Danette Colbert: Bourbon Street Hustler

0:04New Orleans, with its vibrant live music scene, distinct Creole culture, and energetic nightlife, is always a party. And that was certainly the case on the evening of Tuesday, February 4th, 2025. That week, New Orleans was hosting the 59th Super Bowl, where the Kansas City Chiefs were set to square off against the Philadelphia Eagles. Thousands of people were in town for the big game, so the area's typical devil-may-care energy was turned up even higher than usual. It was in this lively setting that 27-year-old Adan Manzano found himself at a work party. He was a sports reporter for Telemundo based in Topeka, Kansas.

0:57He had also recently suffered a tragedy, losing his wife in a car accident less than a year before. He's a person who's grieving his wife. You know, there could have been an element of that, that she sniffed out that vulnerability and used it to her advantage. Adan threw himself into his work after his wife's death. But now he had a chance to let loose. So when he found himself riding the high of a party, and with the infectious energy of the Big Easy all around him, it's understandable that he wanted to keep the good times rolling. Adan wandered away from the event and into the French Quarter, known for its live music and raucous party scene.

1:49And somewhere along the way, he crossed paths with 48-year-old Danette Colbert.

1:58It's a vulnerable place to be, out on the town in an unfamiliar place. inhibitions lowered by drink after drink it can be fun to let your hair down you know get to know new people but the nature of meeting people on a night out is that you have no idea who they really are or if they have good intentions and unfortunately for Adan Manzano he let the wrong one in.

2:37This is The Opportunist, an original podcast from Podcast One. You're listening to a story told in one episode called Danette Colbert, Bourbon Street Hustler. I'm Sarah James McLaughlin. In this episode, we trace the story of Danette Colbert. A longtime grifter and opportunist, Colbert preyed on people enjoying the nightlife of the Vegas Strip and the French Quarter, lifting phones, wallets, and whatever else she could slip away with. And just five days before the Super Bowl and the Big Easy, after crossing paths with Colbert, Adan Manzano lost a lot more than his belongings.

3:34The road that took 27-year-old Adon Manzano to the Big Easy was a long one. He was born and raised a long way away in Mexico City, Mexico, where he developed a love for soccer. He later moved to the States where he graduated from Kansas State University. From there, Adan incorporated his love for sports into a job as a sports reporter. He covered the Kansas City area teams for the Spanish-language outlets like Telemundo.

4:14Adan also met and married Ashley Boyd, a second-grade teacher in the Topeka Public Schools District. And in 2022, they had a daughter together. We spoke to journalist PJ Green of the Kansas City Star, who is both familiar with the case and knew Adan personally. My past job was as a sports reporter, so we were at the same events all the time. He always had a smile on his face, always walk around with his camera and his microphone, you know, working to get interviews and doing the same things that I was doing. Trying to talk to folks, trying to get all the good stuff. In addition to his enthusiasm for his job, Adan was a positive person, always ready with a laugh and a smile.

5:01He was just always that guy smiling and cracking jokes. And he would be quiet, but if you walked up to him, he would start laughing with you. He was just that very friendly reporter. I don't think anyone could have a bad thing to say about him. So, just a beautiful person all around. Adan maintained his positive attitude even after tragedy struck. In April of 2024, his wife Ashley and their 15-month-old daughter were in the car together when they were hit by a truck head-on. Though his daughter survived, his wife was pronounced dead at the scene. She was just 24 years old. Adan was left to raise their young daughter on his own.

5:48But even after all he went through, he managed to keep his positive outlook on life. Even after his wife passed away in April 2024, he still had that same smile. I don't remember me giving my condolences to him. He was like, yeah, thank you. But he told one of his friends that he kept working so he wouldn't, kind of spiral with that trauma that he was going through. Adan poured himself into his work, and in February 2025, his work took him to New Orleans. There was a big Telemundo party for different entities from that company. He may have been to that party and may have just wandered off. And, you know, if you're in New Orleans or French Quarter, you bump into people all the time.

6:37As it happened, the person Adan bumped into was Danette Colbert, and he was a friendly enough guy that he went with the flow. He was an open person. He was a happy person. You know, like, he's very friendly. So if he bumps into you, you might hit it off and you might become friends with him immediately. So that's the thing. Like, maybe a random person did come in and some of these things happened.

7:06What happened was Colbert saw him as a mark. Adan didn't know it, but she was a long-time scammer with years of practice and hustling people for their phones, money, and whatever she could get her hands on. The details of their conversation are unknown, but his vulnerability may have played a part in her ruse. We also spoke to reporter Natalie O 'Neill, a contributor to the New York Post, who shared some insight on how hustlers pick their targets. cases where i've done a deeper dive on people who are career criminals whether they're romance scammers or they're people who are drugging other victims drinks um there is an element of sniffing out vulnerability when you're a pro at this and you've done it over and over i only bring that up to say that, you know, he's a person who's grieving his wife.

8:11So there could have been an element of that, that she sniffed out that vulnerability and used it to her advantage. Whatever the case may have been, Culbert spotted an opportunity with Adan. And she took it. They appeared to have spent the night together, having drinks into the wee hours of the next morning. We know that they were seen in the French Quarter, which is this kind of notoriously vibrant party neighborhood of New Orleans, leaving together that night or maybe in the early hours. And when it came time to turn in for the night, Culbert offered to help Adan get back to his hotel room. From surveillance footage, we know she followed through on her offer.

9:07So what investigators have brought to the media so far is that they have security footage from about 4.30 to 5 o 'clock in the morning. They were seen kind of going into his hotel room and she was seen shortly coming out after probably about 30 minutes to an hour later. Colbert left Adan alone and Adan himself was not seen leaving the room again that morning into the afternoon. But remember, Adon was in town for work, and in fact, he had an important meeting the following morning. But he didn't show up. According to those who knew him, Adon was not the type to miss a work commitment, even after a big night out.

9:56So at that point, his co-workers at Telemundo realized something had gone wrong. They called the comfort suites and asked someone to do a wellness check. A hotel employee went to his room and found him lying in bed, face down on a pillow. He wasn't breathing. Police were called to the scene where they pronounced 27-year-old Adon Manzano dead.

10:31Up next, the hunt begins for the last person to see Adan alive. Danette Colbert This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. October 10th is World Mental Health Day, and this year, we want to give a thank you to therapists. Millions of people have sat across from a therapist or logged in online and had that one moment that really landed. Maybe it was the right question. Maybe it was just having someone to listen while you shared. Little things like that can change the direction of a life. BetterHelp has been part of those moments for more than 5 million people worldwide. With over 30 ,000 licensed therapists and more than a decade of experience matching people to the right one, they've built the largest online therapy platform out there.

11:18And if your first match isn't quite right, you can switch until it clicks. This World Mental Health Day, we're celebrating the therapists who help people take that step forward. If you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey. Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash opportunist. That's BetterHelp.com slash opportunist. Now, back to the story.

11:51On February 5th, 2025, Adan Manzano, a 27-year-old sports reporter, was found dead in his New Orleans hotel room. Though there was no sign of a struggle, Adan's phone and wallet were missing, so police suspected there had been some kind of foul play. Surveillance footage of the hallway showed a woman entering his room around 4.30 in the morning and leaving by herself about an hour later. She was the last person to see Adon Manzano alive and her name was Dunna Colbert.

12:32After leaving Adon's room, 48-year-old Colbert was seen using his credit card, racking up charges at stores around the Big Easy like Walmart and Target. This security camera footage led to a search warrant being issued for Colbert's home in a suburb of New Orleans. At Colbert's house, police found a Don Manzano cell phone and credit card, as well as a sedative called Alprazolam, better known as Xanax. Colbert didn't have a prescription for that. And neither did Adan. There was plenty of damning evidence that painted a stark picture of Adan's final hours. Investigators say Adan Manzano may have been drugged before his death.

13:23They have also found more evidence linking Manzano to a Slidell woman, Danette Colbert. Now, Colbert was initially charged with fraud and theft, but now investigators say she may be facing more charges. The toxicology report on Adan was still pending, and again, there was no sign of a struggle at the scene, so she wasn't yet charged in connection with his death. But as authorities looked into her past, they realized this was far from the first time Colbert had been involved in criminal activity. In fact, she had a very distinct pattern of crimes going back years. Colbert had five felony convictions just in the state of Louisiana.

14:17She also had at least two charges against her in Las Vegas. Specifically, she had been accused and convicted of drugging men and stealing from them at least three times before Adan Manzano's case. What investigators have figured out throughout the process of their investigation of the death of Aidan Manzano is that she has allegations of drugging men and theft, all kinds of theft from bank access fraud to credit card fraud. And her allegations extend all the way back to 2009 was what I've recently seen. So a pretty lengthy history. in the courts and in New Orleans, Louisiana, and kind of surrounding entities.

15:04So yeah, they're getting to know her pretty well around the state. Clearly, Colbert had been around the criminal block, and sometimes she even worked with accomplices to coordinate her crimes. One of those co-conspirators was 34-year-old Ricky White. White had his own rap sheet, including misdemeanor theft, robbery, and fraud. In addition to those charges, he was found to have worked closely with Colbert in coordinating how to incapacitate victims and steal from them. The death of the Telemundo reporter while in New Orleans covering the Super Bowl was more than a tragedy. We're now learning it may have been part of a long-running robbery scam with victims in places beyond New Orleans.

15:53Police found extensive text messages between Colbert and White going back to 2022, which painted a picture of thieves working hand-in-hand. In their correspondence, they talked about personal identification numbers associated with the bank accounts of at least three separate marks. One of these accounts had a balance of more than$95 ,000. dollars. In one text, Colbert talks about waiting for a man to fall asleep before she can steal his card, go to an ATM, and reunite with White. And in some of the messages, Colbert mentioned wanting KO, or something to knock out their targets. In light of the unprescribed Xanax that was found in Colbert's home, these texts about knocking people out were troubling, and even more so once the toxicology report on Adon's body came back.

17:01The coroner determined that Adon's causes of death were combined toxic effects of Xanax and alcohol, as well as positional asphyxia. So what does that mean exactly? Let's start with the combined toxic effects. In addition to the sedative coursing through his veins and dulling his senses, Adan's blood alcohol level was a very high 0.232. That's nearly three times the legal limit. At that level, alcohol can severely impair the brain and the body, leading to confusion, loss of coordination, and nausea. Then there was the Xanax. That drug is also a sedative. It acts on the central nervous system to slow down nerve signals, which helps calm the mind and body.

18:01That's why it's effective as a prescription medicine to treat symptoms of anxiety. but when people have high doses of either Xanax and alcohol, it puts a strain on the body. And when someone has high doses of both, like Adan did, the drugs interact to have an even stronger effect. Combining the drugs can cause physical effects like feeling tired and moving more slowly. It can also have mental effects, causing issues with situational awareness, critical thinking, planning, and judgment. Basically, it can make people groggy and easy to manipulate. And extreme cases combining alcohol and Xanax can cause areas of the brain to shut down and even make a person stop breathing.

19:01This appears to be what happened to Adon Manzano. and that's where the positional asphyxia comes in. The position he was in, face down on a pillow, made it impossible for him to breathe and he suffocated to death. After the toxicology report came back with these findings, Colbert was charged with second degree murder. The suspicion was that she had spiked Adon Manzano's drinks with a drug in order to steal from him. And that had led to his death. Ricky White was also implicated. Breaking news from New Orleans and the death of a Kansas City reporter. One man is now charged with second-degree murder in the death of a Don Manzano.

19:55Police say Ricky White is an accomplice of Danette Colbert. Based on Colbert and White's criminal histories, authorities quickly began working to establish if they were operating an organized crime scheme. The DA for Orleans Parish, Jason Williams, said, This is not random. There's a certain pattern with having drinks or food and then saying to the person they'll help them back to their room. Authorities were right to trace the connections. As they discovered, this was far from the first time Colbert had drugged someone and stolen from them. In fact, one of her previous victims came forward in 2022.

20:42His name was David Butler and he was a 52-year-old contractor. In November 2021, he was working on a project in New Orleans. After a long day at the site, he decided to go out for some drinks in the French Quarter. And guess who offered to throw them back with him? None other than Danette Colbert. Along with an unnamed female accomplice, Colbert asked David if he wanted to get a drink with them. He agreed and bought them all around. Things started out smoothly enough, but they took a turn after David stepped away from the table to get round two. When David came back, he finished his first drink and started on the second.

21:30But immediately, he noticed that something was very off. Here's David speaking in an interview with CNN.

21:53really wrong. David knew that he needed to get out of there and Colbert came to the rescue. She led him into a black SUV that was waiting outside the bar. David went along with her because at that point, like my decision-making abilities were significantly impaired. That was the last thing David remembered from that night. The next thing David knew, he was at his home and a friend was shaking him awake. David had been out so cold, the friend was worried that he was dead. David had no recollection of how he got there. He also didn't have his phone or his wallet. Colbert had made off with them. But those were the least of his problems.

22:45Colbert stole about$85 ,000 from one of David's cryptocurrency accounts and racked up another nearly$50 ,000 in credit card charges. So, altogether, David was out$134 ,000. There were multiple emails that showed cryptocurrency funds were transferred out of my bank account. and I later learned that Danette had used my biometrics to access my iPhone whenever I was incapacitated. That's how she unlocked the phone. David lost a lot of money, but after being drugged, he was lucky to be alive. Realizing this, David made a point to track down the woman who had taken advantage of him. He tracked the transferred cryptocurrency to an account linked to Colbert.

23:42Then he handed this information over to the authorities. Colbert was arrested and taken to trial. In this case, she was found guilty of theft, computer fraud, and illegally transmitting monetary funds. But the judge didn't give Colbert any jail time. Instead, she was ordered to pay$50 ,000 in restitution and was put on a five-year probation. David thought this was a miscarriage of justice. He believed Colbert was dangerous and should have been put behind bars. Even after the sentencing, he continued to follow Colbert's movements, checking the internet for mentions of her name. He was sure that one day, she was going to kill somebody.

24:35In fact, Colbert was on probation for the David Butler case at the time she drugged and robbed a Don Manzano and left him to die.

24:49Up next, how did a dangerous hustler manage to avoid serious chill time for so many years? And what happened when the law finally caught up with her? Now, back to the story.

25:08When 48-year-old Danette Colbert was charged in the death of young sports reporter Adan Manzano, it came out that she had a long history of criminal activity, specifically drugging men in order to rob them. Here's Kansas City Star reporter P.J. Green.

25:30She has several cases in New Orleans. I know one of the cases is kind of the same lines of this Manzano case, which is, you know, find somebody in the French Quarter and Bourbon Street, somewhere in that area, confess in the drink, and go to their hotel room and take what's in their wallet and take their credit card and, you know, go on a spree. That's kind of the main theme of just kind of finds a person, gets comfortable with them and then takes whatever they have and then just goes and uses it. Colbert had theft and fraud cases going back as far as 2009 spread across New Orleans and Las Vegas.

26:08In 2017, she pleaded guilty to fraudulently accessing someone's device and two counts of stolen property. In 2018, she was accused of stealing a victim's credit card to buy Visa gift cards. In 2020, she had another case in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, and in 2022, she had another in Las Vegas. I think one of the biggest ones is in Las Vegas. I think it was her and another woman were accused of going to this man's hotel room and going up with him so they could drink alcohol. And he said they poured some unknown liquid down his throat. And he shortly after, like, started feeling groggy, didn't understand what was going on.

27:01And by the time he kind of understood what was going on, he didn't have his very expensive watch, I think, cost about $120 ,000,$60 ,000 to$120 ,000, somewhere in that range. He didn't have his credit car when he didn't have the chips that he wanted at the casino. I don't know if there was a struggle from what I've read in the documents. I don't think there was a struggle, but I think there was an effort to kind of recover what he thought he lost, and then he kind of kicked them both out of the hotel room. Given Colbert's very extensive rap sheet, the obvious question is, how did she managed to avoid serious jail time for so long.

27:41It's interesting to me that she's done this so many times over and over and seemingly avoided any serious prison time. And I think it's kind of shocking, actually. And that might have something to do with it being in multiple states, But who knows? It could just be like a sort of loophole in our justice system. As it turns out, there were a few different factors that allowed her to slip through the cracks of the criminal justice system. For one thing, in some cases, victims dropped the charges before they ever went to trial. This was the case in 2022 when Colbert was arrested in Las Vegas. Not once, but twice.

28:31One arrest was for felony charges of grand larceny and the other was for administering a drug to aid in a felony. However, on both occasions, the charges were dropped because the victims didn't show up to testify in court. There is this element of shame on the part of the victims. And so when you see all of the cases that she has been charged with, that to me is just the tip of the iceberg because there's a lot of shame that comes along with this type of crime, especially if you're drugged. It's like, oh, well, I don't know, maybe I did drink a little too much, or I probably shouldn't have been flirting, or maybe I don't want to file a police report because I don't want my name in the news because I'm a prominent person.

29:23There could be any number of reasons why a victim doesn't come forward or decides to drop a case. But in the aftermath of Adan Manzano's death, a lot more people have been willing to speak out. His passing raised the stakes and made it that much more important to stop Colbert from harming anyone else. Over a dozen people since the story about Aiden's death came out and her being charged with it have come forward to police in that suburb of New Orleans to say, oh, hey, I think she did the same thing to me. And that's just in that county. So, you know, there's an element of, oh, this happened to this guy.