Dateline NBC - The End of the Affair

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

After police discover the burned body of a missing Miami man, the wife of a local supermarket mogul comes forward to reveal a shocking secret and possible lead. Dennis Murphy reports.

Tonight on Dateline. It's not a place that you normally think of when you think of the glitz and glamour of Miami. It's scary, it's lonely, and that's where a lot of people go to dump bodies. There was a big fire, a big brush fire, and then we see a dead body. The shocking news is someone had murdered your brother. It was very, very shocking. We were just completely lost. Everybody was kind of astonished. He was just a regular everyday guy who had a wife and a young child. There was a side of him you didn't know.

He was having an affair. Exactly. Nobody knew. She was beautiful. She was elegant. She had everything. The yachts, the mansions, the Louis Vuitton bags. They bought burner phones.

They would meet up in hotels. You've got a love triangle here. You've got a dead guy who's got a girlfriend who's somebody else's wife. Yes. You start to see things unfold before you. The MMA fighters, the rich supermarket owner. Who was who and who did what?

Two women that was kind of face-off in the courtroom. Such an emotional moment. It was almost unfathomable that someone could have orchestrated this horrible murder. Secret lovers and a sinister crime. A twisted tale of murder in Miami. I'm Lester Holt. This is Dateline. Here's Dennis Murphy with The End of the Affair. Money, sex, jealousy, rage. This case had all the elements of a bad Hollywood movie.

It was an immigrant success story. Born and raised in Cuba, came here, the immigrant story, American dream. A dream that became an American tragedy. The body was still on fire. That's a sight you can't unsee. Unfortunately, no, it's not. It really was just dripping with drama. From waterfront mansions to the sawgrass swamps of the Everglades,

this is not one of those stories that could happen anywhere. This is an only in Miami kind of case. Only in Miami. Camilo Salazar was a lucky man living a life of second chances. He was married less than a year, living in a beautiful home in Coconut Grove, when his wife Daisy gave birth to a baby girl, Camilla's sister Carolina. Tell me about the arrival of Skylar. Wow, well, yeah, we were all super excited about it, and yeah, Daisy was, you know, ecstatic about it.

June 1, 2011 was just three weeks after Skylar was born. A routine morning, as routine as any day can be for a couple with a newborn. Daisy, an event planner, was already back in her office. She calls your brother and says, you know, can you bring the baby over? Correct. I want to nurse him. I've got some time now. And he does that. Right. Dropped off the baby. He actually ended up going back to the car because he forgot the pacifier. So he ran back to the car and then went back into the building to give the pacifier, you know, to Daisy. Camilo kissed them goodbye and left.

That was a little after 10 a.m. The Salazar's routine day ended then and there. At dinnertime, Daisy was at home when she called Carolina, asking if she'd heard from Camilo. And I said, no. And I said, what's going on? She asking if she'd heard from Camilo. And I said, no. And I said, what's going on? She goes, nobody's heard from him. And she had told me that she had already started to call some hospitals and just seeing what's going on. So she was concerned. Yeah. And then I, then of course, you know, I got worried.

Friends and family fanned out looking for Camilo. His mother searched on foot near the house, while others went to Daisy's office. Camilo's mother, Ines. They spent some time kind of canvassing the area and walking around, and even opening up car doors that were unlocked, just to see if he could be in there. They were looking everywhere. No sign of Camilo, but his mother would not stop. She kept walking and walking.

She actually wore out the soles of her shoes. That evening, after he'd been gone around nine hours, the family called the City of Miami Police Department to report Camilo missing. The officer at the time really was treating it as it was not a big deal. One of these, call us tomorrow at noon and we'll see what's going on. Exactly. I don't think they really thought anything was wrong. And I think they thought Daisy was over-exaggerating what was happening. The officer said it was too early for a missing person investigation.

But he didn't know Camilo. This was not his M.O. He was always in touch. But friends and family were getting desperate. They went back to Daisy's office and expanded the search. They started, you know, sort of backtracking, and then they realized, wait a minute, his car's right there. It never, it never left. The vehicle was parked on the street. The driver's side window was down. No keys inside. All right, there's obviously something really wrong here. And then everything started. They notified police about the vehicle.

And that's when an investigation into Camilo's disappearance officially started. An officer came to the scene just before midnight and had the SUV towed the following morning for the forensics team. But nobody at Camilo's house knew that another discovery had already been made in the far reaches of the county, about an hour's drive from where friends and family were searching. It's not a place that you normally think of when you think of the glitz and glamour of Miami. It's not a place that you normally think of when you think of the glitz and glamour of Miami. It's scary, it's lonely, and that's where a lot of people go to dump bodies. As day turned to night, Camilo Salazar's family knew something was terribly wrong.

He'd been missing for hours. One reason for concern, Camilo would never do anything to make them worry. No way. Children of immigrants, Latin family values, you put your family first for everything. So my brother was always the one to be there for us. Camilo was born in Colombia during the rise of Pablo Escobar's Medellin drug cartel. They were treacherous times. And that was one of the reasons that led us to make the move to come to Miami. The Salazars made the most of their new life in America. Camilo worked for his dad's import-export business, then found success on his own selling window treatments. Camillo always seemed to have a charmed life.

He was a good student, made friends easily. He was surrounded by friends all the time, always smiling, always had something funny to say or, you know, kind of made things light. He was also a star athlete, even as an adult. One sport in particular, which people probably didn't even realize was a sport back then, Frisbee. Right, yes. He was a Frisbee champion. He was. They would play, get together in a park in Miami for many years.

And then they formed a league. They were called the Miami Refugees. Camila was popular, fun, always smiling. And now he was missing. At the same time Camilo's family was searching for him, Lieutenant Angelo Andrade of the Miami-Dade Police was on assignment in a remote part of the county. He knew nothing about a missing person.

He was in his patrol car looking for drug smugglers. We were doing an interdiction detail for narcotics through the zone of Okeechobee Road and Chrome Avenue from Southwest 8th Street. Nowhere land, right? That's the edge of the Everglades, right? Correct. Lieutenant Andrade was about an hour's drive and a world away from Camilo's beautiful home in Coconut Grove. I'm driving, so I look over to the horizon and I see a cloud of smoke. Was it a smoky fire or a fire with flames? It was a fire with flames. As Lieutenant Andrade headed toward the flames, he called in a request for a fire rescue.

It was pretty far in there, maybe 500 feet. 500 feet and to the right, I remember it. And the brush was on fire. There was huge smoke coming out you could see flames oh yeah i felt it are there firefighters here yet not yet you're ahead of everybody lieutenant andrade felt the heat but was stopped in his tracks by something else at the center of the fire was a sight he'll never forget a body where's the body what are you seeing i remember it on the floor uh still a little bit in flames i've seen flames coming out of the body? What are you seeing? I remember it on the floor, still a little bit inflamed. You're seeing flames coming out of the body? Yes, I see the brush and the body. Everything's engulfed.

Then that's when fire rescue comes, and they extinguish the fire. Andrade secured the scene and called for the homicide unit. Detective Chris Villano got the call and headed out. There was an unidentified white male who had his hands bound behind his back. On his back or his stomach? He was laying on his stomach. We could see that he had a slit throat. At that time, somebody had made a comment that it resembles that of a Colombian necktie.

I've heard that phrase forever. Is that urban legend or is it true? I don't know. That was the first time I had heard it. It's too grotesque to describe, but a Colombian necktie is a type of murder supposedly carried out by drug cartels. Urban legend or not, there was no question this was a dangerous area

known for drug trafficking and unhappy endings. It's a little bit of a lawless area. Back in 2011, David Ovalle was a reporter for the Miami Herald. It is a place where many, many bodies have been dumped over many, many decades in Miami-Dade County. In fact, another burned body was found nearby just a week earlier. As Detective Villano took a closer look at the body dumped near Okeechobee Road, the brutality of this murder came into focus. You had some blunt force trauma to the head and face.

The pelvic region or the genital region of the victim was burnt extensively. There's a message. This is probably pretty personal with somebody. Personal? Seemed likely. But what exactly did it mean? Hard to say without even knowing who this man was. That's the next big question. Who do we have here, right? Correct. There was no personal items on him to include any sort of identification. The next morning, Detective Villano went to the morgue to observe the autopsy. A City of Miami police detective happened to be there, too.

He was working a missing person case. He was there with a flyer of a white male affixed to a missing person's flyer. A missing person flyer. Have you seen this guy, that kind of thing? Correct. It didn't take long to connect the flyer to the murdered man at the morgue. It was Camilo Salazar. He was just 43 years old. Carolina was at Camilo's house when detectives arrived with the dreadful news.

I remember Daisy and my mom, and there were other people that were in the living room inside the house. And the detectives had come inside, and they told them the news. And I just remember hearing just loud screaming coming from the house. I saw my mother. I saw Daisy. Everybody was just wailing. Did any of that make sense? No. No. We were just completely lost. So it was definitely a shock. For Camilo's mother, it was the cruelest possible ending to the American dream she'd wanted for her family. Always I figured in my mind that we are a table with four chairs. But now there was an empty chair at Inez's family table, Camilo's chair.

Everything was done. We never had a peace. Terrible pain collapsed my life. There's no really getting over that, is there? No. Camilo's murder was a tragedy for his family, a mystery for police. And for those who followed the case as it unfolded, it was unlike anything they'd ever seen. If this saga was a movie, this whole saga would be some sort of only in South Florida telenovela. Very melodramatic and very tragic. And this woman was about to take center stage. The fiery scene where Camilo Salazar's body was found didn't yield any forensic evidence. But there was another potential crime scene about 40 miles away, the spot where Camilo's abandoned SUV was discovered. We processed that vehicle at the city of Miami. They were able to obtain

a latent print off of the victim's vehicle. So that's promising. Yes. And you ran it and what happened? We did not get any hits on that. So with no meaningful forensic evidence, Detective Villano and his partner Sergeant Doug McCoy did a deep dive into Camilo's life. With no meaningful forensic evidence, Detective Villano and his partner, Sergeant Doug McCoy, did a deep dive into Camilo's life.

Starting where they always do in cases like this, with the victim's marriage. We don't have a whole lot to go on, so we typically start with the victim. We learn all we can. When detectives asked people about Camilo and Daisy's relationship, they heard pretty much the same thing from everyone. They had a really good friendship. Whenever I saw them, they seemed very happy. They seemed like they were having fun. Since Camilo's body was found in an area known for drug trafficking, the detectives pursued that angle. As we spoke to family and friends, he didn't have any enemies. He was not in the drug business. It did not appear that he was involved in any criminal activity. He was just a regular, everyday guy.

Just a regular guy. Nothing to explain why he ended up dead. So Detective McCoy pushed Daisy to tell them anything about Camilo that might not be so squeaky clean. She told them about something that happened five years earlier. His wife, Daisy, tells us about a land deal the victim was involved in in 2006. And it went sideways in some manner? It did go sideways. So that's of interest. It was because he stood to make $100,000 in this investment. It did not work out. There was a lot of money at stake when the deal went belly up. More than that, it looked like the developer in charge was involved in some shady financial dealings. That caught the attention of the FBI. And back in 2006, they started looking into the deal. Camillo cooperated with the investigation. Does that sound like the kind

of thing that could get a guy killed? I guess it all depends who you're dealing with. Remember that burned body discovered not far from Camilo's just days before his murder? Turned out that victim was also a witness cooperating with authorities in a criminal case. Did the similar circumstances mean the two murders were connected? Investigators are going to be able to cross reference the cases and see if in fact there is any possible relationship between the two cases. Detectives could find no connection and no evidence that Camilo was killed because of that shady land deal. After speaking with the FBI, they had interviewed several individuals, bankers that were part of the land deal,

and there was no threats made to any of those individuals, nor were there any threats made to Camilo. The lead went nowhere. So what did detectives have? One unidentified fingerprint. In other words, they had nothing. Unless. Unless there was some secret life that he was living. A secret life? Well, just days after Camilla was killed, detectives heard from a woman named Jenny Marin who shed light on that. It was a huge break in the case.

When detectives met with her, Jenny started with a coincidence that was hard to believe. Her husband was missing too. His name was Manny Marin, co-owner of Presidente, a popular chain of supermarkets catering to the Hispanic community in South Florida. Manny is a big deal in this community. He was. Gail Levine, a veteran prosecutor in the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office, would work hand-in-glove with Detectives Villano and McCoy on the case. Levine learned a lot about Manny Marin.

He was like the successful Cuban emigre story. Arriving with nothing and ending up with the whole bank. Exactly. Hardworking guy. Came with nothing. Started supermarkets in New Jersey. Moved to Miami, more supermarkets, more money, and contributing to the Optimist Club, the Little League teams, well-recognized, well-respected. When Jenny met Manny, he was still married to his first wife.

He was also 20 years older than Jenny, but Manny fell hard for her. He pursued her. She was beautiful. She was elegant. She said, if you divorce your wife, you know, we can talk about it. He came in with the divorce papers, flew to New Jersey and swept her off her feet. So he's down on one knee with both divorce papers and the ring, huh? Exactly. Come back with me. Now's the time. And she went. Manny and Jenny lived in a spectacular waterfront house on a double lot in Lighthouse Point, about an hour or so north of Miami. They had two children together and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. The way Jenny explained it is Manuel Manny was a great father and just a great supporter.

Christian Colon followed the story for both NBC's Miami affiliate WTVJ and its Spanish-language Telemundo station. In Miami, Christian Colon, Telemundo 51. He provided everything to Jenny. So when it comes to typical Miami stuff, I mean, you have the yachts, you have the mansions. She wanted nothing in the way of luxuries. I mean, she had it all. The six bedrooms, the Louis Vuitton bag.

So she had everything. She didn't have to work. What didn't she have? What was wrong in the way of luxuries. I mean, she had it all. The six bedrooms, the Louis Vuitton bag. So she had everything. She didn't have to work. What didn't she have? What was wrong in the marriage? Love. She didn't have that love from Manuel Marin. Jenny's marriage was a mess. There was infidelity, jealousy, and constant infighting.

But what did that have to do with Camila Salazar? Only everything. And Jenny was about to tell the detectives all about it. Detectives investigating Camilo Salazar's murder were contacted by a woman named Jenny Marin. She told them about her marriage to supermarket mogul Manny Marin. It was dysfunctional, broken beyond repair. Jenny is restless. She's not feeling any warmth. She's feeling very lonely and isolated. She didn't have any friends.

But Jenny did have at least one friendship, a man in her social circle she'd known for years. Eventually, their casual relationship turned into a very secret affair. They did everything under the radar. You know, they bought burner phones so they could talk to each other. They would meet up in hotels, you know, near one of the shopping malls where she would go every day. And so it was a very, very hush-hush kind of thing. Despite those efforts, Manny found out about the affair. He was furious and confronted Jenny.

He's on a six-lane highway. She wants to jump out of the car. It's dangerous. She screams for him to pull over. And he pulls so close to the guardrail that she can't even open the door. So she actually jumps out the window. She flees the husband through the car window? That's right.

She's on the side of the road? That's right, on a very, very busy Miami highway. Even after that drama on the highway, Jenny and Manny stayed together. But things didn't get better, and months later, aboard their yacht, they got into it again. He told her in Spanish the affair was a disgrace, a disgrace, and ordered later, aboard their yacht, they got into it again. He told her in Spanish

the affair was a disgracia, a disgrace, and ordered her to end it. But Jenny decided to end her marriage instead. And when Manny disappeared a few days later, she felt the time was right and paid a visit to a divorce lawyer. She told the divorce lawyer, I have a boyfriend. My husband found out I was supposed to stop the affair, I didn't. Jenny said not only was her husband missing, but now her lover wasn't answering her calls and texts. Her lawyer did an internet search on the boyfriend. Went on to Google and saw that there was a Crimestoppers tip. Does anybody have any information?

Would this be your lover? Yep. The Crimestoppers website was asking for tips about a murder case. The victim's name was Camilo Salazar. Yes, that Camilo Salazar. He was Jenny's secret lover. It was a stunning turn of events. Jenny had gone to the lawyer seeking a divorce, then confessed to an affair, and learned that her lover had been the victim of a grisly murder, all in one meeting. Her lawyer said this wasn't a story for a divorce attorney. Jenny needed to talk to the police. And that's how detectives investigating Camila's murder ended up talking to Jenny Marin.

You've got a love triangle here, apparently. You've got a dead guy who's got a girlfriend who's somebody else's wife. Yes. And there was more. Manuel Marin's passport was missing. And the reason she knew that is because she was the person who kept all the passports. She had also, during the interview, provided us the telephone number to her husband. With those leads, detectives were able to learn that just days after Camilo's murder,

Manny Marin had flown to Paris. A round-trip ticket, but he never returned. So Manny, the supermarket, wealthy mogul guy, is now in Europe? Correct. Off the grid, nobody knows where he is? No one knows where he is. But now they knew that he was the odd man out in a love triangle, and his disappearance was of his own doing. That was a game changer. Do these suspicious circumstances make him the number one person of interest on

your list? Yes. He's now someone wanted for the murder of Camila. At that point, he is a person of interest or a main suspect in our case. Jenny's story had turned her husband into a suspect, and when she gave detectives Manny's cell phone number, it led to all sorts of new leads. In today's world, I hate to tell all the possible criminals in the world, but your phone tells everything. Now you start issuing subpoenas to the cell phone companies. And where was that trail leading you to? It led us to three particular individuals who seemed to be receiving and making all of the calls at the time. The cell phone records did not include any GPS or tracking data

to show where the phones were. But it did show that on the day Camila was murdered, Manny Marin's phone was blowing up with calls to and from three men, all of them involved in the mixed martial arts fight game. So this all moves into the kind of weird world of mixed martial arts and gyms. Manny always had a special place for wrestling, and he became friendly with a young guy that had won the bronze medal in the Atlanta Olympics. For Cuba. For Cuba. And he helped him defect through Puerto Rico.

And this is a guy named? Alexis Vila Perdomo. Vila Perdomo. Vila gained notoriety in America as a mixed martial arts fighter. Manny Marin's phone records also led to Ariel Gandula, another Cuban mixed martial arts fighter who trained in the same gym with Vila. And then there was Roberto Isaac. He was Vila's friend and one of his corner men in the fight game. Detectives brought Isaac in for questioning. Are you asking him the whereabouts question? Where were you on June 1st? We didn't even get that far. He invoked his rights, so we didn't garner any new information from that interview. They interviewed the other two men and didn't get much from them either.

But the detectives felt certain the three men had something to do with Camilo's murder, even though they had no evidence to prove it. And Manny Marin, the man they believe was behind the whole thing, he was still nowhere to be found. The authorities knew who it was, probably. Mm-hmm. But couldn't put their hands on him and bring him into a courtroom. Right, yeah, and that was very frustrating.

That frustration wouldn't last forever. Detectives were about to track down a witness with an incredible story about the day Camillo was murdered. Was Camillo struggling or fighting or screaming, yelling? It was a love triangle that ended in a grisly death. A case with no arrests, but a lot of leads. A big one came from cell phone tower records. We did find Manny's phone pinging in the area in and around where the victim's body was found. Devastating evidence or just interesting smoke?

Prosecutor Catherine Fernandez-Rundle is the Miami-Dade state attorney. It's a circumstantial case. Does that worry you? What you're really worried about is you don't really have eyewitnesses at that point. Another big worry for investigators was their prime suspect. Manuel Marin was still outstanding. But two years after the murder, detectives and prosecutors got a lead that changed that.

After Manny fled the U.S., his wife Jenny filed for divorce. Manny responded with documents filed overseas. All the documents are in Spanish and notarized with a Spanish seal. I figure he's in Spain. Do you have an address for him in Spain? Absolutely not.

The Spanish government didn't offer to search for him. So Levine asked the FBI for help. She didn't get the answer she wanted. Their response is, call us back when you have an address. It was a promising lead, but it just didn't pay off, and the investigation stalled. But then in 2015, four years after Camilo's murder, Detective Villano went back to the case file and noticed something. We had a fingerprint still left.

The unidentified fingerprint found on Camilo's SUV. Villano decided to run the print again, and bingo. This time there was a hit. Who left that print? Ariel Gandula. Ariel Gandula, the mixed martial arts fighter who was on the phone with Manny the day of the murder. After Camilo's murder, Gandula had been arrested on a drug charge,

and now his fingerprint was in a national database. Would think that'd be a big deal. It was a very big deal. I remember that day like it was yesterday. The fingerprint connected him directly to Camilo Salazar. But detectives couldn't find Gandola. Like Manny, he had also disappeared. The detectives now believe they had a winning case. But prosecutors said it still wasn't enough to bring charges.

For Carolina and her family, waiting for justice wasn't easy. It felt like forever, and I just kept thinking we have to be patient. The case languished with no new evidence. But Detectives Villano and McCoy kept pushing prosecutors. And finally, in 2018, after years of internal debate, the state attorney's office decided to charge the four suspects with murder. You got to go with what you had. So we charged people. We charged all four of them. Manny in absentia, Gandula in absentia, and we knew we had Vila and Isaac. They brought Vila and Isaac into

custody, but still needed to find Gandula and Maddie. He was somewhere in Spain and living a comfortable life with money, they discovered, being provided by his son, Yadiel, who was back in Florida. So Gail Levine brought charges against the son for aiding and abetting. Ah, the son. The aider and abetter, as you think about it. That's right. Is he shaking in his boots? I don't know, but he's getting a lot of bad press. The pressure on the son must have been felt all the way to Spain, because on August 24, 2018, Manny Marin decided to give up his life in exile. All of a sudden, Manny shows up in the Spanish embassy and says,

I'm wanted in the United States. Gives himself up? Gives himself up. Finally, after seven long years, Manny was in custody and back in Florida, charged with the murder of Camilo Salazar. Three of the four suspects were now behind bars, but they weren't talking. Maybe prosecutors would have better luck with Ariel Gandula, but he was still at large. You got to find the weak link here. Gandula. You got to find the person that's going to flip on the others. That's right. So they set out to find Gandula. So where's this

guy Gandula? Vancouver, Canada. How did you learn that? Google. The prosecutors in this country use Google to make their cases? You use whatever you can. The team made the six-hour flight to Canada and Gandula agreed to talk to them in a Vancouver police station. Can we call you Ariel or do you prefer Mr. Gandula? Ariel. His answers are not lining up with the evidence that we have. So after several hours of hearing his story, we now start presenting him with the evidence that we have. And now his story starts to change. His demeanor

starts to change. He just fold before your eyes? He sits back in his chair. He folds his arms. His head goes down. You can see that we're on the right track and he knows it. Gandula cracked and started telling a harrowing story. He said back on that June day in 2011, his friend Roberto Isaac told him he needed help intimidating a man who owed someone money. It was Camilo, a man they'd never met, but they had a photo of him and an address. After Camilo dropped his newborn off at Daisy's office,

he walked to his SUV, where the men were waiting for him. Mr. Isaac acted as he was possibly a police officer or some sort of law enforcement. They then abducted Mr. Salazar, put him in the back of the truck. Gandula said they zip-tied his hands behind his back and held him hostage for hours, then met Manny at an empty lot in an industrial area where there'd be no witnesses. Gandula says Manny dragged Camillo into his Mercedes. Mr. Gandula says, you know, when Camillo sees Manuel Marin, he starts to freak out. The victim says, oh my God, that's the woman I'm having an affairs with.

What husband? This was way bigger than collecting a debt. This was about jealousy and revenge. Was Camillo struggling or fighting or screaming, yelling? He was struggling, and he was saying, Why are you doing this? Marin said, You know why this is happening. You know why this is happening.

When Gandula realized why this was happening, he said he was done. He's no longer going to have anything to do with this. So he actually gets into the truck, he pulls the truck away, and he drives home. Gandula leaves. He leaves. And that's where Gandula's story ended. He said he did not witness the murder, never made it to that horrible scene in the Everglades where Camilla's body was found, 30 miles away from where he met up with Manny. Still, it was an incredible story.

An eyewitness gandula had placed Manny Marin in the middle of it. While they were still at the police station in Vancouver, Levine made a snap decision. So right then and there, I make the quickest deal I ever made in my life. I'll give you three years for kidnapping if he walks across the border. Tells the story. Gandula took the deal and would become a witness for the prosecution. But it was the two women at the center of the storm who were getting the headlines. And they were about to tell their dramatic stories at Manny Maron's trial. It was a brutal, cruel, disgusting murder case.

It was almost unfathomable that someone could have orchestrated this horrible murder. Almost 12 years after Camilo Salazar's murder, the case found its way to a jury. In the spring of 2023, alleged mastermind Manny Marin was on trial, charged with second-degree murder. Prosecutor Justin Funk took the lead. It was revenge. It was machismo. Manny had been wronged. His wife was cheating on him, and this was the man who did it, and we're going to deal with it. Prosecutors said Manny hired the MMA muscle to kidnap Camillo at Daisy's office. Manny later met them at that empty industrial lot, drove out to the Everglades, and viciously murdered him. It's a desperate man who believes he's been disgraced, and he knew that the loyalty of some of these people

was going to help effectuate what he wanted to achieve. Prosecutors wanted the jury to hear firsthand from the two women at the heart of this tragic love triangle. Daisy, Camillo's wife, and Jenny, his lover. Their stories would provide the motive for the murder. You could probably hear a pin drop in that room that day when that happened. Because it was just, I think there was a lot of anticipation. Daisy, the heartbroken widow, told the jury about her last moments with Camillo

when he brought their baby to her office. He forgot her pacifier, so he ran back out, grabbed that, brought it to me. He was, and then he said, I'll see you soon. Did he give you a kiss goodbye? Yes. No one saw him again. Did you have any idea that your husband was involved with someone else while you were with him? No. We were very happy, very present. He was present all the time. The prosecution then called Jenny to show the jury how her affair had triggered her husband's rage.

Manny Moran gave you everything you could have wanted, correct? Yes. But you fell out of love with him. Yes. You disrespected him. Yes. He disrespected him. Yes. He loved you. Yes, but...

And you cheated on him. Yes. You're still alive. Yes. And Camilla's dead, right? Yes. Jenny described how she misunderstood something Manny said during that argument about her affair on their yacht. That confrontation was just hours before Camila was killed.

Reporter Christian Colon was in the courtroom. Manuel Marin says, Jenny, if you don't stop what you're doing, you're going to cause a desgracia. What is the word that he used in Spanish for disgrace? Desgracia. And Jenny took it as, you're going to cause a disgrace. But in Cuban slang, desgracia is known as a calamity, or in another word, a tragedy.

It means that I'm going to commit a tragedy because of this. So that was a big thing. It was almost like an admission. It was almost like a confession before it happened. Correct. Correct. Confession or not, it was a calamity. Prosecutors argued it was a crime of passion, carried out against Camilo in a merciless way by enraged husband Manny Marin. I believe they turned him over and lit him on fire from his penis.

You only do that if you have one thing in mind, revenge. Not only was there a strong motive, prosecutors said there was evidence that Manny was there the day Camila was murdered. Ariel Gandula told the jury about seeing him at that industrial lot, and prosecutors said the cell phone data put Manny at the spot where they found Camila's body.

There was no way that any was going to be able to explain the cell phone, the flight by Manny, Ariel Gandula's testimony. You just couldn't explain that away. When it came time for the defense, Barron's attorney, Jose Quinion, disputed all of the state's evidence and told the jury that Manny had nothing to do with the murder. Not a single one piece of evidence points to Mr. Manny. Nothing. The defense did admit Manny was at that industrial lot, not to take part in a murder, but to watch Camilo take a beating.

This was indeed nothing more and nothing less than an attempt to scare Mr. Salazar in order to stop the affair. And no one will come into this courtroom and testify that Mr. Marin killed Camilo Salazar. The defense attorney said Manny was not at the location where Camilo's body was found. He said the cell phone data was simply not precise. It could be anywhere in this big two-mile radius. It could be anywhere. And Ariel Gandula?

The defense called him a liar. You need to watch out. He's trying to strike a deal with the prosecutors. He has tremendous motive to lie. As for the affair, the defense berated Jenny on the witness stand, chastising her for her role in the tragedy. Were you ready to break up with Camilo at that time and just devote yourself to your kids and your husband? I wanted to, yes.

Why didn't you do it? You could have done it. You're right. What was preventing you? When you want something that is accessible, that is reachable, that the husband is asking you to do, why don't you do it? He's asking you to do it. You can do it. It is there.

Why not? Tell me, why not? I don't know. I don't know how to answer that question. After nearly two weeks of testimony, it was time for closing arguments. The prosecution went first. Manny Marin is the reason why they're here. We're not talking about the hired Hansards.

This is the architect. We are here because of Manuel Marin's own ego. But the defense said Manny was no architect, no killer. He's a peaceful guy, no violence, none of this. This is not who he is, as opposed to this other individual who is a violent person. The defense said that other individual was Roberto Isaac. He was the one who killed Camilo. After a six-hour deliberation, the jurors walked back into the courtroom, verdict sheet in hand. The defendant is guilty of manslaughter, a lesser included crime.

Guilty, but not of second-degree murder. They went for the manslaughter charge. They did manslaughter with a weapon. They still found him guilty of the death of Camilla Salazar. Once they read the verdict, it was just as like, finally, you know, finally, after all these years,

it's finally coming to a close. But do you ever really shed the awfulness of what happened? It's not going to bring my brother back, that's for sure. 69-year-old Manny Marin was given a life sentence. Vila Perdomo and Isaac were tried separately. Isaac was found guilty of murder, Vila guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. The felony charges against Marin's son, Yadiel, were dropped. I think the outcome is what, you know, not for us as the detective or the department,

but more importantly, the closure for the family. But closure's not always an easy thing, especially for a mother who lost her only son. Inez, how are you doing after all of this? Survive day after day. Survive day after day. Carolina tries to honor her brother by remembering his big smile, infectious laugh, and the way he embraced life. When Camila was with you, it was like you've known him for your whole life.

Right now, he'd be sitting down, joking with you, making you laugh, making you smile. The world could use a lot of those people. Really could, yeah. They really could. That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Friday at 9, 8 central. And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt.

For all of us at NBC News, good night.