Two people linked to the alleged drugging death and robbery of a television sports reporter found dead in his hotel room days before February’s NFL Super Bowl had spent years using text messages to evidently coordinate furtively incapacitating others with pharmaceuticals and stealing from their financial accounts, according to multiple law enforcement sources.
While investigators have not publicly elaborated on the relationship between the pair arrested in connection with the death of Adan Manzano, 27, outside of New Orleans, the Guardian has confirmed that Danette Colbert and Rickey White have previously listed the same home address in legal documents. And at some point in the months prior to Manzano’s death, Colbert accused White of domestic violence, implying a romantic involvement between the two.
Authorities investigating a case which has made national headlines booked Colbert, 48, with second-degree murder, suspecting she had given Manzano alcohol mixed with the pharmaceutical Xanax to incapacitate him before he died. She was also booked with stealing Manzano’s cellphone and credit card, with White accused of acting as Colbert’s accomplice to the theft allegations in particular.
According to various sources familiar with the investigation, at least three times in the four weeks before Manzano’s death, Colbert and White texted about the personal identification numbers of other people’s financial accounts, including one which showed a balance of more than $95,000 on an ATM’s screen.
Those messages formed part of a broader dialogue between the two dating back to at least 2022 in which they also mentioned a minimum of three more pin numbers associated with other such accounts. In some of the messages, Colbert alludes to needing “knock outs” or wishing she had “KO” – which detectives have interpreted to mean pharmaceutical pills that if mixed with alcohol could render people unconscious as well as unable to resist a robbery.
At least one message from Colbert describes her waiting for a man to fall asleep before going to the ATM and reuniting with White, 34. Another message to White recounted how Colbert was handed a cellphone by someone who was extremely intoxicated and failed to immediately notice that Colbert sent herself $8,000 from a cash-related application on the device.
Police in charge of investigating Manzano’s death came to suspect Colbert was involved after finding surveillance video which captured her entering his hotel room in Kenner, Louisiana, near New Orleans’ airport, the last time he was seen alive during the early morning of 5 February. Kenner police said they later caught Colbert with Manzano’s cellphone as well as the credit card he used to check into his hotel before meeting her during a night out in New Orleans.
Furthermore, police have said they seized alprazolam – a benzodiazepine whose brand name is Xanax – at Colbert’s home in the New Orleans suburb of Slidell after finding Manzano dead and face-down on a pillow.
Coroner Dr Gerry Cvitanovich has said preliminary autopsy findings have the cause of death for Manzano listed as the combined toxic effects of Xanax, which can be used as a sedative, and alcohol, along with positional asphyxia. Neither Manzano nor Colbert had a prescription for Xanax, police have said.
Meanwhile, sources told the Guardian that Colbert and White corresponded about a pin while she was with Manzano, about 20 minutes before she went into his hotel room and later left alone. The sources said Colbert and White exchanged about two dozen phone calls that morning. She allegedly used Manzano’s card for a purchase of less than $9 at a local convenience store.
Colbert also purportedly tried to use the card on an ATM there but could not complete any transaction after exceeding the number of allowable pin entry attempts.
Kenner police soon jailed Colbert with stealing from and defrauding Manzano specifically.
On 18 March, they added a count of second-degree murder, which can carry life imprisonment. Sources said Colbert admitted to investigators who questioned her that she had gone to Manzano’s room – but she sought to persuade them that the only way she would have his phone or credit card would be if he dropped them in her car while she gave him a ride to his hotel.
Police in Hollywood, Florida, captured White on 14 March on the same theft and fraud counts against Colbert. He was later extradited to the jail in Jefferson parish, Louisiana, whose jurisdiction includes Kenner, and could spend years in prison if eventually convicted as charged.
Neither Colbert nor White was immediately granted bail, with authorities citing five felony convictions in Louisiana alone for Colbert. They have also referred to a well-documented history for Colbert of allegedly drugging victims, stealing from them and then avoiding substantial punishment.
White, too, has an extensive criminal history, including pleading guilty to misdemeanor theft. One mark on his record involved his pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of illegal marijuana possession in 2023. The documents in that case provide an important clue about his ties to Colbert: he listed her home address in Slidell as his, and that is where police investigating Manzano’s death would later find Xanax.
Additionally, sometime in 2024, sources said that Colbert filed a domestic violence complaint against White with the St Tammany parish sheriff’s office in Louisiana, whose jurisdiction includes Slidell. Deputies obtained a warrant to arrest White in that case, and it was pending at the time of his Manzano-related arrest in Florida.
Manzano was originally from Mexico and graduated from Kansas State University. He developed a reputation for covering the Kansas City area’s various sports teams for that community’s Spanish-language Telemundo affiliate. The widowed father of a two-year-old girl had traveled to the New Orleans area to cover the Kansas City Chiefs’ 9 February showdown against the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX at the Caesars Superdome.
The Telemundo journalist’s colleagues realized something had gone wrong with Manzano when he missed a work meeting. That prompted them to alert the staff at his hotel, who found Manzano’s body while conducting a wellness check on him.
