Police arrived at the hotel Wednesday after Manzano’s body was found in his room. Investigators reviewed security camera footage and discovered the credit card Manzano used to check into the hotel was missing, along with a cell phone, police said.

Colbert, 48, was arrested in New Orleans on Thursday night and charged with “property crimes, including fraud and theft-related offenses” police said, and a search of her home in nearby Slidell, Louisiana, uncovered the missing phone along with the credit card, which she had used in New Orleans. Investigators also found narcotics and a stolen firearm, though they said they don’t believe the firearm is related to Manzano’s death.