Mark and Marla Palumbo were concerned when their friend and business partner Dr. Henry Han failed to show up for a meeting on March 23, 2016. They would learn the horrific reason why the following day from a news report.
Marla Palumbo: I was in the kitchen on my computer and I kept checking … And I just remember screaming, “they’re all dead.”
Dr. Han, his wife Jennie, and their 5-year-old daughter Emily were found dead in the garage of their Santa Barbara home. Mark Palumbo had just seen them on his way back from a business trip.
Mark Palumbo: We went out for dinner … played Connect Four with Emily.
Mark and Maria Palumbo 
Marla Palumbo: He brought his phone to me and I’m just looking at all these pictures of Emily … and they were … taken the Friday before …
Natalie Morales: Just horrific.
Marla Palumbo: Yeah. … and she’s just goofing around with a book … making all these funny faces and … you could tell … she was loving life.
Business Agreement Signed the Last Day of Victim’s Life Led to a Person of Interest
The Palumbos had recently embarked on a new business venture with Dr. Han.
Mark Palumbo: I really loved the guy. I mean he really was smart and curious and open-minded …
Marla Palumbo: He had to come with food … and in shorts and flip-flops you know … just no … air about him.
Natalie Morales: But what made you trust him?
Marla Palumbo: His passion.
Mark Palumbo: Yeah. The way he cared about people.
Don Goldberg had known Dr. Han for more than 25 years and thought of him as a brother. To Goldberg, he was just “Henry.”
Don Goldberg: I was … approximately 10 years older than Henry, but he still called me his younger brother. … you just don’t come across a friend like Henry … It’s once in a lifetime friendship.
Santa Barbara Herb Clinic 
When they met, Henry Han was making a name for himself after emigrating from China, where he came from a family of physicians. He would soon take over the Santa Barbara Herb Clinic.
Dr. Glenn Miller: I had several patients … who had had medication side effects … They would say … I went to see Doctor Han … and it went away. … And it was like, I gotta meet this guy.
Dr. Glenn Miller, a psychiatrist, says he and Henry Han developed a mutual respect and even partnered on a book about how Eastern and Western medicine could work together to improve patients’ quality of life.
Dr. Glenn Miller: Henry’s practice was flourishing … as far as active patients, he would see like in a month, it was hundreds … but he also tried to balance it.
In 2009, that balance he was seeking became a reality, when Henry met and married Jennie Yu.
Dr. Glenn Miller: He seemed incredibly happy … It was good to see Henry that happy.
Marla Palumbo: Jennie … was absolutely warm and lovely.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office 
When they had Emily, the dream was complete.
Don Goldberg: Henry was just … on cloud nine. He was very proud father.
They were often together at the clinic, where Jennie had quickly become Henry’s right hand, says her friend Isaiah Oregon.
Isaiah Oregon: He really trusted her and let her kind of take the reins …
In the spring of 2016, they were getting ready to celebrate Emily’s 6th birthday.
Isaiah Oregon: We were making plans for her birthday party and … you know, had all her presents wrapped.
But just three days shy of her birthday, her loved ones were stricken with grief.
Don Goldberg: I don’t really have adequate words to describe h — how I felt … The sadness … is too deep.
As night fell on the Han estate on Wednesday, March 23, Goldberg tried to process what he had just witnessed. He had called 911 when he couldn’t find the Hans anywhere, and he was with sheriff’s deputies when they discovered the bodies in the garage wrapped in plastic.
Don Goldberg: None of it made any sense at all.
Prosecutor Ben Ladinig says it was shortly before midnight when Santa Barbara sheriff’s investigators obtained a search warrant and began to piece together what had happened inside the house. It appeared the family had been shot while they slept upstairs on the second floor — Henry in the couple’s bedroom, and Jennie and Emily across the hall in Emily’s room.
Ben Ladinig: Emily’s room was tough to see … Mom … probably read her stories to have Emily go to sleep that night and was sleeping with her.
Natalie Morales: What did that tell you about the depravity of the kind of person who could do something like that? … What were they after?
Ben Ladinig: We didn’t know what he was after. But … the depravity I’ve never seen anything like it.
Detectives picked up on the distinct smell of the murderer’s attempts to cover his tracks.
Ben Ladinig: The smell of bleach … was there. …We had bleach bottles found … There were bleach … stains on the carpet and throughout other items upstairs … and then you see bloody things in … a washing machine.
All the bedding, which had been stripped from the beds was found piled in the laundry room and in the machine.
Ben Ladinig: The washing machine, the alarm had gone off because it — the load was unbalanced. And within there are a huge group of bloody sheets …
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office 
Wedged in pillows in the laundry, crime scene investigators found a .22 caliber bullet and bullet fragments. Three matching shell casings were found within the wrapping of Jennie’s body, and one was later found lodged between the baseboard and box spring of Emily’s bed.
Ben Ladinig: We had one bullet that was a through and through … it was perfect for comparison … for … the murder weapon.
Ben Ladinig: As things are going, we start to find clues as to … who potentially could be involved.
Inside a paper bag next to Henry’s bed, detectives found a document signed the last day Henry was seen alive. It provided a name.
Ben Ladinig: It’s basically a four-page business contract between two partners. Partner one, Pierre Haobsh, and partner two, Dr. Han.
Don Goldberg knew a Pierre that Dr. Han was associated with, but Goldberg thought he was harmless.
Don Goldberg: I did not think that … Pierre was capable of … murder … I never really saw Pierre become angry or agitated.
But the Palumbos had a bad feeling.
Natalie Morales: You didn’t trust him?
Mark Palumbo: I did not.
A Suspect is Sought as a Community Mourns
The indelible scar left by the murders was the kind that not even Dr. Han could’ve healed.
Paul Wellman/Santa Barbara Independent 
Kymberlee Ruff: It was like a bomb exploded … Nobody could move for weeks. … There is something … very, very, very dark going on.
Kymberlee Ruff says Dr. Han treated her family for two decades — ever since she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer shortly after giving birth to her son. Ruff says Dr. Han’s holistic approach allowed her to nurse her newborn while still treating her tumors.
Kymberlee Ruff: He could do anything. … No matter how scared you might be, or- or frightened, you just left feeling like it’s gonna be OK. Yeah, he was something.
Instilling hope may have been one of the secrets to why his patients say Dr. Han could heal just about anything.
Sheri Buron: Dr. Han, like, saved my life.
Sheri Buron was also a young mother with cancer when she went to Dr. Han.
Sheri Buron: My daughter, Abbey, was 15 months old … I felt a lump under my armpit.
Even though she had the prescribed surgery and chemotherapy, she credits Dr. Han with her survival.
Sheri Buron: There were so many people that passed away around me. … He got me through it.
Natalie Morales: What was the impact for you of his loss?
Sheri Buron: It’s the fear of … if something comes back. … And I’m … trying every day to be positive and … try to stay with his level of calm and how much confidence he had that like everything’s taken care of.
That conviction is what had drawn the Palumbos — who worked in the skincare industry — into their partnership with Dr. Han, hoping to treat various skin maladies.
Marla Palumbo: Henry was very interested in CBD.
Having used CBD in his practice to treat pain and inflammation, Henry Han wanted to harness its full potential. It was groundbreaking science at the time, and he wanted 25-year-old Pierre Haobsh to help develop it.
Don Goldberg: Pierre … from what we gathered had a lot of experience, uh, in laboratories … in this case relating to CBD.
Henry Han had taken a liking to Haobsh after meeting him through another associate, but the Palumbos were uncomfortable with Pierre from the start.
Facebook 
Marla Palumbo: You know how when you meet somebody … you can’t put your finger on it … but something’s not right. That was Pierre.
Mark Palumbo: It was always this kind of little boiling simmer.
When it came time to do the lab work, the Palumbos say the results were disturbing.
Marla Palumbo: What we came to find out was he was using toxic materials … when … we called him on it … he said, you know, “I’m just learning more about the molecules” … it was just weird.
As it turned out, Haobsh wasn’t a formally trained scientist. He didn’t even have a college degree.
Mark Palumbo: The more you got under that surface, the more you realize that he could, uh, talk a game and stay over the folks’ heads a bit scientifically …
Natalie Morales: Sounds like he was sort of … a snake oil salesman-type, right?
Marla Palumbo: He was —
Mark Palumbo: — sophisticated one, but yes —
Marla Palumbo: Yeah, very sophisticated one.
There was more eyebrow-raising behavior — Haobsh had also made odd charges on Henry Han’s account.
Marla Palumbo: I was doing all the finances … And I’m like, this doesn’t look right.
Natalie Morales: Not a business expense —
Marla Palumbo: Not at all.
After Marla Palumbo flagged the charges to Henry Han, he discovered they were for escort services.
Marla Palumbo: Henry was, “You won’t believe this! Pierre’s out.”
Natalie Morales: That was the final straw.
Marla Palumbo: That was Henry’s final straw.
Mark Palumbo: For Henry, yeah.
But then, a few weeks before the murders, the Palumbos say Henry Han brought up Pierre Haobsh out of the blue.
Marla Palumbo: Henry mentioned that he had learned a lot more about Pierre’s upbringing … how much Pierre had to overcome from his childhood. … Mark nor I really responded. We didn’t want to have Pierre back in our fold at all.
The Palumbos were not alone in being wary of Pierre Haobsh. Jennie Han’s friend, Isaiah Oregon, says Jennie also had concerns and confided in him about them four days before the murders.
Isaiah Oregon: It was weighing on her heavily. … “Do we trust him? … Do we give him another chance?” … I was like, “Absolutely not.” … If he stole from you before, he’s gonna steal from you again.”
But Pierre Haobsh had already ingratiated himself back into Henry’s good will.
Don Goldberg: Henry had a very trusting nature … Henry had shared with me that Pierre told him that he was … ill … that it was late-stage cancer and that, uh, he was going to do what he could to help Pierre.
Isaiah Oregon: Using Henry’s good nature … by lying to him, by manipulating him.
Authorities learned that Haobsh had been an overnight guest at the Han’s home before the murders and had formed a new partnership with the healer. There was that contract found in the master bedroom they had signed the last day of Henry’s life. But Prosecutor Ben Ladinig says it didn’t seem legitimate.
Ben Ladinig: It … was like a college sophomore drafted it. … It was not notarized, not witnessed.
Detectives had found something else of interest.
Ben Ladinig: A brilliant detective … found … packaging to … the plastic … wrapping … that all three of the Han family were wrapped in … In a trash can, in the kitchen area next to packaging … of 3M duct tape, similar to the duct tape that was used to wrap all three of the bodies.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office 
He recognized the plastic wrap was a Home Depot brand and reached out to the company’s security department.
Ben Ladinig: And Home Depot was, within hours of us … gaining an entry into the house, able to run those two items together, to see if they had been purchased in the Southern California region within the last several days or weeks.
A Home Depot in Oceanside, California, had security footage of a man who matched the DMV photo of Pierre Haobsh, who also happened to have an Oceanside address.
Ben Ladinig: And that was “Bam!” We knew. … He’s walking out with three huge plastic rolls … and sure enough, duct tape.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office 
Natalie Morales: So within hours of … the crime scene being discovered, Pierre Haobsh became … a person of interest.
Ben Ladinig: Yes.
But where was Haobsh now? Detectives had a hunch. Data from the Hans’ cellphones — which were missing — showed they were traveling south, further, and further from Santa Barbara.
Ben Ladinig: Then inexplicably, Henry’s phone goes dark … but Jennie’s is still on and it keeps going south. …We’re getting basically digital footprints leading down to the Oceanside area from a dead woman’s phone.
A Key Witness Tells Detectives Pierre Haobsh Confessed to Him
Sgt. Anthony Flores (driving): Anytime you’re trying to stop somebody that is wanted for homicide, the stakes are gonna be high.
The day after the Han family was found murdered, a manhunt was underway in Oceanside, California — nearly 200 miles from the crime scene. Sgt. Anthony Flores and his partner were part of the local Oceanside Police team assisting the Santa Barbara investigation.
Sgt. Anthony Flores: We had come in to work with our Special Enforcement section … And we were gonna be the stop car for that day. … If … given a window of opportunity … to take him into custody or potentially stop him.
Meanwhile, undercover detectives were conducting surveillance at the residence Pierre Haobsh shared with his father and updating all units — including the homicide team that had driven down from Santa Barbara with Prosecutor Ben Ladinig.
Ben Ladinig: All of a sudden, we get chatter … on our intercoms … “dad’s on the move.”
The surveillance team followed Pierre Haobsh’s father as he drove to a Walmart parking lot, where security cameras captured him meeting up with none other than Pierre.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office 
Ben Ladinig: That’s dad driving in … sedan and then you see the Lexus following shortly behind … They appear to be communicating briefly together … you can just see that trunk pop — on dad’s car.
After transferring two large duffel bags to Pierre Haobsh’s car, they both drove off.
Ben Ladinig: We gotta move quickly.
Sgt. Anthony Flores (driving): It was … a little after midnight and … we had just got the update that the suspect was on the move … As we’re traveling, we’re hearing that he’s pulling into the ARCO station.
Sgt. Anthony Flores: He had a few miles of a head start.
The other units and Ladinig had pulled over by the ARCO station waiting for the arrest team to arrive.
Ben Ladinig: Then all of a sudden, you see … an unmarked car … drive right through the middle of that intersection … sparks fly and … it just basically comes in, pulls in and lays on the brakes … Two huge dudes get outta the car and pull gun on him and prone him out. And our eyes are like saucers. We’re like, whoa.
Natalie Morales: Wow.
Santa Barbara D.A.’s Office 
Natalie Morales (at ARCO station): It’s 200 miles away that this investigation started and it culminated here.
Sergeant Flores had handcuffed Pierre Haobsh.
Natalie Morales (at ARCO station): What do you remember about that arrest?
Sgt. Anthony Flores: I remember it going down really fast … all of our senses were heightened …
Within 48 hours of the murders, investigators had the Han family’s alleged killer in custody. Pierre Haobsh waived his Miranda rights and started talking to detectives. What he told them was something out of a spy thriller. He claimed that his life was in danger.
PIERRE HAOBSH (to detective): Over the past couple of days, I—I kid you not I’ve been shot at. … probably about five individuals so far that I shot in self-defense.
He claimed he was being targeted because of a scientific marvel he had invented.
DET. HENDERSON: What does it do?
PIERRE HAOBSH: It’s, um, it’s a very, very advanced energy source. … it’s — it’s a quantum kinda energy source. … I think probably at least 15 individuals who have been connected to this project are — are dead.
Santa Barbara Superior Court 
Pierre Haobsh said he had gone to Dr. Han’s house earlier in the week to install one of his perpetual energy devices and that the plastic wrap and duct tape he was seen purchasing were for that purpose.
PIERRE HAOBSH (to detective): Dr. Henry, we, um, we signed a contract together … he was going to facilitate taking the technology out to China. … love— love the guy to death. … he really, um, really liked this project …
Pierre Haobsh said he had left Santa Barbara around 2 p.m. on March 22 — the day before the murders — after signing the contract. But detectives pushed back.
DET. HENDERSON: There’s more to this story that you’re not telling me. … Dr. Han is dead.
PIERRE HAOBSH: What!? … I had —no clue that — oh my gosh. Everything was perfectly fine when I left.
Pierre Haobsh was adamant he would never hurt the family and insisted the shadowy figures who had been after him had killed the Hans and were trying to frame him for murder.
PIERRE HAOBSH (to detective): … I invented a technology that changes the world… oil companies and people don’t want this technology out there.
Ben Ladinig: It was this massive conspiracy to keep this … next-level energy system from getting out to market. … “James Bond,” “Mission Impossible” … this fantastical life.
Pierre Haobsh’s outlandish story continued, but then detectives received an unexpected call from someone who claimed to have information about the murders.
TJ Direda: I’m a pretty rough around the edges guy … I have rough around the edges friends.
TJ Direda was a marijuana grower who said Dr. Han had approached him about supplying CBD-rich strains. Direda had also met Pierre Haobsh.
TJ Direda: Dr. Henry had told me … that he was … like a prodigy street chemist … he had done some stuff that was ahead of his time.
Natalie Morales: So, a little bit of a mad scientist?
TJ Direda: Yeah, I would say.
Natalie Morales: Perhaps, yeah.
According to Direda, Pierre Haobsh had a penchant for making up grandiose stories to seek attention. But he befriended him, nonetheless.
TJ Direda: He was … that … awkward … kid that wanted to fit in. … And … I was the guy in high school that stuck up for kids like that … So … I, uh, took an interest in him … in that regard. …
Natalie Morales: You think he trusted you then?
TJ Direda: Oh, he absolutely trusted me.
As Direda revealed to detectives, Pierre Haobsh had reached out to him via text the morning of the murders. The message sent at 09:39 a.m. said: “I need your help with something urgently… Like its urgent!!!!!”
Natalie Morales: What was he asking for?
TJ Direda: Uh, he needed my help. … moving something.
He says Pierre Haobsh told him he was in Santa Barbara and needed to talk face to face. So Direda had him come to his house in Thousand Oaks, about an hour away.
TJ Direda: The first thing out of his mouth … “just so you know, I’m a monster.” … He had told me right then and there that he had killed Dr. Henry … his wife and his child … and needed help …
Natalie Morales: Did he give you details … of what he did?
TJ Direda: He did.
Direda told detectives Pierre Haobsh said he had tried to put the bodies in his car, but they wouldn’t all fit and Henry was too heavy — details Ladinig says only the killer would know.
Ben Ladinig: How the killings were done, how the bodies were wrapped up … how he had the doctor’s phone …
Direda told detectives Pierre Haobsh had also revealed his motive: $20 million that he planned to drain from Henry’s accounts after killing the family. Direda says he didn’t know if what he was hearing was another one of Haobsh’s far-fetched stories. And until he knew for sure, he decided to play along.
TJ Direda: I just wanted to get him out of the house and confirm whether what he had just said was true or not. … I said let me work on it and I’ll call you later …
Once Pierre Haobsh was gone, Direda tried to reach Dr. Han and anyone who might have information, to no avail.
TJ Direda: I didn’t want to call the police because I didn’t — I wasn’t sure yet … it was chaotic. It was … it was scary and also … confusing.
Pierre Haobsh kept messaging him. Around 5 p.m., when Direda still hadn’t provided any assistance, Haobsh texted him with a proposition.
Natalie Morales: “Want to come to Vegas tonight? I’ll pay.” What did you think the reason for that all-of-a-sudden trip to Vegas?
TJ Direda: At that point, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t sound right … He was probably gonna kill me and somehow make it look like I had something to do with it.
Natalie Morales: You were gonna be the fall guy.
TJ Direda: Right.
Direda made up an excuse why he couldn’t go. And Haobsh would send him one final text at 7:35 p.m. that night: “Yep. Am screwed. They just found everything. My lives over. Only if I got to it all sooner.”
Ladinig says Pierre Haobsh had just returned to the crime scene with a big truck to transport the bodies, but law enforcement had beaten him to the scene.
Ben Ladinig: He knew his goose was cooked.
More Disturbing Details About the Han Family Murders Emerge
Pierre Haobsh’s arrest near Oceanside, California, had come at a critical juncture. He was armed with a 9-millimeter handgun that was in plain view on the driver’s side floorboard. He also had his passport and those duffel bags, which he had received from his father minutes earlier.
Ben Ladinig: Two “go bags.” … Basically, whatever you need, clothes … everything for the person to live for months.
Haobsh’s father was also detained and questioned, but he was released later that morning.
Ben Ladinig: We could’ve charged him … as an accessory, but we didn’t have any indication. … that dad … was involved in any way, shape, or form in the killing …
The next day, during a closer examination of Haobsh’s car at the crime lab, “You name it we found it in that car,” said Ladinig.
There was Henry’s wallet, credit card and Social Security number, along with an expended shell casing. There were also the victims’ phones and tablet, all wrapped in aluminum foil, in an attempt to evade tracking.
Ben Ladinig: And in the trunk … you lift up where the spare tire would be … the murder weapon … suppressor silencer, ammunition.
The Santa Barbara Independent 
A week after the murders, the autopsies revealed the victims had been shot 14 times — three each into Henry and Jennie, and most disturbing, eight in Emily.
Ben Ladinig: That ammunition … is the same stuff that we found at the crime scene, in the decedent’s bodies … Match, match, match, match, match. Everything.
Pierre Haobsh was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, making him eligible for the death penalty.
Defense attorney Christine Voss, who was with the Public Defender’s Office at the time, represented Haobsh.
Christine Voss: It was one of the most challenging cases, if not the most challenging case I ever came upon. … He really wanted to be vindicated. … To me, the goal was for him to not get death.
At the eleventh hour, the D.A.’s office agreed to waive the death penalty in exchange for a more expedient bench trial, which meant a judge, not a jury, would render a verdict.
On Oct. 25, 2021 more than five-and-a-half years after the murders, the prosecution delivered its opening statement and laid out its theory of the case — that Pierre Haobsh had plotted the murder of the Han family for financial gain. They painted him as a career con man who up until the murders flaunted his intelligence and supposed wealth.
Marla Palumbo: His entire life’s drive was being rich.
Ben Ladinig: He … sent … screenshots of his Chase account from anywhere from about $3 million up to $940 million dollars to various people attempting to dupe them that he’s this jet setting, billionaire.
Pierre Haobsh claimed he had received big offers for his energy technology.
Christine Voss: I’m not a scientist, but I don’t know that there’s a such thing as a perpetual energy machine.
But several years before the murders, Haobsh was actually being paid to build one.
Samantha Spidell: It was gonna be a new source of energy as if he was, you know, an Elon Musk …
Samantha Spidell met Pierre Haobsh circa 2012 when he moved into a penthouse apartment in a luxury high-rise she managed in Tempe, Arizona.
Samantha Spidell: He … pulled up … and had this … bright red Ferrari … it was very flashy.
Ladinig says Haobsh had duped a group of high-rolling investors into financing his invention, until they realized it didn’t actually work.
Ben Ladinig: He had basically defrauded all these people and the money dried up … When the murders were committed I think he had less than $500 to his name.
Prosecutors presented a detailed timeline retracing Haobsh’s movements, including his digital footprint, in the days before and after the murders. They say as early as March 17 — six days before the murders — he had looked into impersonating the doctor at his bank.
Ben Ladinig: He’s searching for Asian disguises and real flesh masks.
Natalie Morales: Like a “Mission Impossible” face mask.
Ben Ladinig: Right. Hundred percent. … this is his fantastical world that he lived in.
There’s no evidence he ever purchased a mask. But a time-stamped receipt and security video placed him at an Arizona gun store four days before the murders — purchasing ammunition and two firearms, including the alleged murder weapon.
Ben Ladinig: — a .22 pistol with a threaded barrel … for what is a silencer or suppressor …
On March 20, he was back in Oceanside, California, buying supplies before driving up to the Han’s house under the guise of installing the energy machine. Instead, Ladinig says Pierre Haobsh bugged Henry Han’s computer with a spyware app called a keylogger.
Ben Ladinig: What keyloggers do is every stroke, every click of the mouse, every navigation page you go, it documents all of it.
To their surprise, investigators also found the keylogger on Pierre Haobsh’s laptop. On March 21, while Haobsh was still at the Han’s home, the keylogger had recorded chilling search terms on his laptop.
Ben Ladinig: What part of the skull is more penetrable? … What ammunition would be better …
Natalie Morales: As a guest in Dr. Han’s house –
Ben Ladinig: A guest— he’d been staying there –
Natalie Morales: — for the two nights before … Planning, this execution-style murder.
Ben Ladinig: Yes.
Pierre Haobsh left the Han residence on March 22, but prosecutors allege he went back around 4 a.m. the next morning to carry out the murders. They say later that day he began frantically trying to siphon money from Henry Han’s accounts.
Ben Ladinig: He’s using phones. … He’s using fake email accounts. He’s doing all these things from … personal identifying information of Dr. Han’s that he stole earlier that week.
A Chase fraud alert had flagged an attempted payment for $72,000. Meanwhile, Pierre Haobsh also rented that big truck he allegedly drove to the crime scene hoping to move the bodies.
Ben Ladinig: There are black and whites all over that house. … The crime scene’s being processed.
The Palumbos say the meeting they were supposed to have with Henry Han just hours after he was murdered had foiled Pierre Haobsh’s plans.
Marla Palumbo: He thought … that he had that whole day to clean up his mess before Henry would be missed.
Mark Palumbo: He wasn’t fast enough.
Marla Palumbo: I think we screwed it up for him, happily.
That’s when prosecutors say he fled, driving south toward Oceanside. Ladinig argues Pierre Haobsh’s subsequent searches betray his guilty conscience: “is car searched entering tijuana”; “How Crime Scene Investigation Works“; and “how long do fingerprints take to process”. Incredibly, he even consulted an online psychic named Count Marco and asked him “will I get causght for what I did?”
Ben Ladinig: And Count Marco replies, well, what did you do, Pierre?
Pierre Haobsh never gave Count Marco an explanation, but on the stand, he couldn’t stop talking.
Pierre Haobsh Tells an Outlandish Story on the Stand
Christine Voss: This was a tough case … but that didn’t change the fact that Pierre was entitled to a vigorous defense.
Defense Attorney Christine Voss was in an unusual position.
Christine Voss: This was a really well investigated case. … Because my client wanted to have a trial and wanted me to turn every stone, I did.
Turn every stone and raise any possible reasonable doubt.
Natalie Morales: You argued that there were elements presented that were implausible … unprovable and simply impossible, those were your words.
Christine Voss: Yeah.
Voss expressed concerns that the alleged murder weapon and silencer found in Haobsh’s car didn’t match up.
Christine Voss: It absolutely did not connect to the firearm that they believed was the murder weapon.
She seized on discrepancies in the location data from Haobsh’s car and phone that the prosecution had used in its timeline.
Christine Voss: He could not possibly have been in San Diego and Santa Barbara simultaneously, or Thousand Oaks and Santa Barbara simultaneously. But that’s what the GPS data showed.
And she attacked the credibility of the prosecution’s star witness, TJ Direda. Voss questioned why Direda waited nearly two days to contact authorities, and argued in that time, he could have gotten details about the crime scene that the prosecution claimed only the killer knew.
Christine Voss: It was not the best kept crime scene … he was making various phone calls after he heard about the death of Dr. Han …
But Voss concedes much of Direda’s testimony was corroborated by the evidence.
Ben Ladinig: This case was over within the first 72 hours.
Santa Barbara Independent/Ryan P. Cruz 
In fact, the only witness who provided testimony that someone other than Pierre Haobsh was the killer was Pierre Haobsh. During three days on the stand, he repeated the action-packed account he’d given detectives about having shootouts with shadowy figures. Now he said he was sure they were sent by the Department of Energy.
Natalie Morales: It sounds like there’d be a trail of bodies … But yet, is there proof of this trail of bodies anywhere to your knowledge?
Christine Voss: No. … which further made him believe it was the Department of Energy …
And what about all that evidence investigators found?
Ben Ladinig: The DOE … planted them … it’s all a frame, all that stuff is framed. The banking stuff, frame job. … What’s in my car, frame job.
Christine Voss: It was difficult for me to embrace Pierre’s testimony.
Natalie Morales: Do you think he himself believed some of the things … he was saying were true?
Christine Voss: Oh yeah, definitely.
Samantha Spidell: He was obsessed with the government.
Samantha Spidell attests there were some kernels of truth in his stories.
Samantha Spidell: Pierre mentions that his dad had ties to the CIA … And I could tell that he … wanted his dad’s … approval.
When his father died in 2023, his obituary stated he was, “a key player in clandestine Central Intelligence Agency operations during the 1980s.” Pierre Haobsh also told Spidell that his sister was going to star in a reality TV show.
Samantha Spidell: She got cast on a newlyweds reality show … and Pierre was gonna be in it … come to find out that was true.
In fact, both Haobsh and his father made appearances on the second season of the Bravo TV series “Newlyweds, The First Year.” Pierre was even shown giving his brother-in-law a cooking lesson.
But Prosecutor Ben Ladinig argued any grains of authenticity in Haobsh’s life were far outweighed by deceit.
Natalie Morales: You called him “a lying liar who lies about lying.”
Ben Ladinig: Right … Lie, lie, lie, lie hundreds of lies we found on him. … His life was a con.
On Nov. 24, 2021, Judge Brian Hill would get the case. None of Pierre Haobsh’s family members attended his trial. The judge made his ruling: guilty on all counts.
Natalie Morales: The judge, when he issued his ruling, said … his decision was beyond a shadow of a doubt, absolutely no doubt of Pierre Haobsh’s guilt.
Ben Ladinig: Yeah … very satisfactory to hear that.
Christine Voss: I wasn’t surprised.
Natalie Morales: And what was Pierre’s reaction upon hearing that ruling?
Christine Voss: Well, he was visibly disappointed.
Isaac Hernandez, Mercury Press Inc./Isaiah Oregon 
On April 15, 2022, Pierre Haobsh was sentenced to three life terms without the possibility of parole. It was little comfort to those still mourning Henry, Jennie and Emily.
Don Goldberg: I don’t understand how there really could be justice.
Isaiah Oregon: He’s still alive … and — and they’re not. … He took precious moments that … we’ll never get. (wipe tears from his eyes)
Marla Palumbo: I want him to feel every pain possible for what he did.
Mark Palumbo: Not enough bad things can happen for him.
Nearly a decade after the murders, the wounds are still raw.
Isaiah Oregon: It’s hard to think of them.
Dr. Glenn Miller: He was a really good man. … you don’t replace a Henry Han. No.
Don Goldberg: Pretty much every day I think of Henry and Jennie and Emily. … There’s an old … phrase that … a good man and a good family lives for limited time, but a good name shall live forever … They lived too short … but … their name lives on forever.
Haobsh’s conviction was upheld by the California Court of Appeal in January 2025.
He also petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to release him. The Court denied his petition.
On Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, TJ Direda died.
Produced by Gayane Keshishyan Mendez. Greg Fisher is the development producer. Iris Carreras and Hannah Vair are the field producers. Ken Blum and Diana Modica are the editors. Cameron Rubner is the associate producer. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
Source link
