A Tarzana man due in court Monday, July 14, in connection with the 2023 killings of his wife and her parents was found dead in custody, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.

His lawyer said Samuel Bond Haskell, 37, took his own life.

Haskell was scheduled to be in court on Monday to have a date set for a preliminary hearing, according to court records.

But deputies at the Twin Towers facility found his body about 4:20 a.m. Saturday morning, Lt. Michael Modica said. The department declined to comment further and deferred to the Medical Examiner’s office, which would determine the manner of death.

Haskell was charged in November 2023 with three counts of murder in the deaths of his wife and her parents, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. He was taken into custody after trash bags containing body parts of his wife were found in a dumpster in Encino.

He was accused of paying day laborers to remove trash bags from his home in 2023, according to police. He claimed the bags contained rocks, but the day laborers later returned to the home with the bags and the money after discovering a torso inside one of them.

The day laborers told Los Angeles police what they saw and officers went to investigate Haskell’s home, but did not find any bags, police said.

The next morning, a homeless man told police he found a torso in a garbage bag inside a dumpster in Encino. Haskell was arrested soon after and charged with three counts of murder.

The body parts were identified by the Medical Examiner’s Office to be those of Haskell’s wife, 37-year-old Mei Haskell.

The bodies of her parents, 72-year-old Gaoshan Li and 64-year-old Yanxiang Wang, have not been found. All three victims lived with Haskell in the 4100 block of Coldstream Terrace in Tarzana along with the couple’s three children, police said.

Haskell’s attorney, Joseph A. Weimortz Jr. put out a statement Monday claiming Haskell was willing to enter into a plea agreement with prosecutors and wanted to protect his children.

“My client was not afraid of prison, but he was afraid of an even larger media spectacle,” Weimortz said. “He was not afraid for himself, he was afraid for his boys. He was afraid that every photo taken, every word written, would be a permanent scar his children would have to live with.

“He was afraid that every gory, salacious detail, regardless of its truth or falsity, would be used for public entertainment,” he continued. “In order to avoid more media exposure, he was willing to waive his right to a preliminary hearing,” a jury trial and he was willing to plead.

“My client’s acts were not acts of cowardice or lunacy. Ultimately, my client was even willing to take his own life, believing that it would end this terrible chaos.”

Haskell was the son of noted Hollywood producer and agent Sam Haskell, who represented Kathie Lee Gifford, Whoopi Goldberg, Dolly Parton, George Clooney and others.

City News Service contributed to this report.