The Plot Thickens

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Speaker 6 You know when they tell you your life passes before your eyes? You think about about everything that happened in your life and you wonder, am I ready to die?

Speaker 7 He was a Hollywood stunt man, but this was no Hollywood stunt.

Speaker 8 This was a hit.

Speaker 7 Shot four times and left dying on the floor.

Speaker 10 Somebody definitely wanted him dead.

Speaker 7 Will you be able to solve the mystery of who wanted him dead and why? You'll meet lots of possible suspects.

Speaker 9 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 7 Including his ex-wife, an actress once married to movie mobster Joe Pesci.

Speaker 13 But she had a strong alibi.

Speaker 10 Do you know who shot Garrett Warren?

Speaker 14 I don't know.

Speaker 7 And that's only the start of the twists in this Hollywood mystery.

Speaker 8 This is one of those stranger-than-fiction kind of things. Certainly, nobody would write a script like this.

Speaker 7 The most stunning twist of all was what didn't happen.

Speaker 6 My mom said to me, Don't you die

Speaker 6 that hit me harder than the bullets. My mom never swore.

Speaker 7 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Tonight, as they say in Hollywood, the plot thickens.
Here's Josh Mankowitz.

Speaker 8 Ready?

Speaker 18 Ah!

Speaker 19 Action!

Speaker 18 Action! Action!

Speaker 21 It ranks second only to money

Speaker 22 as the single most important word in Hollywood.

Speaker 22 And in L.A., where life and art are often the same thing,

Speaker 24 there's a real-life drama that rivals any action movie with a plot that includes all the elements of classic film noir.

Speaker 23 A mystery featuring an assassin, a femme fatale, a Hollywood star,

Speaker 4 and a stuntman who takes the fall.

Speaker 4 And as for the money, we'll get to that.

Speaker 29 Let's start with the biggest name on the marquee, Joe Pesci, famous for his roles as a cold-blooded killer.

Speaker 23 This drama would co-star Pesci's ex-wife, Claudia Harrow, a model and actress who appeared along with Pesci in the gangster film Casino.

Speaker 16 The supporting cast includes Claudia's brother, Manny Harrow, not an actor, but an actual tough guy who did time in prison and who harbors a terrible secret in his past.

Speaker 36 And finally, Claudia's second husband, Garrett Warren, a Hollywood stuntman and martial arts expert, a man very familiar with danger.

Speaker 26 Fade in.

Speaker 16 Early evening, in the quiet town of Westlake Village, California, outside of L.A.

Speaker 12 Stuntman Garrett Warren heard a knock on his door and a voice on the other side asking about about his new silver Volvo parked in the driveway.

Speaker 8 Garrett answered, Then comes our first plot twist.

Speaker 38 Three shots into his body.

Speaker 27 One more into Garrett's right eye.

Speaker 2 The daredevil's luck had run out.

Speaker 42 I called and his mother answered the phone.

Speaker 1 screaming, crying,

Speaker 42 just distraught. Wally, Wally, you're not going to believe what happened.

Speaker 8 What?

Speaker 42 You know, Garrett's been shot.

Speaker 15 Wally Crowder was a fellow stunt man and Garrett's good friend.

Speaker 42 Garrett was one of those men that you could count on. You hear in life that you're very lucky if you have five friends or you can count a friend on one hand.
Garrett was that friend to me.

Speaker 2 Wally's been in the business for more than 40 years.

Speaker 42 Garrett Warren was probably the finest fight man

Speaker 42 you could ask for. I had hired him on several shows, got to know him, watched his expertise, phenomenal athlete, stuntman.

Speaker 23 You've probably seen Garrett Warren's work.

Speaker 12 You just didn't know it.

Speaker 24 In Charlie's Angels, doing a spin with Lucy Liu

Speaker 48 and doubling for Jean-Claude Van Damme in double team.

Speaker 47 during an explosion.

Speaker 16 But his friend Wally says Garrett's personality was not what you might expect.

Speaker 42 Garrett was a very focused individual. People think of stuntmen as, oh, daredevils, crazy people.
That's the last person I want on my job. I want the very best at what they do.

Speaker 50 But towards the end of 1997, Wally says that focus shifted the minute Garrett Warren met Claudia Harrow.

Speaker 42 Beautiful, beautiful woman. We just wanted Garrett to be happy.
He had found somebody that he seemed like he genuinely loved and wanted to start a life with.

Speaker 51 There was something special about her. I think people who got to know her, she just has a beautiful soul.
And I think men were attracted to that as much as to her beauty.

Speaker 49 Claudia's good friend Julie Ariskog remembers when Claudia and Garrett first got together.

Speaker 24 One day she says to you, I met this guy.

Speaker 51 Yes. And she was very excited.
I was always a big fan of Garrett's. He was sweet, he was funny, and she just seemed so happy with him.

Speaker 51 And, you know, I should say, actually, Joe and I both were very supportive.

Speaker 13 By Joe, she is referring to Claudia's ex-husband, a character actor who became a star by playing Mafia Tough Guys, Joe Pesci.

Speaker 30 It sounds like her marriage to Joe Pesci didn't end badly.

Speaker 51 Not at all. Not at all.
They're like family. You know, they're very, very close.

Speaker 29 Claudia stayed close to Joe Pesci even after she started dating Garrett, who came from a different part of the movie business.

Speaker 26 Garrett loved action and adventure, but when he met Claudia, he was ready to settle down.

Speaker 42 We felt that this would be the gal that Garrett would end up with. No more dating, no more running around.
I'm going to end up with Claudia.

Speaker 49 Garrett and Claudia were married less than a year after they met.

Speaker 51 In the beginning, I think it was a very good relationship.

Speaker 18 Oh,

Speaker 9 my gosh.

Speaker 31 They soon had a beautiful daughter, Kyla.

Speaker 9 Look at the hairdo.

Speaker 17 The new couple enjoyed being parents.

Speaker 54 I love you guys.

Speaker 44 But happy scenes like this one did not last.

Speaker 17 Claudia and Garrett couldn't make it work.

Speaker 51 It was a series of events. It just wasn't the right marriage.

Speaker 50 Once the relationship started going south, it went fast.

Speaker 55 Less than two years after their wedding, Claudia and Garrett split up for good.

Speaker 51 Divorce is never easy, but in the long run, it was two parents trying to figure out a way to live and both see their children.

Speaker 13 Garrett went back to his old life as a stunt man, back to the set and the world of make-believe.

Speaker 15 So then how did his life go from playing dead to bleeding out on the floor of his home, shot four times at close range?

Speaker 10 Somebody definitely wanted him hurt or dead at that time.

Speaker 26 Okay, but who?

Speaker 37 Mark Gaiman, then a detective with the L.A.

Speaker 46 County Sheriff's Department, said investigators looked at every angle.

Speaker 46 Remembering how the gunman at first asked Garrett about his brand new Volvo, they wondered if this could be Road Rage, someone Garrett had tangled with on one of L.A.'s freeways.

Speaker 49 Mr. Warren is a stuntman.

Speaker 24 Yes. I'm guessing maybe he doesn't always drive the speed limit or use his blinker when it's time to change lanes.

Speaker 10 That could be possible.

Speaker 16 Or it could be personal.

Speaker 10 Could have been an ex-business partner, or if it was somebody he was dating that was jealous, maybe an ex-husband or an ex-boyfriend. There was an array of possibles on who could have done this.

Speaker 46 Possibilities that led from the bloody crime scene to the bright lights of the movie business, all the way to the parts of L.A.

Speaker 17 that the tourists never see.

Speaker 7 So who did want Garrett Warren dead? There seemed to be an entire cast of suspects.

Speaker 7 Detectives especially wanted to talk to to Garrett's ex-wife, Claudia, when we returned, getting ready to say goodbye to a friend.

Speaker 42 I'm going to lose my friend. He's not going to make it.

Speaker 7 And you should get ready to be amazed as the plot thickens.

Speaker 26 Fade in, from Northridge Hospital, daytime.

Speaker 16 Wally Crowder rushed to the bedside of his buddy Garrett Warren, a movie stunt man who'd been shot with real-life bullets.

Speaker 42 I run into Garrett's mom and realize I'm going to lose my friend. He's not going to make it.

Speaker 15 Garrett was in critical condition.

Speaker 42 All these things run through your head, the time you spent together, the things that maybe you should have said that you didn't.

Speaker 42 It was rough.

Speaker 40 Shot three times in the body and once through the eye, all at close range.

Speaker 27 Hard to imagine anyone surviving it.

Speaker 15 Ready for our second twist?

Speaker 40 It's one that neither Garrett's family nor the gunmen saw coming.

Speaker 6 Thank God I'm still here. I mean, I was very fortunate.
I was very lucky, very blessed.

Speaker 58 To the surprise of the doctors treating him, Garrett Warren pulled through, and he lived to tell the story of the night he was almost murdered.

Speaker 38 A flashback as vivid now as it was then.

Speaker 9 Here's bullet one.

Speaker 6 To be honest with you, when a bullet hits you, you don't really know that it hits you. It's not like you see in the movies.

Speaker 6 And as I slipped to the side and it hit me center mass, it went right in front of my chest, passed by my heart, and is now stuck in my rib cage right here. It's still there.

Speaker 13 Then bullet two.

Speaker 6 So I looked down, I looked back up, and here came another one, and I slipped my head to the side. And when that happened, the bullet hit me here in the neck and went straight out my back.

Speaker 49 Bullet number three.

Speaker 6 Then I realized, okay, this is for real. So I went to close the door and he shot center mass at me.

Speaker 6 And when he did, I was turned sideways and he hit me here in the hip and it went straight out my back and past my hip. That one hurt.
You know, that one hit my bone.

Speaker 41 If that sounds gruesome, then hang on for what's next.

Speaker 6 I fell back behind my door to the ground, and then he walked in and put the gun to my head.

Speaker 6 And when the gun was placed to my head, the first thing I did was when I saw him squeeze the trigger, I flinched just like this, like a fighter would.

Speaker 6 And as I did this, the bullet hit me here in the eye, went straight through my eye, and came out my ear and got stuck in the wall behind my head.

Speaker 59 Those are some pretty good reflexes.

Speaker 43 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I mean, but if it was the Matrix, it wasn't good. You know, that's like Keanu going back and the bullet actually hitting him.
So as much as I moved, I still got hit.

Speaker 13 Somehow, the bullet that went through Garrett's head missed his brain.

Speaker 6 You know when they tell you your life passes before your eyes? It doesn't pass before your eyes. You run through it.

Speaker 6 You think about everything that happened in your life and you wonder, did I do anything wrong and did I not make up for it? Am I ready to die?

Speaker 53 At the time of the shooting, Garrett's mother was at his home helping with baby Kyla.

Speaker 27 Garrett's mother ran to see what was happening and the gunman took two shots at her, but he missed.

Speaker 35 And then, out of bullets, he fled.

Speaker 6 I looked at her and I said, you know, I love you, mom. I'll see you on the other side.

Speaker 6 My mom said to me, don't you die.

Speaker 6 I was shocked. That hit me harder than the bullets.
My mom never swore. And here she was, she shook me and she says, don't you die.
You've been a fighter all your life.

Speaker 6 Fight one more time for me. And I looked at her and I said, all right,

Speaker 6 you got it.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to go.

Speaker 6 I'll stay.

Speaker 29 As Garrett ran through his life, he looked back on his failed marriage to Claudia Harrow.

Speaker 6 It was true love. It was the things that poetry was written about, you know, the thing that movies were made of.

Speaker 57 Hi, Daddy. What's up?

Speaker 46 That brief marriage produced their daughter, Kyla.

Speaker 22 And even though the marriage didn't last, the bond both parents felt with Kyla surely did.

Speaker 6 My daughter's being born was amazing.

Speaker 16 It was the most amazing part of my life, and it's probably one of the greatest things that I can leave as my legacy i guess but when the marriage broke up there was a nasty fight over who would get custody of kyla in the midst of it claudia made perhaps the worst accusation you can make she claimed garrett had sexually molested their daughter

Speaker 30 after a thorough investigation a family court judge ruled that there was no evidence of abuse But it was shortly after that that the gunmen showed up at Garrett's home.

Speaker 26 So naturally, detectives detectives brought in Claudia for questioning.

Speaker 26 Claudia was cooperative.

Speaker 24 She didn't appear to have any ties to the shooting and she had a strong alibi for that evening.

Speaker 16 She even expressed concern for Garrett. Investigators were satisfied she wasn't involved.

Speaker 17 So they kept talking to Garrett, who'd gotten a glimpse of the man who shot him.

Speaker 6 It was very difficult to decipher what his ethnicity was because I was looking through a little peephole in my door.

Speaker 52 Not somebody you knew?

Speaker 6 No, never knew him before.

Speaker 16 As Garrett recovered from his wounds, the sheriff's department tried to piece together some theories.

Speaker 24 I'm guessing detectives asked Garrett if he was carrying on with somebody else's wife or girlfriend.

Speaker 10 Yes, everything was being looked at in his life and his lifestyle, his business.

Speaker 29 An exciting, high-energy lifestyle.

Speaker 12 From the gym he owned to the film circles he ran in.

Speaker 21 Garrett Warren had no shortage of adventures.

Speaker 15 But investigators received a tip suggesting that Garrett also had enemies.

Speaker 10 Lost Hill Sheriff Station received an anonymous letter just kind of advising that there were some people involved at the gym that Garrett was having some kind of relationship with, people that might be of interest to detectives that they might want to question these people.

Speaker 13 Detectives checked out every name that came up.

Speaker 27 They followed up on every lead, but they hit a dead end at every turn.

Speaker 24 Depressing?

Speaker 10 Very depressing. Sometimes you just need that one break.

Speaker 10 You need a phone call that somebody wants to really give up some information, give us another road to go down, give us another adventure to try.

Speaker 61 It took almost two years before that break arrived.

Speaker 12 That's when police in another county, searching a car for drugs, instead found a note and a photo that would make clear just what kind of danger Garrett Warren was facing.

Speaker 7 Coming up, was Garrett Warren's would-be killer about to try for Take-Two?

Speaker 6 I'm scared to death someone's going to come back and finish it.

Speaker 7 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 5 Close-up.

Speaker 59 Garrett Warren.

Speaker 49 The stuntman was gunned down in his own home, but lived to tell the tale.

Speaker 23 He knew his would-be killer was still on the loose.

Speaker 58 And Garrett was looking over his shoulder.

Speaker 6 I have a bulletproof vest on. I've invested whatever money I possibly can into all sorts sorts of security around my house.
I'm scared to death someone's going to come back and finish it.

Speaker 12 Did you think there was ever going to be an arrest?

Speaker 6 No. I actually gave up on it and thought, eh, you know what? Chalk it up to experience and move on with your life.
And that's it.

Speaker 27 And you did move on with your life.

Speaker 14 I did.

Speaker 17 A year after his shooting, Garrett still faced multiple surgeries and painful rehab.

Speaker 62 He was back at work as a personal trainer at the gym he owned.

Speaker 27 And that's where he met Issa.

Speaker 6 She was also a client of mine that I was the personal trainer to.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 6 while we were first training, she said, you know, I really like you, would like to date you. And I said, well, I have a rule, I don't date clients.

Speaker 13 So Issa quit the gym.

Speaker 6 And she came back saying, okay, well, now I'm not in your gym anymore. I'm not your client, so let's date.

Speaker 4 They married in December of 2002, two years after the shooting.

Speaker 16 Maybe the happiness brought along by Garrett's second wife made it easier to get along with his first, Claudia.

Speaker 39 The anger that had marked their divorce had faded.

Speaker 6 We're back to our visitation schedule again, back to shared custody, and we're on speaking terms and we're actually friendly.

Speaker 29 It was about 18 months after Garrett was shot when detectives got that lucky break.

Speaker 41 In an unrelated case, San Bernardino police served a search warrant on a car belonging to a man named Miguel Kuroz.

Speaker 4 They were looking for drugs, but they found something else under the spare tire in Kuros' trunk.

Speaker 17 It was a photograph of Garrett Warren with a circle drawn on it and Garrett's home address, which very few people knew.

Speaker 26 So detectives showed Garrett a six-pack, a photo lineup, that included a photo of Miguel Kuros.

Speaker 6 I'm looking at the pictures and I say, by all means, That's the guy I recognize.

Speaker 29 That's the guy that shot you. Yep.

Speaker 49 No doubt in your mind?

Speaker 6 No doubt in my mind.

Speaker 50 In 2003, detectives arrested Miguel Kuros for attempted murder.

Speaker 14 He was neither a gangbanger nor a hired gun.

Speaker 2 Instead, he owned a pizza parlor, then sheriff's detective Mark Gaiman.

Speaker 10 It seemed like he was your middle-class, very nice guy that everybody in the community loved.

Speaker 24 And yet, Garrett was identifying him as the shooter.

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 29 Other than Garrett's ID of Kuros, there was nothing to suggest they had ever met.

Speaker 24 They'd ever done any business deal before?

Speaker 10 No.

Speaker 24 Kiros connected in any way to the gym?

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 24 Any chance that he was driving a car near Garrett that night?

Speaker 10 No. None whatsoever.

Speaker 58 So what their connection was or why Mr. Kiros would kill him,

Speaker 43 not clear.

Speaker 10 Yeah, there was no direct connection whatsoever.

Speaker 57 And as detectives soon learned, proving an attempted murder charge against Miguel Kiros wouldn't be easy.

Speaker 42 Multiple witnesses said they saw and spoke to Kiros at his pizza parlor on the night of the shooting.

Speaker 24 These witnesses weren't really beholden to Mr. Kuros in any way.
They weren't members of his family. They were just customers.

Speaker 10 Yes, they were. They were frequent customers of that establishment.
Plus, he had the receipts. You know, he had rights on him.
So it was pretty good.

Speaker 10 alibis.

Speaker 45 And so, at Kuros' preliminary hearing, evidence pointed both ways.

Speaker 48 Witnesses put Kiros nearly 80 miles away from the scene of the crime on the night it happened.

Speaker 46 But then, why did Kiros have Garrett's picture hidden in his car?

Speaker 16 How and why would Garrett finger Kiros as the shooter?

Speaker 48 Hoon Chun was the deputy district attorney brought in from the major crimes unit, and he knew he had more work to do.

Speaker 24 You got a guy stopped for drug charges. Right.
He's got a map hidden in his car of somebody who was nearly a murder victim,

Speaker 24 and a photograph of that guy. Right.
And the guy picks him out.

Speaker 56 Right.

Speaker 8 So you think, what's the question, right?

Speaker 15 Aren't there people on death row for less than that?

Speaker 8 Sometimes there's more to a story than meets the eye, which is the case here.

Speaker 7 When we come back, investigators discover a picture of Garrett Warren and the man he accused of shooting him.

Speaker 8 This is one of those stranger-than-fiction kind of things. Certainly, nobody would write a script like this.

Speaker 7 As the plot thickens.

Speaker 34 Fade Inn, Los Angeles County, California.

Speaker 20 Garrett Warren was gunned down, shot four times in his own home, but somehow survived.

Speaker 38 It fit his character, really.

Speaker 59 A Hollywood stuntman, martial artist, and former fighter.

Speaker 49 Not only did he survive, but he was able to identify a shooter, a man who'd been caught with what looked like a hit note in his car.

Speaker 24 And they tell you his name is Miguel Kiroz.

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 24 That name mean anything to you?

Speaker 6 Not at the time at all.

Speaker 53 It sounded at first like a strong case, but the more law enforcement and prosecutor Hoon Chun investigated, the weaker it seemed to become.

Speaker 24 So you've done a lot of work, and mostly what you've done is help prove your defendant's alibi.

Speaker 8 Sure, so far, right? And eventually really prove the alibi that he didn't do this.

Speaker 12 Remember, multiple witnesses put Miguel Kiros about 80 miles away from Garrett's home on the night of the shooting.

Speaker 15 And then, like a scene from Colombo, came this latest twist, something the prosecutor saw during a court hearing.

Speaker 8 I'm noticing some things. First of all, Miguel Kiros is left-handed.
The shooter was described by the witnesses, the victim and his mother, as right-handed. And that's a little odd.

Speaker 26 Odd because what left-handed person would try to commit murder with the gun in his right hand?

Speaker 8 That's like out of a movie. Yeah, it's out of a movie, right? A script writer might do something like that, but in real life, this doesn't happen.
It didn't make any sense.

Speaker 55 And then Prosecutor Chun saw a photo taken at a party, a barbecue.

Speaker 8 In this photo, you have Garrett Warren, and he is facing Miguel Kiros, and they're kneeling down. Their children are in front front of them.

Speaker 8 We can tell from the scar on Garrett Warren's face underneath the left ear that this is post-shooting. We can tell from the ages of those children as well as the Lakers championship t-shirt that Mr.

Speaker 8 Kiros is wearing that this is very shortly after the shooting.

Speaker 13 The two men were both guests at the same party after the shooting.

Speaker 29 but before Garrett made his eyewitness ID of Kiros.

Speaker 23 So you think this is where Garrett knew Miguel Kiros from?

Speaker 24 Right. You think that's why he identified him as the shooter?

Speaker 28 Because he remembered him from this party? Right.

Speaker 8 Classic transference.

Speaker 5 To both the prosecutor and to Garrett, the photo explained the ID.

Speaker 6 And for some reason, when I saw him in the photo lineup, it clicked and I said, that must be him. I recognize him.

Speaker 6 And obviously it wasn't him.

Speaker 22 So Garrett was wrong in picking Kiros as the man who shot him.

Speaker 49 And that left prosecutors with two questions.

Speaker 16 Who did shoot Garrett?

Speaker 12 And, since he had Garrett's photo and address in his trunk, could Kiros still somehow be involved?

Speaker 4 Prosecutor Hoon Chun began to rethink the case.

Speaker 8 The defense attorneys agreed that we could talk to Mr. Kiros, and they let us talk to him.
And the detectives and I keep coming back to this hit note, to where it's found.

Speaker 8 He doesn't know Garrett Warren. Because remember, their interaction was very brief at that barbecue.

Speaker 38 Detectives kept after Kiros.

Speaker 24 They knew that whoever ordered the hit really wanted Garrett Warren dead.

Speaker 21 Because here's one more twist.

Speaker 13 The postmark on the note is from after the shooting, meaning that it's not so much a hit note as a note explaining to someone how to go back and finish the job.

Speaker 8 It's a re-hit, if you want to call it that.

Speaker 29 That finish the job note, says Chun, started to unravel the mystery.

Speaker 8 That was really kind of what broke the case open. That was, quite frankly, the lifeline we had on this case.

Speaker 36 The one unavoidable piece of evidence that finally cracked Miguel Kuros.

Speaker 8 We go back round and round about this and finally, he admits that he was one of the middlemen.

Speaker 49 Miguel Kuros admitted that while he wasn't the shooter, he was in on the plot and that he was caught by his own carelessness.

Speaker 8 He explained that that hit note had been sent directly to him, that he had put it under the spare spare tire in the trunk of his car, and literally he said he had forgotten about it.

Speaker 24 So the reason you ended up finding that hit note under the spare tire in the trunk of Mr.

Speaker 37 Kuros' car was that he'd put it there for safekeeping and then forgotten it?

Speaker 8 This is one of those stranger-than-fiction kind of things.

Speaker 8 Certainly nobody would write a script like this because they would have the kind of look that any self-respecting director or producer would have, the look that you're having in any kind of Hollywood movie and saying, come on, that's ridiculous.

Speaker 24 But people forget things. Disorganized crime, yeah.

Speaker 25 Luckily for prosecutors, Miguel Kuros had not sworn a blood oath to never rat on his friends, quite the opposite, he rolled over like lassie and cut a deal.

Speaker 2 He agreed to wear a wire and helped collect evidence on his co-conspirators.

Speaker 29 And so, as they say around here, the plot thickened.

Speaker 26 Coming up, the world's worst hitman.

Speaker 64 I apologize, I'm not a good shot.

Speaker 7 As the plot thickens.

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Speaker 49 Fade Inn, Los Angeles County, nighttime.

Speaker 26 A police informant wears a wire as he talks to a partner in crime.

Speaker 29 The informant, Miguel Kiros.

Speaker 34 He's the pizza parlor owner turned small-time drug dealer.

Speaker 17 And the man found with a hit note in his car targeting Garrett Warren.

Speaker 16 Now, he was cooperating with investigators.

Speaker 15 Detectives already knew Kiros wasn't the shooter.

Speaker 27 Kuiros told them the man who actually pulled the trigger was an old friend of his named Jorge Hernandez.

Speaker 30 Heard here.

Speaker 33 As part of his deal with prosecutors, Kiros wore a body wire and approached Hernandez at a party.

Speaker 34 Kuiros said he hired Hernandez for $10,000 to kill Garrett Warren.

Speaker 16 On the tape, Hernandez makes clear that he didn't waste any of that money on transportation.

Speaker 64 I I used my own car.

Speaker 55 Hernandez can be heard saying that he's sorry he didn't manage to kill Garrett Warren.

Speaker 64 I apologize, but I'm not a good shot.

Speaker 29 And Hernandez made clear he was ready to try again.

Speaker 64 Just get the guns or whatever, and I'll keep it off as fast as you need.

Speaker 26 Speaking to prosecutor Hoon Chun, Kiros explained his own involvement.

Speaker 49 that he'd been paid to hire Hernandez as a hitman.

Speaker 34 And he explained where the trail led.

Speaker 25 Mr.

Speaker 24 Kiros told you that he didn't do it, but that he was in on the planning.

Speaker 18 Right.

Speaker 24 And that he did it at the behest of his friend, Manuel Harrow. Correct.

Speaker 29 Manny Harrow was Miguel Kiros' longtime friend.

Speaker 49 They worked together in the pizza business and in the drug business.

Speaker 25 And if the last name Harrow sounds familiar, it should.

Speaker 13 Manny's sister, Claudia, is Garrett Warren's ex-wife.

Speaker 16 Prosecutor Chun says that explains Mr.

Speaker 61 Harrow's involvement.

Speaker 8 And Manuel Harrow was doing this for his sister, Claudia.

Speaker 24 Who was married to Garrett?

Speaker 8 Who was once married to Garrett, but was at the time going through a very contentious divorce. On a scale of one to 10, this was an 11.

Speaker 29 This was about custody of their daughter.

Speaker 8 This was about custody of the daughter, exactly. And she had a lot of antipathy that was expressed towards Garrett Warren.

Speaker 27 She said you were going to bleed, right?

Speaker 26 Yep.

Speaker 24 Generally, when one spouse says to the other, you're going to bleed, it's a sign there are bad times to come.

Speaker 14 You're right.

Speaker 53 Prosecutors believed they were beginning to understand the outlines of the plot to kill Garrett Warren.

Speaker 49 Infuriated by a bitter custody battle, they believed Claudia Harrow had set it all in motion.

Speaker 29 But proving that wouldn't be easy.

Speaker 15 Investigators began by looking at how Claudia might have persuaded her brother.

Speaker 27 to get involved in a murder.

Speaker 36 Detectives arrested Jorge Hernandez and Manny Harrow and charged them with attempted murder and conspiracy.

Speaker 39 When they questioned Manny, they learned about a secret of his that might explain why Manny would want Garrett Warren dead.

Speaker 66 I really didn't really talk about me getting molested until I was at least 22, probably.

Speaker 44 Manny told investigators he'd been molested as a child.

Speaker 30 And remember, Manny's sister Claudia, during her divorce from Garrett Warren, claimed that Garrett had molested their daughter.

Speaker 44 Those allegations were thoroughly investigated.

Speaker 29 A judge said they were unfounded.

Speaker 49 But now investigators had to consider another plot twist because of something else Manny said, that not only had he been molested, but that the only other person in the world who knew about that secret was his sister Claudia.

Speaker 66 Being that I've been through certain things in my childhood as far as like molestation

Speaker 66 and my sister was the only one one I confided in and told her about my mother you know a molestation thing that happened to me when I was younger.

Speaker 26 Had Claudia manipulated Manny by telling him only part of the story?

Speaker 19 Did she ever let you know that the judge, you know, someone independent in her child custody case, had found that the allegations that she was making against Garrett were false?

Speaker 19 Did she ever tell you that?

Speaker 67 She

Speaker 66 I never asked and she never told me. So I think she knew how to hit the nerve that

Speaker 66 he was molesting her so I think she knew it was hitting the nerve that way because

Speaker 66 I never really talked about it

Speaker 26 Manny said his sister's exact language was that she wanted Garrett taken out I don't I'm almost fine she didn't use the word murder or kill uh-huh but

Speaker 66 It's like me telling you I want you to take him out. You know what that means and that slang means take him out meaning kill

Speaker 27 Manny Harrow a small-time criminal was pointing the finger of guilt straight at his sister, an actress and mother who'd been married to Hollywood stardom and who had never had a problem with the law.

Speaker 26 It was hard to believe, except maybe for the intended victim of the murder plot, who believed Claudia was behind it from the get-go.

Speaker 6 I knew there's only one person that wanted this done to me.

Speaker 15 He felt that way even as the investigation pointed in every other direction.

Speaker 14 Until finally, five years after the shooting, detectives arrested Claudia Harrow.

Speaker 6 I did think to myself, you know, thank God, you know, finally, I don't feel crazy anymore.

Speaker 33 But he was in for another shock.

Speaker 27 Prosecutors did not feel the case was strong enough because Manny Harrow had not agreed to testify against Claudia, and the DA's office declined to file charges.

Speaker 24 I'm thinking you probably hated that.

Speaker 10 Yes, but that's not the worst of it. I was proud to call Garrett and tell him, guess what? I've arrested Claudia Harrow for hiring a hitband to kill you.

Speaker 24 And then you got to call him back and say.

Speaker 10 You're not going to believe it, but

Speaker 10 I got to let her go.

Speaker 16 48 hours after detectives arrested Claudia, she was back on the street, completely free once again.

Speaker 10 But I guaranteed him that I would not stop.

Speaker 12 What would it take to write a new ending to this story?

Speaker 15 With a new role for the beauty that investigators believed was their femme fatale?

Speaker 38 Or would Claudia Harrow escape prosecution simply by denying she'd been involved?

Speaker 8 The bottom line principle is this: lying isn't just about saying the words and mouthing the words, the words have to make sense.

Speaker 8 And when they don't make sense, you're going to have a problem.

Speaker 24 Lying's tougher than people think it is.

Speaker 8 Oh, it's a lot tougher than people think it is.

Speaker 14 When we come back, Claudia Harrow tells her story.

Speaker 45 It's your Daniel Lamley.

Speaker 18 Close-up, Claudia Harrow.

Speaker 17 She once played a showgirl in a gangster movie.

Speaker 30 Once was married to a legendary movie gangster.

Speaker 4 Now she was accused of hiring a hitman in real life.

Speaker 58 Sheriff's detectives arrested her, but prosecutor Hoon Chun did not file charges, and Claudia was turned loose.

Speaker 53 Chun felt he needed stronger evidence.

Speaker 8 I did not think there was a filable case at that point.

Speaker 16 But Claudia's brother Manny changed that.

Speaker 29 He took a plea deal from prosecutors and finally agreed to testify against his sister.

Speaker 19 At some point, does somebody approach you about doing something, killing somebody?

Speaker 43 Yes.

Speaker 66 Okay. My sister Claudia approached me.
Claudia Harrow approached me.

Speaker 50 That made the difference.

Speaker 13 Detectives rearrested Claudia Harrow.

Speaker 29 This time, the prosecutor charged her with two counts of attempted murder and one of conspiracy to commit murder.

Speaker 27 Claudia denied everything.

Speaker 10 Do you know who shot Garrett Warren? I don't know.

Speaker 10 Do you know why he was shot? No, I don't know.

Speaker 2 But while there was evidence enough to charge Claudia, was there enough to convict her?

Speaker 15 You got Mr. Kiros' admission.

Speaker 24 Right. And you got Mr.
Harrel and Mr. Hernandez on tape.
Right. But you don't have anything proving that Claudia Harrow set this in motion.

Speaker 8 We have the motive, the contentious divorce proceedings.

Speaker 8 We have the timing of this because what happens is that the judge finds the child abuse allegations to be false on April 12th, I believe, of 2000.

Speaker 8 The hit occurs about a month and a week after that, on May 20th, 2000.

Speaker 24 Okay, but all of that's circumstantial. I agree.

Speaker 8 I agree.

Speaker 2 Soon there was more.

Speaker 27 Prosecutors said the handwriting on the hit note matched Claudia Harrow's.

Speaker 47 And when they compared samples of Claudia's letters to Garrett with the hit note, they noticed the misspelling of the word Agora, as in Agora Hills, the location of Garrett Warren's home.

Speaker 27 On the hit note found in Kuros's car and on Claudia's letters, the word is misspelled the exact same way,

Speaker 47 A-U-G-O-R-A,

Speaker 47 Instead of A-G-O-U-R-A.

Speaker 15 Claudia insisted she had never given any notes or mats to Miguel Kiros.

Speaker 68 Did you ever give him anything on paperwork?

Speaker 18 No, not today.

Speaker 68 So we can think of and know. So if we had, say, someone's address written in your handwriting.

Speaker 56 I don't know.

Speaker 68 Not for me. I don't know.

Speaker 39 She claimed to know very little about what her brother, Manny Harrow, might have been up to.

Speaker 68 Why would your brother who'd never even met Garrett

Speaker 8 want him killed?

Speaker 68 I don't know. That's not, I know.
Why would he tell us that you're the one that asked him to be killed and helped arrange it?

Speaker 68 I don't know. Did you ever give your brother a large amount of money? No.
Any amount whatsoever?

Speaker 54 I don't think I've ever had a large amount of money.

Speaker 30 As we said, every Hollywood story eventually comes back to money.

Speaker 17 If Claudia Harrow paid somebody 10 grand to ice Garrett Warren, where did she get the cash?

Speaker 26 Detectives took a good look at her other ex-husband, tough guy actor Joe Pesci.

Speaker 38 Remember that party snapshot of Garrett and middleman Miguel Kiros along with their kids?

Speaker 4 That was taken at the Hollywood Hills home of Joe Pesci.

Speaker 10 We actually interviewed Joe Pesci and we just wanted to ask if he gave her a large sum of money at that time. He denied that he ever gave her a large amount of money.

Speaker 10 There was no evidence to indicate that he had any involvement.

Speaker 48 Claudia Harrow said she wanted to do an interview with us, but we were not able to speak with her in jail.

Speaker 46 We spoke with her defense attorney, Tom Mesero, best known for successfully defending Michael Jackson.

Speaker 58 The picture that's drawn of her is sort of this vengeful woman who would stop at nothing to keep her daughter away from her ex-husband.

Speaker 69 Whoever gave you that information doesn't know Claudia Harrow.

Speaker 53 Mesero says that if Claudia is guilty of anything, it is of having a career criminal for a brother.

Speaker 69 I believe Manny Harrow was angry about being abused and molested as a child. He was desperate to maintain his street credibility as a drug dealer.

Speaker 69 And then when he got caught, he tried to blame it on his sister to try and gain freedom for himself.

Speaker 30 Not only that, he said, but those hit notes allegedly written by Claudia?

Speaker 28 I am convinced these are forgeries.

Speaker 69 Claudia never wrote any hit note to anybody. Nobody ever talked to her about whacking someone or murdering someone or shooting someone.

Speaker 49 Mesero was ready with those arguments and more.

Speaker 58 And who knows what a jury might have done.

Speaker 30 Remember the movie My Cousin Vinny, where Joe Pesci played a lawyer who got his client acquitted of murder charges?

Speaker 36 Well, this movie didn't end that way.

Speaker 44 On the eve of trial, Claudia Harrow decided not to fight the charges.

Speaker 17 She pleaded no contest to two counts of attempted murder.

Speaker 21 She received a sentence of 12 years and four months.

Speaker 25 She's unlikely to serve all of it. Claudia's friend Julie.

Speaker 63 The deal she was offered, she'll be out in eight years and she gets to see her daughter grow up.

Speaker 51 And that's why she took it.

Speaker 50 And at her sentencing, Joe Pesci showed up to support his ex-wife.

Speaker 55 As for the others, Miguel Kiros and Manny Harrow took plea deals.

Speaker 9 Kuiros got a three-year suspended sentence in return for his cooperation.

Speaker 27 Harrow was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Speaker 48 He was released in June 2017.

Speaker 48 The hired gunman, Jorge Hernandez, was tried and convicted on charges of attempted murder and conspiracy. He's serving a sentence of 77 years to life.

Speaker 27 In total, Claudia Harrow served just more than nine years before being granted parole in August 2019.

Speaker 27 If Claudia did mastermind this attempted murder, she ended up getting a very good deal.

Speaker 27 Claudia's brother Manny, who set it up, and the actual shooter, both pretty much got maxed out on their sentences.

Speaker 6 The amount of time you spend behind bars is nothing to, you know, what I believe will be eternity afterwards, you know, and I believe that, you know, we all pay one day, no matter what.

Speaker 11 You seem remarkably free of anger.

Speaker 6 I am.

Speaker 6 And everyone should be in this world. You know, she made a mistake.
I've made mistakes. No one's perfect.

Speaker 41 Surprised?

Speaker 9 You shouldn't be.

Speaker 49 That trifecta of love, money, and murder isn't new to Hollywood.

Speaker 38 Neither are stories about beautiful women who turn out to be as tough as a $5 steak and the men who somehow find it in themselves to forgive them.

Speaker 1 That's all for now.

Speaker 7 I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.

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