The Prince, The Whiz Kid & The Millionaire

Summary

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Dateline NBC

"The Prince, The Whiz Kid & The Millionaire"

Release Date: October 14, 2025
Host: Lester Holt
Correspondent: Josh Mankiewicz

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode of Dateline NBC unravels a labyrinthine true crime saga spanning over 15 years—the disappearance and murder of Palm Springs socialite Clifford “Cliff” Lambert. It interweaves themes of deception, greed, friendship, and justice, detailing a cast of con artists, a self-proclaimed prince, and the loyal friend who refused to give up. With betrayals at every turn and a trial more dramatic than Hollywood fiction, the episode explores the dangers of trust and the allure—and peril—of pretending to be something you're not.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cliff Lambert: The Victim & His World

• Palm Springs High Society: Cliff Lambert, a flamboyant art collector and socialite, lived the high life in Palm Springs, mingling with celebrities and filling his home with (supposedly) priceless art.
  • “It looked like you were in a millionaire's home when you were in his house.” —Lisa Di Maria [03:48]
• History & Personality: Cliff was known as a name-dropper and extravagant host, but beneath the surface was someone recovering from heartbreak and vulnerable to loneliness.
  • "He just had such a big aura about him. There was just no taming him at all.” —Eddie Mullikan [04:44]

2. The Disappearance

• Cliff went missing in December 2008. Friends, especially Eddie Mullikan (his best friend), quickly became concerned when he missed the Festival of Lights parade and didn't respond to calls.
  • “It's not normal.” —Eddie Mullikan [01:08; 08:15]
• Eddie’s initial search of the home yielded strange clues: drinks, cigarettes (though Cliff didn’t smoke), but no sign of a struggle.

3. The First Leads: An Elaborate Con

• Weeks later, a prince claiming to have received Cliff’s house in a “legal settlement” tried to sell the property, raising alarms.
• The police arrested Miguel Bustamante, who was caught moving Cliff’s possessions out with a U-Haul, leading to the first major break.

4. A Cast of Grifters

• Danny Garcia: Cliff’s much younger online date, revealed as a charming, serial con man with a history of elaborate frauds.
  • “Danny, the sociopath. Danny, the con man. Danny, the liar.” —Tyson Wrench [26:53]
• Prince Kaushal Nerula: A self-styled Nepalese prince, in truth a notorious grifter with fraud, art scams, and jewelry thefts in his past.
  • “He presented himself as this exiled Nepalese prince.” —Lisa Di Maria [31:28]
  • "Not even a little bit [of truth]." —Lisa Di Maria [31:33]
• Attorney David Replogle: Assisted with fake legal documents; ultimately his own thumbprint tripped him up.
• Others: Bartender Bustamante and ex-con driver Dennis Dominey, each with shifting loyalties and stories.

5. The Con Goes Deadly

• Using a fake British lawyer persona, Nerula lured Cliff with the promise of a $200 million art inheritance. A dinner at Dink’s set the abduction in motion.
  • "Hi Mr. Lambert, this is Samuel Oren calling you. This is regarding the inheritance you’re making.” —(Cliff’s answering machine, the voice of Nerula) [37:50; 39:30]
• The original plan: kidnap Cliff, drain his assets, and dump him in Mexico. The plan imploded and transformed into murder.

6. The Murder: Unraveling the Crime

• Craig McCarthy's Confession: The key breakthrough came from McCarthy, a somewhat unwitting accomplice, who gave a detailed confession (and re-enactment) of how Cliff was stabbed to death in his own kitchen before being dumped in the desert.
  • “[Miguel] just went over and he just started stabbing.” —Craig McCarthy [60:40]
• Evidence: Bustamante’s jailhouse confession, McCarthy’s re-enactment, and later, text messages coordinated “Operation CL”—the code name for their scheme.

7. High-Tech & High Drama: The Trial

• Cell phone and text data—especially from an iPhone 3 at the dawn of smartphones—became crucial, with 32,000 messages revealing intricate planning and boasting.
  • “Do it now. Stab with a knife.” —Text from Nerula to Bustamante [64:10]
  • “Did you make sure to clean up even the Benson and Hedges?” —Text from Garcia to Nerula, directly tying them to the crime scene [64:22]
• The trial was marked by:
  • Defendants representing themselves, flooding the court with motions.
  • Attempts to intimidate prosecutor Lisa Di Maria—who received death threats.
    • “They came after me in death threats. I did not want to be the next.” —Lisa Di Maria [65:36; 69:47]
  • Smokescreens, false lawsuits, and efforts to create mistrial conditions.

8. Justice, Reversals, and New Trials

• All were convicted—but Danny’s secret, illegal recording of the judge led to their convictions being overturned due to judicial bias.
  • “I felt probably the way Lambert did when he had the knife shoved into his back.” —Lisa Di Maria, on losing the case [75:22]
• Retrials were ordered; by then, Cliff’s remains were found, finally confirming his death.
  • “The timing couldn’t have been better. That really changed not only the dynamic of the case, but the trajectory of it as well.” —DA High tower [77:03]
• Defendants tried separately; trials beset by COVID delays and further betrayals.

9. Epilogue: Twists Even After Death

• Final Convictions: All but Nerula were again convicted and sentenced to life. Nerula was beaten to death in jail before his retrial.
• Revelations About the Victim: Cliff’s “priceless” art was all fake; the supposed fortune that sparked his murder didn’t exist.
  • “We have no evidence that he had authentic original pieces of art.” —Lisa Di Maria [81:41]
• If not for Eddie’s persistence, Cliff’s murder might well have gone unpunished.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

"This plot sounds like something out of a movie."
— Lester Holt [01:45]

"I was living this case. Complaints, motions, death threats, lawsuits. That was their thing: come after me, break me down."
— Lisa Di Maria [04:23]

"Danny, the sociopath. Danny, the con man. Danny, the liar."
— Tyson Wrench [26:53]

"Hi, Mr. Lambert. This is Samuel Oren calling you. This is regarding the inheritance you’re making from the May Trust."
— Voicemail from fake British lawyer (Nerula) [37:50; 39:30]

“Do it now. Stab with a knife.”
— Text message from Nerula to Bustamante, implicating themselves [64:10]

"They made a mockery of the court system."
— Lisa Di Maria [71:30]

“I felt probably the way Lambert did when he had the knife shoved into his back.”
— Lisa Di Maria, on the overturned verdicts [75:22]

"We have no evidence that he had authentic original pieces of art."
— Lisa Di Maria [81:41]

"It was as epically evil as it was epically foolish. An eight month long grift that ended with the brutal murder of a lonely man in order to steal a fortune that wasn’t there."
— Lester Holt [82:47]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:15]–[07:52]: Eddie Mullikan discovers Cliff missing and reports to police
• [08:54]–[13:08]: Cliff’s background and introduction to Danny Garcia
• [18:15]–[20:50]: Prince Kaushal Nerula’s real estate scheme and first police break
• [23:05]–[27:15]: Tyson Wrench reveals Danny Garcia’s con history
• [28:01]–[31:34]: David Replogle and the lawyer/extortion angle
• [34:24]–[46:43]: The attempted kidnapping, fake inheritance call, and failed abduction
• [47:40]–[48:39]: Bustamante’s jailhouse confession and the search for Cliff’s body
• [55:12]–[66:43]: The murder trial(s), defense antics, and prosecution’s reliance on digital evidence
• [74:34]–[75:42]: Overturned trial due to judge’s prejudicial comments recorded by Danny
• [77:03]–[83:43]: Cliff’s remains found, retrials, and the fate of the conspirators
• [81:41]–[85:09]: Final revelations—the art was fake, the fortune nonexistent
• [86:11]–[86:30]: Eddie Mullikan’s tribute to his friend Cliff Lambert

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Closing Reflections

This episode stands out as a cautionary tale about the illusions of glamour and wealth, and the real-life danger of trusting appearances. Behind the glitz of Palm Springs and the bravado of con artists lay the tragedy of a lonely man murdered for a fortune that turned out to be mere fantasy.

The steadfastness of Cliff’s friend, Eddie Mullikan, is held up as a final note of hope and loyalty—the one constant in a story dominated by grifters, sociopaths, and schemes spun out of fiction. In the end, the long, tangled web of deception is parsed in a courtroom, where truth, though battered, ultimately prevails.

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For listeners seeking a classic Dateline cocktail of colorful personalities, criminal intrigue, and investigative tenacity, "The Prince, The Whiz Kid & The Millionaire" is a masterclass—unspooling a true crime epic as wild and tragic as anything in Hollywood.

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Transcript

[Lester Holt]

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[Lisa Di Maria]

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[Lester Holt]

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[Frank Browning]

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[Lester Holt]

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[Lisa Di Maria]

I got death threats in this case. They spent months coming after me. They had killed. I did not want to be the next.

[Eddie Mullikan]

I filed a police report and I did tell them my friend is missing and this is not normal.

[Lisa Di Maria]

It looked like he came from wealth. He was definitely kind of in this old Hollywood crowd.

[Eddie Mullikan]

He had all these pictures in his house with all these famous people, like icons.

[Lester Holt]

You go to the house. No indication any crime had been committed.

[Frank Browning]

Exactly nothing.

[Lisa Di Maria]

It was the informant that started to put the pieces in place.

[Frank Browning]

There's a lot of people involved in this.

[Lester Holt]

You have the self proclaimed computer whiz kid.

[Frank Browning]

He identifies himself as the Prince of Nepal.

[Lester Holt]

The heavy, he is the muscle. This plot sounds like something out of a movie.

[Lisa Di Maria]

This isn't something from Hollywood. This was real.

[Tyson Wrench]

I just realized, oh my God, could have been me. It could have been me.

[Lester Holt]

Turn after turn, twists after twist. A Rubik's cube of crime ends in murder in Palm Springs. I'm Lester Holt. This is Dateline. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with the Prince, the whiz kid and the Millionaire. There's a place in the California desert that's always been cool, no matter the temperature. Palm Springs is a mecca of style, glamour and indulgence. Two hours east of Los Angeles, you can turn a corner and step into the last century. Some of the biggest names of Hollywood's golden era built beautiful homes here. Stars like Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra and that ageless icon of flamboyance, Liberace. Well, look me over.

[Frank Browning]

I didn't get dressed like this to go unnoticed.

[Lester Holt]

Around the corner from the Piazza Deliberace lived another old school luminary. He wasn't as famous, but he also lived pretty large. Cliff Lambert was a retired Art collector and Palm Springs socialite. His life was all about cocktail parties, friends, and filling his modern home with not so modern art. And tooling about Palm Springs in his.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Rolls Royce Corniche, everything Gucci, everything designer clothes. You felt like you were in a millionaire's home when you were in his house.

[Lester Holt]

Then one day, Cliff Lambert just vanished. It was a disappearance that led to one of the biggest, longest, and most expensive missing persons cases in the history of California. A case we followed for more than a decade. A case that would end up tearing prosecutor Lisa Di Maria's life apart.

[Lisa Di Maria]

I was living this case. Complaints, motions, death threats, lawsuits. That was their thing was come after me, break me down.

[Lester Holt]

The story really starts with a guy who was the first to notice Cliff Lambert was missing and was the friend who probably loved Cliff the most.

[Eddie Mullikan]

He just had such a big aura about him. There was just no taming him at all.

[Lester Holt]

Eddie Mullikan met Cliff Lambert in 2006.

[Eddie Mullikan]

He was very loud and, you know, he was just a fun guy.

[Lester Holt]

Big guy, big personality.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Oh, totally. Like, you could not put Cliff's personality in a box.

[Lester Holt]

Eddie has met his fair share of characters over the years, including the one he met in the mirror each morning. During the 90s, he was the bottle blonde boy of the moment in West Hollywood's adult entertainment scene. Cover boy for magazines like Blue Boy, Freshman, and Frontiers. Eddie also starred in more than 60x rated video features. Back then, he was known by his screen name, Kevin Kramer. When you're in public like this, do people ever come up to you and say, oh my gosh, you're Kevin Kramer?

[Eddie Mullikan]

Sometimes.

[Lester Holt]

I want to thank you, by the way, for picking a porn name that our standards department will allow us to say on television.

[Eddie Mullikan]

You're welcome.

[Lester Holt]

Eddie was dancing for tips at Hunter's in Palm Springs when Cliff Lambert walked into his life.

[Eddie Mullikan]

He came up to me and he just started putting money in my G string. But he wasn't looking at me, he was looking down. He goes, my name is Clifford Lambert and I will pay you handsomely to come to Argentina. And I thought, is he kidding?

[Lester Holt]

That trip didn't happen. What did happen was that Eddie and Cliff became fast friends. They traveled to Hawaii together. Later, Cliff took Eddie to New York in style. You guys were not lovers, Never romantically.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Involved, because guess what? Gay dudes can be best friends. So not all about sex all the time.

[Lester Holt]

Eddie says what it was about was being there for each other when they both needed it.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Cliff and I were both recovering from broken relationships, and so we both sort of helped each other heal.

[Lester Holt]

On December 6, 2008, Eddie and Cliff made plans to meet at palm springs festival of lights parade. The annual event is the highlight of the season in palm springs.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Cliff was going to meet us there. We were all waiting for him.

[Lester Holt]

Except cliff never showed. And it just wasn't like cliff lambert to ghost his friends. So you go to his house and you have a key, right?

[Eddie Mullikan]

You know, I walked inside the foyer of the house, and when I came around to the living room, you, know, it looked like people had had cocktails and smoked cigarettes.

[Lester Holt]

Eddie said the cigarettes were benson and hedges.

[Eddie Mullikan]

You know, cliff didn't smoke cigarettes, but somebody had. But somebody was.

[Lester Holt]

And you saw what a couple of glasses out saw.

[Eddie Mullikan]

A couple of glasses. It looked like they had, like, melted ice and liquor in them. Like, it looked as if cliff had company.

[Lester Holt]

And so maybe there's a reason cliff didn't show up or didn't call.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Right? And so I thought, I'll call him tomorrow. And I left.

[Lester Holt]

And here we are. Right?

[Eddie Mullikan]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

Eddie didn't go in beyond the entry hall, and he left quietly, Expecting to hear the next day about cliff's evening. Except cliff never called, and radio silence just wasn't cliff's thing. After talking it over with a friend, Eddie decided to file a missing persons report.

[Eddie Mullikan]

And I said, you know, I need you guys to know that my friend is missing, and this is not normal.

[Lester Holt]

A few days later, Eddie went back to cliff's house looking for him and was both surprised and happy to find someone had cleaned the place up.

[Eddie Mullikan]

So, like, a door was open that wasn't open. There was no more drinks and no more cigarettes. I was like, okay, he's here. He's just not here when I'm here.

[Lester Holt]

Because he's tidied up. Yeah. Then days passed, and still no word from cliff. Eddie wondered if he'd just been kidding himself.

[Eddie Mullikan]

I kept all the hope. I kept all the hope alive for as long as I could.

[Lester Holt]

The cliff lambert investigation would eventually reveal a conspiracy so full of lies, cons, and double crosses, the cops weren't sure if cliff was a victim or just on vacation. It's a case with so many slippery characters, you, may have a hard time telling who or what to believe. You'll meet cliff's baby faced online date.

[Frank Browning]

I've lined up potentially $50 million next week.

[Lester Holt]

The ex con from san quentin. You're a sociopath. Yeah, absolutely. The lawyer who worked both sides of the law.

[Frank Browning]

I'm just trying to keep him out of trouble.

[Lester Holt]

A bartender who never Told the same story twice.

[Frank Browning]

You lied to our face. You lied to us.

[Lester Holt]

Some exiled royalty from the country of Nepal.

[Tyson Wrench]

He would throw down hundreds and buy everybody a drink. And everyone knew that the prince was at the bar.

[Lester Holt]

And the prosecutor who took on all of them.

[Lisa Di Maria]

It was like Alice in wonderland falling into a rabbit.

[Frank Browning]

Holy.

[Lester Holt]

Cliff Lambert had gone missing. But that did not by itself mean something bad had happened to him. At least that's what Cliff's friend Eddie hoped.

[Eddie Mullikan]

I had other friends in the Palm Springs area that would disappear and play this game, and then they'd resurface.

[Frank Browning]

We often get missing person cases, especially over the weekend.

[Lester Holt]

The job of finding Cliff fell to Frank Browning, a detective with the Palm Springs police department. Browning's initial take on the case was the same as Eddie's.

[Frank Browning]

People come for the holidays, don't return home the next day. So people report them missing, and usually.

[Lester Holt]

They just turn up.

[Frank Browning]

Yes, you give it a day or two, and they'll turn up.

[Lester Holt]

After a few days, Browning decided it was time to start poking around.

[Frank Browning]

I drove down to his. Noticed that the mailbox was kind of filled with mail stacked. So it's kind of a clue. No one's been home. No one's been there to take the mail babies away. Yes.

[Lester Holt]

When you were inside Cliff's house, which was, what, a week or days after he went missing.

[Frank Browning]

Yes, I would say maybe a week after.

[Lester Holt]

Nothing was missing. Place didn't look like it had been burglarized, ransacked, Nothing.

[Frank Browning]

Nothing. It was nice and clean. Do you mind if I have a cigarette?

[Lester Holt]

I do not. Now meet another friend of Cliff's. Barbara Wisby. Wrote a column called people, parties, places for a local magazine called the bottom line. It feels to me like there isn't a lot of Palm Springs gossip that you have not heard about, to say the least.

[Frank Browning]

I know where all the bodies are buried.

[Lester Holt]

Barbara says Cliff's sudden disappearance wasn't completely out of character. Where'd you think he was?

[Eddie Mullikan]

I thought he might have taken off.

[Frank Browning]

With some young guy and taken him to Cancun or something. I mean, you know, Puerto Vallarta, whatever.

[Lester Holt]

Because that's the kind of thing Cliff.

[Frank Browning]

Did exact in Wando.

[Lester Holt]

And sure enough, after a few days of silence, Cliff's friends started receiving emails from him saying he was taking a break in Maui. I had a horrible third oral surgery last week. Great deal of pain. Going to go on a little trip for the holidays. Can't stand to be alone in that big house.

[Eddie Mullikan]

I thought, okay, it's not like him to Email me. But maybe he felt the need to go on his own.

[Lester Holt]

Going out on his own was nothing new for Cliff Lambert. He wasn't a to the manor. Born Palm Springs socialite, Cliff was raised in middle class Missouri. Although he'd done all he could to put that life in his rear view. His first stop was New York in the 60s to pursue an acting career. Cliff got into art instead.

[Eddie Mullikan]

He had this passion for art, so he created this company called Lambert Studios. He did lithographs of original art and sold them through mail order.

[Frank Browning]

And it caught on and everybody was buying those things.

[Lester Holt]

And Cliff made a lot of money.

[Frank Browning]

Oh, he was in the chips.

[Lester Holt]

In the late 60s, Cliff moved to Los Angeles where he developed a reputation as an art collector to the stars. Act up, fight back, fight AIDS. Then in the 80s, the AIDS epidemic swept through the country, taking with it many of Cliff's France. Searching for a change of pace, Cliff moved from LA to Palm Springs where he bought this home in the historic old Las Palmas district.

[Eddie Mullikan]

This house was absolutely beautiful. The fun thing about his house is he had a story for every piece of furniture, every piece of art, every fork, every knife, every cup.

[Lester Holt]

Laughing it up with Zsa Zsa Gabor playing backgammon against Lucille Ball. Cliff loved to entertain.

[Frank Browning]

Big name dropper. Everything was a name dropper. I've never met anybody that was more.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Full of himself, I don't think, than Cliff Lambert.

[Lester Holt]

In 1993, 58 year old Cliff started dating 19 year old Travis Hobbs.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Travis always wanted the fancy life.

[Lester Holt]

Travis's sister, Yvette Bowker.

[Lisa Di Maria]

I figured he'd found himself a sugar daddy. And it wasn't until I started seeing the relationship with them I could tell he did truly love Cliff.

[Lester Holt]

Is it uncommon to see an older gentleman with a younger boyfriend in this town?

[Frank Browning]

Not here in Palm Springs.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Palm Springs, it's the gays and the grays that love them, right?

[Lester Holt]

Cliff and Travis were together 15 years before they split up. Travis moved out on Cliff and in with a friend. That ended in August 2007.

[Frank Browning]

Somebody went outside and saw Travis at the bottom of the pool and he had drowned. And Cliff went into a whirlpool of depression.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Instead of trying to deal with it.

[Frank Browning]

He just drank more.

[Lester Holt]

Sounds like he was lonely.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Very. Yeah, for sure.

[Lester Holt]

Cliff wanted to get back out there and start dating. So he turned to his friend Eddie, who has forgotten more about dating than most of us ever learn.

[Eddie Mullikan]

And I said, well Cliff, you know everyone's online right now. He's like, how do I do that? So I showed him.

[Lester Holt]

In April of 2008, eight months before he disappeared, Cliff matched with an attractive, motivated young man from San Francisco. So Cliff bought him a ticket to come visit.

[Eddie Mullikan]

I was at home. Cliff called me at home, and he's like, I want you to come over and meet somebody. I said, okay. So I went over to Cliff's house, and he was a super smart, you know, nice kid.

[Lester Holt]

The kid's name was Danny Garcia, and he was Cliff's date and couldn't wait to tell his friends about the older man in his life.

[Lisa Di Maria]

This Halloween. What's under your costume? Might just steal a show.

[Lester Holt]

Wait, is that Glow in the Dark underwear?

[Lisa Di Maria]

Boo. Yeah. Meundies has dropped their spookiest collection yet. Glow in the dark undies and PJs. So comfy it's scary.

[Tyson Wrench]

Tricks, treats, and buttery soft briefs.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Exactly. To get cozy and spooky for less, go to MeUndies.com Trickortreat and enter code trickortreat to get 20% off your first order. That's 20% off your first order at MeUndies.com TrickortREAT code trick or treat Me Undies. Treat yourself.

[Eddie Mullikan]

I'm Julio Vaquero, anchor of Noticias Telemundo. You can watch Dateline, the hit true crime series on Telemundo. And now you can listen to Dateline as a podcast. Stories of love and betrayal, of secrets revealed of the men and women who stand between evil and justice. Every twist and turn can now be heard in Spanish. With new mysteries arriving. And every week, just search Dateline en Espanol, wherever you get your podcasts and start listening.

[Lester Holt]

December 2008 was a sad and confusing time for Eddie Mullikan. Christmas came and went with no further news from or about his friend Cliff. What'd you think had happened?

[Eddie Mullikan]

I didn't know. That's the thing. I didn't know.

[Lester Holt]

The same could be said for Lt. Browning.

[Frank Browning]

We really didn't have an idea of what was going on as far as his disappearance, whether or not he was still living.

[Lester Holt]

Then, just before New Year's, three and a half weeks after Cliff's disappearance, Browning got a call from a realtor in the San Francisco Bay area who said he had a client who wanted to sell Cliff Lambert's Palm Springs home and.

[Frank Browning]

That someone he knows was looking to do what he called a fire sale on Mr. Lambert's house.

[Lester Holt]

The realtor said his client, Kishal Nerula, was a rich Nepalese prince who said he'd been given Cliff's house in a recent legal settlement. Now, this prince wanted to sell that house quickly. Suspicious, the realtor Googled Cliff's name and came across a missing persons alert on the Palm Springs PD website. That's when the realtor called Lieutenant Browning, who brought in fraud detective Simon Min to see if this was a legitimate real estate transaction or a crime in progress.

[Frank Browning]

We're trying to figure out whether or not Mr. Lambert is authorizing this type of sale.

[Lester Holt]

Then, before detectives could start looking for this prints, Browning received another call about Cliff's house.

[Frank Browning]

There was a U Haul truck in front of Mr. Lambert's house. There shouldn't be a U Haul truck there.

[Lester Holt]

When Min and Browning arrived, they found a man getting ready to move Cliff's possessions into the U Haul. He said his name was Miguel Bustamante, a bartender from San Francisco.

[Frank Browning]

So Miguel gave us some story that he was paid to come down to Palm Springs and clear out the house.

[Lester Holt]

As incriminating as this scenario was, Bustamate remained calm and cooperative, even allowing detectives to search his motel room without a warrant.

[Frank Browning]

I go there, and lo and behold, there's a bunch of Mr. Lambert's belongings in there to include Louis Vuitton luggage that I had noticed back before when it was in his residence. Also on the countertops were his ID cards, checkbook, things, obviously with his name that came from the house.

[Lester Holt]

Also sounds like stuff you would take with you if you were leaving for a long period of time.

[Frank Browning]

Definitely.

[Lester Holt]

It was finally obvious to the cops Cliff Lambert wasn't on a jaunt out of town. Browning arrested Bustamante on a burglary charge. And under questioning, Bustamante said he'd been hired by a guy he'd met while tending bar. Prince Kishan, the ruler. The man who said he got Cliff's house in a legal settlement.

[Frank Browning]

How much stuff were you supposed to take back? He just said the art. Just the artwork. Just the artwork.

[Lester Holt]

And as payment for his hard work.

[Frank Browning]

He gave me a title of the.

[Lester Holt]

Rolls Royce, saying, you're getting paid. A Rolls Royce for one day's work is the kind of story a thief tells the cops when he thinks they're dumber than he is.

[Frank Browning]

Here's the thing. You're screwed. You're involved and. No, I wanted to be really honest with you. No, he didn't. Don't insult my intelligence. When I say you're screwed, I really mean you're screwed. You need to worry about yourself, not the prince.

[Lester Holt]

After a few more questions, Bustamatti was escorted to a cell, at which point, it Seems reality hit him. He suddenly said he was now ready to tell the truth, which was that Cliff had been lured to Mexico to buy some discounted paintings and was instead kidnapped when he got there.

[Frank Browning]

They said that they have some Picasso's paintings all the way to Mexico. And he got kidnapped in Mexico. So Clifford got kidnapped. Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

And in a case already full of names, the bartender threw one more at detectives. It's a name police hadn't heard before. Danny Garcia.

[Frank Browning]

Danny Garcia was the boyfriend of Cliff Lambert.

[Lester Holt]

Danny Garcia was that young man Cliff met online and then later invited to stay at his Palm Springs home. According to Bustamade, that date was the beginning of a plot.

[Frank Browning]

So Danny sends Clifford to Mexico to do some kind of art deal.

[Lester Holt]

Yeah, exactly. Where in Mexico? Bustamade wasn't saying.

[Frank Browning]

Anybody that can give us any leads to go find Mr. Lambert?

[Lester Holt]

Nobody. The only one. That is Danny Bartender. Miguel Bustamatti's arrest was tough news for Eddie Mullikan to hear because it meant finally confronting the reality that something terrible could have happened to his friend Cliff.

[Eddie Mullikan]

It just became scary for me to be in Palm Springs. I was afraid to talk to anybody about it. I didn't know who is watching me. I got a little paranoid.

[Lester Holt]

It was about this time when a missing person's website posted an alert about Cliff's case that caught the attention of Tyson Ranch, a Las Vegas tech entrepreneur.

[Tyson Wrench]

I read the article, but then down at the bottom where people can leave comments, somebody had written, the last person I saw him with was a well dressed Indian male with a British accent which describes Kishal Nerula to a T. So my next call is to the Palm Springs Police Department.

[Lester Holt]

Tyson told police he knew Prince Kaushal Nerula through Danny Garcia. That young man Cliff met online and had once nightclubbed with the both of them. Lieutenant Browning, who wanted to hear more about how Danny and Kashal were connected, was anxious to speak with Tyson.

[Tyson Wrench]

He says, you're going to need to come in. And I said, I'll see you tomorrow.

[Lester Holt]

The story Tyson told detectives started five years earlier when Tyson was riding the tech wave and tearing through San Francisco's Castro district with his good friend Danny Garcia.

[Tyson Wrench]

Everyone who met Danny was just enamored by him. He was just charming, charismatic, knowledgeable, well.

[Lester Holt]

Traveled, the kind of guy you want to hang around.

[Tyson Wrench]

Totally. Yep, absolutely.

[Lester Holt]

And Danny had enough money to keep up with the high rolling Tyson.

[Tyson Wrench]

Danny was the one friend I had where if we wanted to go to London for, you know, a three day weekend, we could each pay Our own way.

[Lester Holt]

Danny's dough came from a $500,000 legal settlement with a high tech investor named Thomas White, who Danny said abused him when he was a minor. That case, the press coverage that followed, and Danny's bottle service lifestyle around town turned Danny Garcia into something of a local rock star, which is how he caught the eye of Prince Kaushal Nerula.

[Tyson Wrench]

Danny and Kushal would show up in the Castro neighborhood, and they would arrive in three town cars because Kushal didn't want anybody to know which town car he was in because people would be after royalty. It was like a secret service kind of thing. And he would go to the bar and throw down hundreds and buy everybody a drink. And everyone knew that the prince was a At the bar, everything was over the top. Just over the top.

[Lester Holt]

It was a magical time for Tyson, hanging out with Danny and Kishal. It also wore him out.

[Tyson Wrench]

I had been 10 years in technology. My goal was to just go off grid. And I decided to go to South America for a month, a long enough.

[Lester Holt]

Trip that while in Rio de Janeiro, Tyson needed to get online to pay some bills.

[Tyson Wrench]

And lo and behold, I logged on, and my bank accounts are empty. And I'm kind of freaking out because I also noticed that two of my credit cards that I had hidden in a drawer at home were being used.

[Lester Holt]

Tyson caught the first available flight back to Vegas. And when he opened the door to his townhouse, he found there on the.

[Tyson Wrench]

Closet floor, a suitcase full of ATM.

[Lester Holt]

Receipts from Tyson's bank accounts.

[Tyson Wrench]

And that suitcase belongs to Danny Garcia.

[Lester Holt]

Apparently, while posing as Tyson, Danny had acquired all new ATM cards and then used those to drain Tyson's accounts. And you're feeling what at this time? Anger? Betrayal? Or I should have known better.

[Tyson Wrench]

All of the above. All of those little things that should have triggered a flag all of a sudden. Oh, yeah.

[Lester Holt]

Danny, your pal. Danny, the victim. Danny, who's so charming. Danny, who loves to live large.

[Tyson Wrench]

Danny the sociopath. Danny the con man. Danny the liar.

[Lester Holt]

The bank's insurance covered Tyson's financial losses. But after seeing security camera photos of Danny withdrawing money from his account, Tyson wanted to see his now ex best friend punished. But he says the detective assigned to the case blew him off.

[Tyson Wrench]

He says, look, Tyson, until someone gets hurt, we're really just not gonna have the ability to do anything about it.

[Lester Holt]

Until someone gets hurt.

[Tyson Wrench]

Until someone gets hurt.

[Lester Holt]

You know, it's interesting. Like, the cops are willing to let this drop. The bank's willing to let it drop. You've got Your money back, but you won't let it drop. I'm pissed because you were taken advantage of and betrayed.

[Tyson Wrench]

And now I had nothing but time and money, and I was gonna go get him.

[Lester Holt]

A lot of people have time and money. Tyson also had the skills to pursue Danny.

[Tyson Wrench]

I worked my way through college for a high tech crime private investigator.

[Lester Holt]

So suddenly you're a gumshoe again.

[Tyson Wrench]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

One of the first things Tyson did was try to find out more about that $500,000 settlement Danny had received from Thomas White. Tyson learned White was never actually charged with any crimes involving Danny and denied any wrongdoing. He also learned that in the middle of that lawsuit, Danny and his lawyer, David replogle, went to Puerto vallarta, Mexico, where White had a vacation home.

[Tyson Wrench]

Danny and his lawyer rounded up 22 street boys to say that they had been molested by Thomas White. And Thomas white was subsequently arrested and taken to jail in Puerto Rica.

[Lester Holt]

Tyson went all the way to Thomas White's Mexican lockup in Puerto Vallarta to get this story straight from White himself.

[Tyson Wrench]

And I sit down and we just start.

[Lester Holt]

According to Tyson, White claimed Danny and his attorney, David Replogle, persuaded those boys to fabricate the allegations against him. White said the whole ploy was to put him on ice and bleed more money out of him In a series of lawsuits. White gave the same account in this court document, which states that the individuals accusing him of horrendous sexual abuse were engaged in an orchestrated fraud and that it was a conspiracy to extort millions of dollars from him. In an email, Danny told us he was not part of any grand conspiracy to extort money from Mr. White. Well, according to White's lawyer in that same court document, many of those accusers later recanted their accusations.

[Tyson Wrench]

They came forward and admitted that they.

[Lester Holt]

Had lied, and Thomas White was eventually released.

[Tyson Wrench]

He died in that jail.

[Lester Holt]

Wow. Back in Palm Springs, prosecutor Lisa di Maria had joined the Cliff Lambert case. When she heard Tyson Wrench's story, she saw a connection between what happened to Thomas White and what might have happened to Cliff Lambert. And that connection was Cliff's online date. Danny.

[Lisa Di Maria]

And I believe that taught Danny Garcia. I never need to work. All I have to do is find elderly males to target. I can sue them, make millions, and not have to work for my money.

[Lester Holt]

It was time to find out exactly what Danny Garcia had been up to in Palm Springs.

[Frank Browning]

I'm meeting with a very dear friend of mine who has a mansion in Palm Springs.

[Lester Holt]

For prosecutor Lisa Di Maria, Tyson Wrench's Tale of having once palled around with Danny and Kashal was very helpful. It established the two knew each other and now appeared to be working together on some sort of con involving Cliff Lambert. How did Kishal get involved? Danny bring Kishal in on this?

[Lisa Di Maria]

He did. Danny brought Kishal Nerula into the scheme.

[Lester Holt]

By now, Di Maria and the other investigators had done some digging into Kashal's background and found out he wasn't exactly what he claimed to be. He presented himself as this exiled Nepalese prince.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Oh, yeah, we're not talking Fresh Prince. We're talking Prince Harry.

[Lester Holt]

Any truth to any of that?

[Lisa Di Maria]

Not even a little bit.

[Lester Holt]

The truth was that Kishal Nerullah was a notorious grifter.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Narula had defrauded a woman in Hawaii out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was involved in an art scheme where he had ties to a very famous painting that had been stolen by the Nazis during World War II. And the art customer put a $450,000 deposit down.

[Lester Holt]

Most recently, Kishol had been arrested for pulling a $300,000 jewelry heist. As a result, he spent most of 2008 in jail. So prosecutor DeMaria had a thought check. Kashals recorded phone calls to see if he'd been in touch with Danny and what they might have discussed. And it turns out that was a good idea. Here's Kashal phoning Danny from inside the slammer and Danny reporting that he had found a new mark. Cliff Lambert.

[Frank Browning]

Hello? Sorry. I had a very, very prominent person on the other phone who basically just told me he's going to fly me down to Palm Springs on Monday.

[Lester Holt]

Danny's original scheme seems to have involved convincing Cliff to invest a large chunk of his into a phony business Danny had set up. And then the phone calls reveal accessing Cliff's circle of wealthy friends.

[Frank Browning]

I've lined up potentially $50 million next week. Oh, God. And I'm meeting with a very dear friend of mine who has a mansion in Palm Springs. He is very good friends with a baroness from Germany. He's very good friends with the Rockefellers.

[Lester Holt]

That's Cliff he's talking about. And during that weekend with Cliff, Danny gave Kashal a progress report.

[Frank Browning]

Hello? Hello? Hey. I can't talk much. Where are you? What's going on? I'm in Palm Springs. Oh. Are you having fun? Yeah, I'm busy.

[Lester Holt]

Now listen closely to what Kashal asks Danny next.

[Frank Browning]

Have you been generating any resources? Absolutely. How much? A lot. Have you already generated? It.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Yep.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Huh.

[Frank Browning]

Yes, I have.

[Lester Holt]

We don't know if Danny was just boasting or if he really had generated resources, as he put it from Cliff. We do know that shortly after this phone call, Cliff kicked Danny out of his house for snooping around in his study. Eddie Mullikan says that transgression infuriated his friend Cliff.

[Eddie Mullikan]

He said, I caught Danny in my study. In my study. Like, people don't go in my study. I never even went in his study. And he was upgrading himself on the plane ticket that I bought him. To come and go to Palm Springs on his own.

[Lester Holt]

Without asking Cliff.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Exactly.

[Lester Holt]

Then Cliff called Eddie a few days later and said. Said he'd been robbed.

[Eddie Mullikan]

And he said, things are missing from the house. Can you come over? So I came over, and I noticed certain pieces of art were missing. The walls in his house were tufted. So when something's taken off a tufted wall, there's an imprint. And I thought, this is so. This is just odd. It was almost like being in a daytime soap opera.

[Lester Holt]

According to police reports, Cliff claimed to have been burglarized through three separate times between Danny's visit in April and Cliff's disappearance in December. During their investigation, detectives Min and Browning did not think those were related.

[Frank Browning]

These two instances didn't appear to be connected at all.

[Lester Holt]

Not at that time.

[Frank Browning]

Like, there was no forced entry.

[Lester Holt]

There's an explanation for that. According to someone, police didn't talk with Danny's cousin, Dennis Dominey. However we found him, Danny knew the code, and he also had a key. He made his own key. Dennis told us. Both were apparently lifted while Danny was generating resources in Cliff's study. Dominey, besides being Danny's cousin, was also his driver. He's an ex con, and in a story full of strange characters, he might be the one we wondered about the most. You've been arrested how many times? Three times. And locked up twice. Incarcerated, yeah. Prison? San Quentin. The convictions were for growing and selling marijuana. Did that experience scare you straight? No. Because being a sociopath, you don't. You're a sociopath. Yeah. Absolutely. You don't have any conscience. I do. But there's certain things that I've done that you know. You're a criminal. I was. Dennis Backwards has sinned. Hence why I am who I am and how my destiny turned out. You've been convicted of crimes, and we're here to talk about a crime that you were not charged in, but that you do have some knowledge of. And I guess the question on my mind is whether I can believe anything you're telling me. Yeah, you can totally believe me. I'd say 100%. That's why I'm here and not in there. There being the California State Prison at San Quentin Dennis story is that he was at the wheel shuttling his young cousin Danny between San Francisco and Palm Springs when the burglaries at Cliffs were taking place. I would always go drop Danny off, and then I'd go to Vegas, and then I'd come back on my way back to pick him up when he was done. And so he would always have something. And he said, yeah, Cliff gave this to. So Danny shows up and he's got a couple of paintings which he says Cliff gave him. But you think what? He didn't really give it to him? It was hard to say. Three weeks after the third and final burglary at Cliff's place and just days before his disappearance, Cliff received an exciting phone call. A British lawyer with a posh accent phoned him out of the blue and left this message.

[Frank Browning]

Hi, Mr. Lambert, this is Samuel Oren calling you. This is regarding the inheritance you're making from the May Trust.

[Lester Holt]

The lawyer said Cliff's wealthy friend, who had a New York apartment full of masterworks like Picasso's, had in her will, left Cliff an art collection worth millions. That did pose kind of a huge question. Was that windfall too good to be true? We're only asking that question now. Cliff Lambert never asked it.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Mazda. Once you discover the Mazda CX90 Mazda, it doesn't take long to get it. With three row seating and safety features like radar, cruise control and rear cross traffic alert to carry you and your peace of mind. It will have you saying Mazda. The Mazda CX90. It's made to move you.

[Lester Holt]

Every Mazda SUV offers you an elevated driving experience and refined performance. Discover it at your local Mazda dealer today. In late November 2008, about a week before he disappeared, Cliff told Eddie about that unexpected phone call from a lawyer.

[Eddie Mullikan]

He was like, eddie, guess what? And I said, what? And he's like, well, Florine May. Her lawyers from London have called me and they let me know that she has a will. This is a new will.

[Frank Browning]

Hi, Mr. Lambert. This is Samuel Oren calling you. So this is regarding the inheritance you're making from the May Trust.

[Lester Holt]

Florine May Schoenborn of New York was an old friend of Cliff's. She came from Denver and from old Money. Over her 92 years, she became a major patron of the arts. Cliff considered her a surrogate mother. And he had expected to receive at least one of her multimillion dollar paintings. When Florine finally met her maker. That was to be one more disappointment for Cliff Lambert. When Florine left this earth in 1995, she left cliff, much to his surprise, nothing. Now, all those years later, a lawyer was saying a will had surfaced bequeathing to Cliff a piece of Florine's art collection, the one worth close to $200 million. Here's the message the lawyer left on Cliff's answering machine.

[Frank Browning]

I'm reconfirming if there is any change, let's please not try to change the state because on Friday morning, New York Times, I have to. We have to finalize the decision of handing it over either to the Met or handing it over to you. So if you can please not change the time for tomorrow, I will be there.

[Lester Holt]

Sharpen the.

[Frank Browning]

@ 5:30. Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. Have a good evening. Thank you.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Bye bye.

[Eddie Mullikan]

And I'm thinking, okay, like I'm not suspicious because it's Cliff. The life he lived was so far, like kind of beyond me.

[Lester Holt]

The impossible happened regularly.

[Frank Browning]

Yes, hi, Mr. Lambert, this is San ljioren once again. I'm reconfirming for 5:30 California time this evening. I'm about to get on a flight from New York to Los Angeles and then to be at your place by 5:30 this evening.

[Lester Holt]

Eddie did give Cliff a bit of advice.

[Eddie Mullikan]

I said, why don't you meet. Meet them at a restaurant somewhere. Don't bring them to the house. Meet them in public.

[Lester Holt]

And that is what Cliff did. On December 4, Cliff and the lawyer had dinner at Dink's. Afterwards, Cliff told a friend the deal was on the up and up and there was a bonus. The lawyer representing Florine's estate was young, handsome, and he seemed kind of interested in Cliff. As you may have figured out by now, the charming British lawyer was actually Kishal Nerula, fresh out of jail and now playing a part in Danny Garcia's latest grift. Cliff Lambert was still the target and it was all coming to a head that very night. It was supposed to be where they were gonna kidnap him and Danny was supposed to get all this money. Danny's cousin Dennis said Kashal had hired two guys to hide in Cliff's garage and grab him when he returned from his dinner meeting with Kishan. Dennis says he knows this because he and Danny were there that night, both sitting in a car outside Cliff's house standing watch. Dennis said the Plan was to kidnap Cliff and take him to Mexico, you know, leave him there for three months, take all his assets, and then he comes back, he's broke, because you can make it look like he spent it all and he sold it from Mexico. You know, it's just normal con stuff. You're okay with conning him but not killing him? Absolutely. Yeah. Then when Cliff got home from dinks, Dennis the self proclaimed sociopath, suggests he had a moral awakening and right at that moment, decided to pull the plug on the whole operation. And I thought, yeah, whatever they're going to do to this guy, it's not happening when I'm here. Simple is that Dennis said he started flashing his lights and blasting heavy metal music. You know, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Danny's like, what'd you do that for?

[Lester Holt]

Like, what do you think? And I stopped house down and blasted the metal, and those two guys tore out of there. So I figured, okay, this is my good deed for the day. You ever think about calling police and tipping them up to what Danny and Kishal might be up to, or calling Cliff Lambert and warning him? Yeah, I flashed the high beams on the house, all right, but, I mean, you never called police. You didn't warn him. There was no, like, nothing. No crime had been committed, you know? Well, at least not yet. That wouldn't happen until the following night. In Dennis Dominey's telling of this story, he's a hero. By flashing his lights and playing loud music, he claims it was he who thwarted the scheme to kidnap Cliff Lambert. It caused them to flee the house and ruin their first attempt. And I figured I succeeded after doing that good deed. Dennis said he pointed his SUV north and along with his cousin Cliff's online date, Danny got the heck out of Palm Springs. And then I said, this is the last time I'm dealing with any of this, Danny. Period. In an email, Danny told us he was in Sacramento that night. Wherever Danny was, Dennis said he couldn't believe it when he got word a day later, the job was done to him. That meant Cliff had been abducted. I thought they had kidnapped him and put him in Mexico. That matched the story. The bartender with the U Haul, Miguel Bustamante, had told detectives Browning and Men when he was arrested a month after Cliff's disappearance.

[Frank Browning]

Cliff Plumber. He's in Mexico.

[Lester Holt]

Prosecutor Lisa Di Maria says that story changed a few weeks later after Bustamani started getting the side eye from other inmates at the Riverside County Jail.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Miguel Bustamante, being the pretty boy that he was, was not used to jail. And when he walked into that holding tank, everybody gave him the once over. Who are you? Let me see your papers. And he got scared. That's when one of the OG saw Bustamante nervous, and he said, basically, you better get in my cell now if you want protection. So he went in his cell and he said, everyone could tell you're not from around here. Who are you, what are you doing here, and what are you in for?

[Lester Holt]

And Bustamante, perhaps wanting to appear tougher than he was, said he was arrested not for burglary, which would have been the truth, but for murder.

[Lisa Di Maria]

So our inmate, who we'll say is a bit familiar with the system and.

[Lester Holt]

Knows that you have to have something to trade, something.

[Lisa Di Maria]

He had been in prison most of his life, so he knew the game.

[Lester Holt]

So it's in his interest to get as much from Bustamatti as possible.

[Lisa Di Maria]

It was in his interest.

[Lester Holt]

In a recorded interview, the informant said Bustamatti claimed he'd killed a rich guy and then buried his corpse out in the desert.

[Frank Browning]

He threw me a specific map of where the body was buried, how he stabbed him, the whole shebang, the whole story from point A to point B. Now, how did he kill him then? What did he do, stab him?

[Lisa Di Maria]

The inmate knew if he was going to the police, he needed more than his word, and he certainly didn't have a recording device. So he said to Bustamante, man, you know what? They're going to find that body if you didn't bury it deep enough. Tell you what, my boys will move the body. But if we're going to do that, you need to tell me who the players are, and you need to give me a map. Here's a pen. Here's some paper. Start writing. And he got Bustamante to write out. This was replogal, and he was acting as the attorney. And this was. And this was Nerula. And he mapped out the players on a flowchart. And at the bottom of the flowchart, he did have one bizarre name. Ricky McCain. We didn't know who Ricky McCain was then. On a separate piece of paper, he drew a map of where the inmates, boys were supposed to go and dig up the body and get rid of it for good.

[Lester Holt]

The map Bustamatti drew was rich in detail, but except for the main highway, U.S. 101, none of the roads pictured were named. And with only those vague details to go on, investigators started looking for Cliff Lambert's body.

[Frank Browning]

We went just about up and down the state trying to figure out this map on where the body's at.

[Lester Holt]

The map's not exactly accurate. But you think that's because Bustamani just got it wrong. He's not deliberately trying to throw you off.

[Frank Browning]

Correct.

[Lester Holt]

Then one day, while driving this stretch of I5 north of Los Angeles, they saw a runaway truck ramp, exactly as depicted on the map, with instructions to take the next exit.

[Frank Browning]

So we took this exit, drove all the way down to the end of it, and we started digging there.

[Lester Holt]

And they found nobody. Maybe it's all a fantasy.

[Frank Browning]

No, the map was too detailed. We just didn't get that lucky.

[Lester Holt]

It sounds like you're at about the point of believing that maybe you haven't found him yet. But Cliff Lambert's dead.

[Frank Browning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

Two months after Eddie reported him missing, investigators were now convinced Cliff was dead, murdered at his Palm Springs home, a victim of some elaborate criminal conspiracy. Now the hunt was on for four more bodies that were very much alive. Kashon, Danny, their lawyer, David. And whoever this guy Ricky McKean was.

[Lisa Di Maria]

We could not link that name to anything.

[Eddie Mullikan]

I'm Julio Vaqueiro, anchor of Noticias Telemundo. You can watch Dateline, the hit true crime series on Telemundo. And now you can listen to Dateline as a podcast. Stories of love and betrayal, of secrets revealed of the men and women who stand between evil and justice. Every twist and turn can now be heard in Spanish, with new mysteries arriving every week. Just search Dateline en Espanol, wherever you get your podcasts and start listening.

[Lester Holt]

Miguel Bustamari's jailhouse confession to an informant had convinced investigators that Cliff Lambert was not being held against his will in Mexico as part of some elaborate shakedown, but in fact, had been murdered right in his own home. You were pretty sure by then that Cliff Lambert was no longer alive?

[Lisa Di Maria]

Oh, absolutely, with all the evidence I had. But I needed to prove it. It's one thing for me to believe it. It's another thing to be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, because.

[Lester Holt]

Some defense attorney is going to say at some point, the prosecution can't even prove that Cliff Lammer is not going to walk into the courtroom in the next five minutes and say, what's all the fuss about?

[Lisa Di Maria]

Exactly.

[Lester Holt]

So as the investigators continue to search for Cliff's body, prosecutor Lisa Di Maria finally had Kishal Narula and his attorney, David Replogle, arrested on fraud charges for illegally trying to sell Cliff's house. The two were taken into custody at the San Francisco courthouse after one of Kashal's hearings on that $300,000 jewelry heist. The attorney's involvement was established when his thumbprint was found next to a forged signature of Cliff's in a notary book connected to the sale of Cliff's home. At first, attorney Replogle said he. He knew nothing about any of this.

[Frank Browning]

You're putting me in a difficult situation. I don't know what's going on.

[Lester Holt]

He quickly changed his story after detective Browning told him that he, the attorney, would be facing charges far more serious than fraud.

[Frank Browning]

You guys didn't know? I'll get wrapped up for murder. What?

[Lester Holt]

Suddenly, the attorney admitted Cliff Lambert was dead, but he said it wasn't murder.

[Frank Browning]

They didn't tell me the how. Then I heard that there was an accident or somebody did something to him and he was dead. Who was they? Miguel Kishal. Who? Would you like me to sit? How you doing? Okay. I don't know what this is all about. Would you like to know? Yes.

[Lester Holt]

The spotlight shifted to Kashaw, the self coronated prince, who, when confronted by detective Browning, denied almost everything.

[Frank Browning]

How did David have Lambert's ID card? I have no idea. To get the stuff notarized. I have no idea.

[Lester Holt]

As he was speaking with Kashal in person for the first time, Detective Browning realized he'd heard that voice before. It had been on Cliff Lambert's answering machine.

[Frank Browning]

Hi, Mr. Lambert. This is Samuel Oren calling you. I don't know what happened, Detective. I'm telling you the truth. That voice was just a striking resemblance of him.

[Lester Holt]

So that's a big moment when Kishal opens his mouth and you realize he's the voice on Cliff Lambert's answering machine.

[Frank Browning]

Yes. Posing to be an attorney out of New York with inheritance from.

[Lester Holt]

So Browning pressed Kashal about posing as that lawyer.

[Frank Browning]

Now, you called Lambert several times. He left horse mills on his action machines where you messed up. And you were posing to be an attorney. Okay. Why? No, because. Don't lie. Okay. At all. You're at Ding's posing as an attorney. No, but I didn't pose as an attorney. You didn't pose an attorney? Don't lie. You're digging yourself a deep hole when you lie, man. He introduced me to his friends as an attorney. He was a very difficult interview. Spoke in circles. Never wanted to admit nothing about Mr. Lambert. Other than the fact that he had a settlement agreement for him to sign that republic put together for him. No, I signed the document. And then.

[Lester Holt]

So Browning told Kashal exactly what investigators knew about his involvement in Cliff's presumed death and what was going to happen next.

[Frank Browning]

You were the last person to see him. I'm going to go Back to the DA's office this week, and I'm going to ask for murder charges. Excuse me. Yes.

[Lester Holt]

As he put handcuffs on, Kashal, Browning handed out one piece of advice and.

[Frank Browning]

Talk to your attorney. Ask him what the penalty is for premeditated murder.

[Lester Holt]

With the maxes in California, the answer in 2008 was the death penalty. After hearing about impending murder charges, Kishal Nerula made a phone call. It wasn't to an attorney. It was to Danny Garcia.

[Frank Browning]

Hello? Hello? Where are you? I'm at my apartment. Go.

[Lester Holt]

In other words, start running. Which Danny did. It was his cell phone that gave him away.

[Frank Browning]

We actually had a team of investigators locate him in Sacramento and arrest him. Hiding in the closet, a bunch of computer information. So many computers, so many hard drives, cell phones. This guy could open up his own electronic shop with the amount of electronic devices that he was in possession at the time.

[Lester Holt]

Rather than wait for Cliff's corpse to surface, Di Maria made a bold move and without a body, filed murder charges against Garcia, Nerula, Replogal and Bustamante. Tell me the challenges presented with a.

[Lisa Di Maria]

No body case, in addition to having to prove that he's dead. We have no forensic evidence that can lead to the cause of death. That could lead to a weapon which could potentially lead us to suspects.

[Lester Holt]

All of that are reasons why nobody. Cases are hard to win and maybe sometimes not broad.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Absolutely. It's a whole different challenge.

[Lester Holt]

Adding to the confusion, investigators couldn't find Ricky McCain, the last guy named on the list of co conspirators Bustamante had given to the informant.

[Lisa Di Maria]

And we never knew who Ricky McCain was, and we could not link that name to anything.

[Lester Holt]

That was until about six months into the investigation when Bustamante's girlfriend told Browning and Mann that she and Bustamani shared their apartment with a third roommate.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Craig McCarthy. And I went McCain, McCarthy. We need to find McCarthy.

[Lester Holt]

Craig McCarthy was an ex Marine with no criminal record. He was working and going to school in San Francisco when he was brought in for questioning.

[Frank Browning]

Be honest and tell me from the get go how you ended up in Palm Springs.

[Lester Holt]

McCarthy said he took a short trip to Palm Springs the previous December with Bustamante only after Bustamante said he'd pick up the tab.

[Frank Browning]

He told me, you were just supposed to go down there and kick it. He's supposed to go down there and help out a friend. Initially, that's what he said, and we're just gonna have fun.

[Lester Holt]

Then, without explaining the how, what, and why of it all, McCarthy said he found himself inside Cliff Lambert's kitchen with Bustamante and Kishal Nerula, when, seemingly to everyone's surprise, Cliff Lambert walked in.

[Frank Browning]

Lily, I literally hear him go, what are you doing here?

[Lester Holt]

What?

[Frank Browning]

What the hell's going on?

[Lester Holt]

Soon, investigators would take Craig McCarthy back to Cliff's house, where he would give them a harrowing description and a recreation of exactly what happened on the night when everything changed, when a crazy plan became real.

[Frank Browning]

What is Coach saying right now?

[Lester Holt]

Because, like, what do you guys want? Investigators had finally found someone who was willing to tell them what exactly happened to Cliff Lambert. That person was Craig McCarthy. And on a desert hot day in July, they brought McCarthy back to Cliff's house and recorded his detailed account of how Cliff Lambert's life came to an abrupt end. The ex marine's story began the night before the murder.

[Frank Browning]

You guys come in the garage.

[Lester Holt]

McCarthy said the plan was to hide in Cliff's garage, then jump him when he returned from his dinner meeting with Kishan.

[Frank Browning]

We were supposed to get out.

[Lester Holt]

McCarthy admits he lost his nerve.

[Frank Browning]

I don't want to go through it.

[Tyson Wrench]

Because I know we gotta go through it.

[Frank Browning]

Okay.

[Lester Holt]

McCarthy said nothing about Dennis Dominey's flashing car lights or loud metal music. And despite his moral concerns, McCarthy said he and Bustamante came back the following night to take another crack at killing cliff. McCarthy said Kashal, still posing as that British lawyer, had convinced Cliff to let him come over to his home under the pretext that Cliff needed to sign some legal documents regarding that art collection Cliff supposedly stood to inherit. McCarthy said during that entire time, he and Bustamante were waiting outside this door.

[Tyson Wrench]

So we waited right here.

[Lester Holt]

Inside, Kashal and Cliff had cocktails and a smoke. Then Kashal excused himself, saying he needed to use the bathroom. McCarthy and Bustamante then crept into Cliff's kitchen, where they grabbed two murder weapons out of Cliff Lambert's kitchen knife block. In his reenactment video, Craig McCarthy picks up the story from when Cliff entered the kitchen.

[Frank Browning]

Go ahead, show me. Show me how you did.

[Lester Holt]

Then, as if he was reliving the experience, McCarthy reenacted in horrific detail his version of Cliff Lambert's murder.

[Frank Browning]

What is Coach saying right now, Chris?

[Lester Holt]

Like, what do you guys want? What do you want?

[Frank Browning]

And you have a nice deer store right here. I have it right here. Okay.

[Lester Holt]

And Miguel's like, you know what? What?

[Frank Browning]

This is about where's Miguel now?

[Eddie Mullikan]

He's right here.

[Lester Holt]

Okay? He's like, you know what this is about? So I look at Cliff. Now look back at him. Just like he says, move.

[Tyson Wrench]

So I do like this, and I just step back.

[Frank Browning]

That's when we came. Miguel came from there. How many knives did he have? He had the one at first. When you struck the first time, initially.

[Lester Holt]

It was here, somewhere here.

[Tyson Wrench]

Chris said, ah, ended like that. And he did that.

[Lester Holt]

Miguel looked at me, waiting for the next one to sit. Quickly reached over, grabs another one.

[Frank Browning]

So now Clayton hunched over here, and.

[Tyson Wrench]

He just went over and he just started stabbing.

[Frank Browning]

And where are you?

[Lester Holt]

Right here.

[Tyson Wrench]

He's still standing there, just stepping there.

[Lester Holt]

That's when McCarthy and Bustamatti moved Cliff's body to the trunk of his silver Mercedes Benz. Then they took Cliff Lambert on his last ride out to the desert. And a hole in the ground. After McCarthy told his tale, crime scene investigators were called in. But Cliff's house had been so thoroughly scrubbed clean, CSIs could find no sign among murder had ever been committed there. While McCarthy's on camera confession was damning evidence against Kashaw and Bustamante, it was not for Danny Garcia. If anything, McCarthy corroborated Danny's story that he was nowhere near Palm Springs when Cliff Lambert was murdered. That was true. He wasn't there. What incriminated Danny Garcia was cell phone data.

[Lisa Di Maria]

This was the first case where downloading text messages were ever used to solve a murder.

[Lester Holt]

In 2008, when Cliff Lambert was murdered, the vast majority of the public still used a flip phone. Texting wasn't a thing yet, except for those who saw themselves as trendsetters. People like Kishal Naru and Danny Garcia. Hip, stylish, and armed with iPhones. It was something prosecutor Lisa Di Maria had never encountered on a case.

[Lisa Di Maria]

It was the iPhone 3, first generation.

[Lester Holt]

The question was, once investigators had Danny and Kashal's devices, what to do with them.

[Lisa Di Maria]

The iPhone technology was so brand new that the forensic tools that we use now weren't even in place at the time. To download these phones, I didn't know what an app was. I didn't know the difference between downloading a phone or getting records on cell tower sites.

[Lester Holt]

So Di Maria found a hacker to work with Detective Min and crack open Danny's phone. They wanted to see if there was anything there that might connect Danny to Cliff's murder. And when the hacker finally got inside that phone, Min couldn't believe what he saw. Text messages. Tens of thousands of them.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Overall, we had a full set of.

[Frank Browning]

32,000 messages that were not deleted on that phone, many of which were dubbed Operation cl. There were mentions of Cliff Lambert's home address, banking information.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Based on text messages that were recovered, they believed that Clifford Lambert was worth $68 million. So there were a lot of messages that on their face, didn't scream, we just killed Clifford Lambert. But when you put the text messages together with other evidence, they painted the picture, they were inculpatory, they made sense.

[Lester Holt]

And Di Maria said there was one text the night of the murder from Kashal to Bustamante that did come awfully close to admitting they'd killed Cliff.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Do it now. Stab with a knife.

[Lester Holt]

Di Maria said another incriminating text was one sent from Danny to Kashaw shortly after Cliff's killing.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Did you make sure to clean up even the Benson and Hedges? And now knowing that Eddie Mullikin saw Benson and Hedges on the table that directly linked Nerula to having been in the house.

[Lester Holt]

Di Maria's overall take on those texts is that Danny and Kishal were acting as if they were the leads in some Ocean's Eleven remake.

[Lisa Di Maria]

I believe they loved the cat and mouse of it all. I believed they loved the drama. The text messages were always, call me now. Operation Cl is a go. Are we ready on Operation cl? CL for Clifford Lambert. They were self important because they weren't important. They were no one. But they wanted to be someone. So this whole entire thing was a drawn out drama that they were living in.

[Lester Holt]

That drama followed them from the crime scene to the courtroom. That's where Danny and Kishal would run their biggest con yet, turning the criminal justice system inside out. The stakes were their lives, and one of them was going after the prosecutor herself.

[Lisa Di Maria]

They came after me in death threats. Oh, yeah, I got death threats in this case.

[Lester Holt]

Mazda.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Once you Discover the Mazda CX90 Plug in Hybrid Mazda, it doesn't take long to get it. With three rows, a luxurious interior and the ability to go all electric, it's flexible enough for nearly any journey. It will have you saying Mazda. The Mazda CX90 plug in hybrid. It's made to move you.

[Lester Holt]

Every Mazda SUV offers you an elevated driving experience and refined performance. Discover it at your local Mazda dealer today. The Lambert case involved so many schemes, cons, grifts, lies and betrayals that as she prepared for trial, prosecutor Lisa Di Maria had trouble figuring out which characters and crimes factored into Cliff Lambert's murder and which did not.

[Lisa Di Maria]

It was like Alice in Wonderland falling into A rabbit hole. It took months of me eating, living, sleeping, breathing this case to sort it all out. My life was this case.

[Lester Holt]

That very line could also have been uttered by Danny and Kashal, who were representing themselves and relentlessly bombarding the court with one pretrial motion after another. Danny Garcia and Kishal Nerula decided to represent themselves. Why'd they do that?

[Lisa Di Maria]

They represented themselves after they went through nine different tax paid for attorneys from the county. We went to court on this case 128 times before we ever went to trial in a period of two years.

[Lester Holt]

And why was that?

[Lisa Di Maria]

Because the defendants are con artists and they con to the court because time's.

[Lester Holt]

On their side, not on your side. That's their thinking.

[Lisa Di Maria]

I have no idea what their thinking was.

[Lester Holt]

No matter how many pretrial motions were filed, the prosecution had a strong case. It included Craig McCarthy's recorded confession, which earned him a plea deal of 25 years in prison. And sure enough, the first two defendants, Miguel Bustamante and David Replogo, who were tried together, were quickly convicted of first degree murder. Replogle because his thumbprint was found next to a forged signature of Cliff's. And Bustamante because of Craig McCarthy's testimony that he, Bustamante, was the one who'd stabbed Cliff to death. However, neither was as gifted at double talk as Danny and Kishan. And of course, Cliff's body had not been found. So Di Maria worried the pair might just have it in them to con the jury into believing they were innocent businessmen railroaded by a confused and overzealous prosecutor in over her head. Which is exactly what they tried to do even before jurors took their seats.

[Lisa Di Maria]

And right when the last juror walks into the jury box, the very last person behind him says to me, are you Lisa Di Maria? I said, yes, I am. He says, you've been served. And he hands me a lawsuit right in front of the jury, minutes before I'm supposed to give opening statement.

[Lester Holt]

The lawsuit accused Di Maria of prosecutorial misconduct.

[Lisa Di Maria]

None of it, which was sustained. I had to testify and get cross examined by Garcia and Nerula. I don't know of any district attorney ever being cross examined by the defendants. They are prosecuting for murder.

[Lester Holt]

And all of it went nowhere.

[Lisa Di Maria]

All of it went nowhere. I never committed misconduct. It was smokescreen.

[Lester Holt]

Then came the death threats.

[Lisa Di Maria]

I got death threats in this case from informants from the jail who would.

[Lester Holt]

Say to you, hey, by the way, they're talking about killing you.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Narula's talking about killing you.

[Lester Holt]

Were you ever actually in fear for your life?

[Lisa Di Maria]

At one point, I went and stayed in a hotel in San Diego. They had killed. I did not want to be the next.

[Lester Holt]

In his opening statement, Kashal said the texts found on his phone were planted by police. Remember, the same detectives told us they'd never seen an iPhone before? Oh, I can assure you it's not an explanation.

[Frank Browning]

It is a fact that those text messages, or forged, planted, fabricated for a very specific reason and a very specific purpose.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Plato once said, to deceive is to enchant.

[Lester Holt]

Danny, in his opening, told the jury it was laughable to think he was the head of some sort of criminal conspiracy.

[Eddie Mullikan]

You heard that?

[Frank Browning]

This is like something out of a.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Hollywood script or the mind of Marcus Scorsese.

[Lester Holt]

I don't know if that's supposed to.

[Frank Browning]

Make me the gay godfather or what.

[Eddie Mullikan]

But you will see a very different.

[Frank Browning]

Version of me than what's been portrayed.

[Lester Holt]

The heart of both defenses was that Cliff Lambert was still alive and living it up somewhere in the tropics. Lisa Di Maria said that's nonsense. Emails Cliff supposedly sent to his friends from Hawaii were really sent by Danny, who had hacked into Cliff's computer.

[Lisa Di Maria]

I was able to prove he was no longer alive several ways. Activities that people do in normal life don't just cease to exist. People don't just stop living.

[Lester Holt]

As far as DeMaria could tell, Danny and Kashawn were only out to wear down the judge, the jury, and her in hopes a mistake would be made and a mistrial declared.

[Lisa Di Maria]

They made a mockery of the court system.

[Lester Holt]

One thing they did was first point fingers at each other and then, weirdly, at themselves.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Nerula testified that Danny Garcia was not involved, and he planted all of the evidence on Danny Garcia. And then he refused to sit for cross examination. At which point Danny Garcia was moved for a mistrial, and then Nerula wanted a mistrial. The whole thing was designed to get the case tossed out.

[Lester Holt]

In the midst of this circus, the judge gave Danny, who is a computer Whiz, a new MacBook to help him organize his case files. Were you okay with that?

[Lisa Di Maria]

I was not okay with that. Giving Danny Garcia a laptop is like giving a sharpshooter a rifle. It was the weapon of his crime.

[Lester Holt]

One she says Danny was adept at wielding. As soon as he got his MacBook, he used it to secretly record audio in court, which is illegal. He was caught doing so, but was allowed to keep using his computer. The most damning evidence against Danny were those thousands of Text messages in which he appears to be calling the shots on Operation Cl for Kashal. It was Craig McCarthy's testimony placing him in Cliff's house on the night of the murder. After six months of testimony, the case made it to closing arguments without cratering into a mistrial. And after silently watching this extended run of the Danny and Kashal show, jurors were finally able to give their review of the performance.

[Eddie Mullikan]

We, the jury, find the defendant guilty.

[Lester Holt]

Of first degree murder of Clifford Lambert.

[Frank Browning]

As charged in count one.

[Lester Holt]

Kashal nodded and smiled. Danny shed a tear.

[Lisa Di Maria]

And I'm thinking, they've been found guilty, they've been sentenced to life, and they are finally out of my mind.

[Lester Holt]

It was over, right? Wrong. Because Danny still had one last play to make. A big one.

[Lisa Di Maria]

I felt probably the way Lambert did when he had the knife shoved into his back.

[Lester Holt]

The trial judge had warned Danny not to use his MacBook as an illegal recording device. That warning apparently meant little to Danny, who midway through the trial recorded some private conversations at times when court was not in session. Those were off the cuff chats between the judge and his clerk. In one of those, the judge said this about Kishal Nerula's penchant for filing multiple legal motions in the sealed envelopes.

[Eddie Mullikan]

He likes licking envelopes.

[Frank Browning]

Oh, gross. He's HIV positive. He is HIV positive.

[Lester Holt]

Yeah.

[Frank Browning]

God knows where his tongue has been.

[Lester Holt]

Danny secretly and illegally recorded that conversation, though neither the legality nor the irony of that mattered. Yes, you, Honor, what did matter was that the bias, perhaps suggested by the judge's off color commentary, resulted in the convictions of Kashal, Danny, David Raplogo and Miguel Bustamante all being overturned. And just like that, the three plus years Lisa Di Maria put in on this career capping case were undone. That had to be A, pretty shocking and B, pretty disappointing.

[Lisa Di Maria]

I felt probably the way Lambert did when he had the knife shoved into his back. All of those years that I dedicated to getting justice for Lambert out the window. One of the most upsetting days of my life. The absolute most upsetting day of my career.

[Lester Holt]

It was a victory for Danny and Kashal, who were granted new trials along with Replogle and Bustamante. This time, Lisa Di Maria would as to why that was, DeMaria would only tell me this.

[Lisa Di Maria]

I'm not at liberty to comment on the inner workings of my office.

[Lester Holt]

Her files were handed over to Deputy DA Robert Hightower, who knew very little about the Cliff Lambert saga. You sort of inherited this case. I did something you were Happy to inherit. It was exciting. It was a challenge, that's for sure. And I remember calling my paralegal and saying, you need to order the file. And she called me back about an hour later and said, it needs its own office. In September 2020, just days before the first of the four retrials was to get underway, the ghost of Cliff Lambert made a surprise guest appearance. A skull and jawbone, which had actually been found years earlier in the high desert north north of la, were now identified as Cliff's remains. The timing couldn't have been better. That really changed not only the dynamic of the case, but the trajectory of it as well. So now you don't have to prove he's dead. Correct. Which made things easier. How far was the area where the remains were found from the map originally drawn by Miguel Bustamante? As the crow flies, about a mile and a half. Eddie, who had never stopped hoping Cliff would one day reappear with a wonderful story to tell, heard the news on the road between LA and Palm Springs.

[Eddie Mullikan]

One of my friends called and said, cliff's dead. I just want you to know because I didn't want you to read it in the paper and be alone.

[Lester Holt]

And it was tough to hear.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Yeah. So the drive home was really long.

[Lester Holt]

As evidence, Cliff's skull and jawbone were only helpful to a point. Yes, they proved Cliff was dead, but not how he died. That was still a mystery. In the new round of trials, the defendants went one after the other. David Replogle was up first. It was 12 years after his first trial, and that is plenty of time for witnesses to have died or memories to have faded. Well, not Eddie Mullikins. He came to court and testified exactly as he had 12 years earlier. And then there was a Covid outbreak. It was beyond challenging. We had, obviously, the jury of 12, and we had, I want to say, 10 alternates, and we lost almost all of them. Throughout the course of the trial. Hightower was just one Covid case away from a mistrial. But the final jurors made it through the closings and were quick to arrive at a verdict.

[Frank Browning]

We the jury, find the defendant, David Rapovo, guilty. Murder in the first degree.

[Lester Holt]

One down, three to go. Next up was Bustamante. Again. Again, Eddie testified. And again the trial seemed to go smoothly until the case went to the jury. Deliberations went on for days, and that made prosecutor Hightower very nervous. When you go to sleep at night, you can't help but think, oh, my God, I've screwed this up.

[Frank Browning]

Right.

[Lester Holt]

Right. And you Worry. Bustamatti's jury deliberated for nine days before arriving at this verdict. Guilty of birth giving murder of Clifford Amber. Two down, two to go. And then before the next trial could get underway, Hightower learned of one more murder connected to the Lambert case. This one involving someone he knew. Well, I'll be honest, at first I didn't believe it. And then when we came to learn that he had been murdered, it was an emotional, emotional moment, I think, for everybody to learn that the whole Cliff Lambert case was a snake pit of grifts and cons. The poisonous, the deadly, the devious, all twined and twisted together, which made for long, complicated trials as prosecutors unraveled those lies in front of juries. Now, before we tell you how the case is concluded, we need to tell you about some lies that were not presented in court. Because those lies were told by Cliff Lambert himself. Remember, the accused grifters weren't just after Cliff's cash, but also artwork worth millions. Paintings like the ones Danny was said to have lifted from Cliff's home. Dennis Dominey said Danny took those works to an art dealer in San Francisco who, before putting them up for sale, sent them paintings out for appraisal. Analyze them, they're like, yeah, these are replicas and they're worthless. So Danny steals paintings off of Cliff's wall. Yeah. And gets them assessed. And they're fake. Yeah. So then why would the wealthy, Rolls Royce driving party throwing, high society art collector Cliff Lambert have forged paintings hanging on his walls? Well, according to Di Maria, maybe because that's the only kind of artwork Cliff could afford. Were any of the pieces that Cliff Lambert boasted about being actual paintings from famous artists? Any of that true?

[Lisa Di Maria]

We have no evidence that he had authentic original pieces of art.

[Lester Holt]

It appears Cliff was passing off the reproductions sold at his gallery as originals to fool his friends and his dates into thinking he was a lot wealthier than he actually was. And the tens of millions in cash Cliff had stashed away. Dennis told us Danny hacked into Cliff's bank account and found Almost nothing like 18 grand in the account. In truth, on the day Cliff Lambert was murdered, he was nearly broke. The biggest thing he had to lose was his life.

[Lisa Di Maria]

I think, unfortunately, the Persona that he exuded is what got him killed. I fully believe he'd be alive if he wasn't so boastful.

[Lester Holt]

Barbara Wisby says she knew all along Cliff was playing a risky game, inviting strangers he met on the Internet into his home.

[Frank Browning]

It's dangerous because you don't know whether the kid he's flying in is a psycho.

[Lester Holt]

You don't know anything. I was dumbfounded. I thought he was smarter than that. It was as epically evil as it was epically foolish. An eight month long grift that ended with the brutal murder of a lonely man in order to steal a fortune that wasn't there. The next weird twist in a story packed with them involves Kashal Nerula, the prince. On September 6, 2022, just before he was to be retried for the murder of Cliff Lambert, Kishal Nerula was himself murdered in the county lockup, beaten to death by his cellmate. Lt. Frank Browning. Heard it was a familiar part of Kashal's demeanor. Demeanor that provoked his killer.

[Frank Browning]

My understanding is because he wouldn't stop talking.

[Lester Holt]

If Danny was broken up about the death of his con artist sidekick, he didn't show it. If anything, by the time he went to court, Danny treated Kashal's murder as if it were the luckiest of breaks. Because he now had the perfect defense. All the crimes he was accused of were really done by Kashaw. Mr. Garcia had nothing to do with Lampert's murder. Mr. Garcia was nowhere near the scene of Mr. Lampert's murder when it took place. Count one is murder. DA Rob Hightower said Danny was trying to blame the newly deceased Kishal Nerula for everything. Narula is easy because Narula is dead. It is time that the con stops and this defendant is held responsible for what he did and what he offered, orchestrated. After closing arguments, Hightower felt he had Danny nailed. I thought we had demonstrated for the jury an entire picture of how this came together. After less than a day, jurors delivered their verdict.

[Frank Browning]

We, the jury, find the defendant, Daniel Carlos Garcia, guilty of first degree murder of Clifford L.

[Lester Holt]

It was a clean sweep for prosecutors. Danny Garcia, David Replogo and Miguel Bustamante were all sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Cliff Lambert. All are appealing their convictions.

[Eddie Mullikan]

This is all for Cliff.

[Lester Holt]

It is entirely possible Danny and the rest would have gotten away with Cliff's murder were it not for Eddie Mullikan, who was called to testify over and over and over again.

[Eddie Mullikan]

But I'm just going to keep doing this until it's done because Cliff's my friend and I love him.

[Lester Holt]

Eddie Mullikan set this 15 year long case into motion the night he dropped by Cliff's house simply because he was worried about his friend. You're one of the few people in this story who didn't take advantage of Cliff.

[Eddie Mullikan]

I could, but I didn't because I'm just not that guy. He was my best friend. It was a fun ride. That's why I wanted to hang out with him all the time.

[Lester Holt]

There is a granite wall at the Riverside County DA's office with the names of all the murder cases they've prosecuted. That's Cliff's name up there near the top, beyond anyone's reach. Untouchable.

[Eddie Mullikan]

Cliff would talk about his death and he said, eddie, when all is said and done in this life, none of this is worth anything. I hope when I get old, I can be as much fun as him and as insightful as him.

[Lester Holt]

That's all for this edition of dateline, and check out our talking Dateline podcast. Josh Mankiewicz and I will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed. Wherever you get your podcasts, we'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 Central. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC news, good night.

[Lisa Di Maria]

Mazda Once you discover the Mazda CX90 Mazda, it doesn't take long to get it. With three row seating and safety features like radar, cruise control and rear cross traffic alert to carry you and your peace of mind, it will have you saying Mazda. The Mazda CX90. It's made to move you.

[Lester Holt]

Every Mazda SUV offers you an elevated driving experience and refined performance. Discover it at your local Mazda dealer today.