Homeless film extra admits to killing Hollywood exec whose friend she allegedly stalked
A homeless woman has confessed to killing high-profile Hollywood executive Michael Latt over his friendship with a female director she was stalking.
Jameelah Elena Michl, 36, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and first-degree burglary in a Los Angeles court on Monday, court records showed.
Michl also admitted to using a firearm during the attack, which is a felony offense.
Latt, who had worked on projects with the likes of “Selma” director Ava DuVernay and “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler, was killed in November last year.
Prosecutors alleged that Michl, a homeless woman who had been living in her car, knocked on the door of Latt’s Los Angeles home, then forced her way in and fatally shot him with a semi-automatic handgun.
He later died in hospital.
Michl had been stalking and threatening director A.V. Rockwell, and targeted Latt because he was friends with Rockwell, who had taken out several restraining orders against her, according to court records obtained by AP.
“She targeted him for being friends with a woman she had been stalking,” the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said last year.
Michl had appeared as an extra in Rockwell’s latest film “ A Thousand and One,” starring Teyana Taylor – which earned her a Gotham Award for breakthrough director on the same night Latt was killed.
Rockwell said in court filings filed in June that Michl started stalking her after appearing as a background actor in that same movie.
After filming wrapped, Michl sent the director a large gift box, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, and later reached out to her to seek a personal relationship, court records and officials indicated.
When Rockwell failed to respond to her overtures, Michl allegedly hand-delivered chilling letters to the director’s home threatening suicide, according to the filing.
“My Glock is loaded as I write this,” one of the notes read. “One pull of the trigger and I’ll be free.”
Michl sent at least five “extremely long and threatening emails and text messages” to Rockwell, repeatedly called her phone and approached her at public events, according to the filings.
“As you continue to bask in the glory of ‘A Thousand and One,’ l want you to remember, and not forget all the hell that people went through to help bring your masterpiece to the screen,” Michl wrote in an April 29 email.
On May 3, Michl wrote again, threatening to take her own life.
“I’m taking my Glock into Griffith Park and not coming out,” she wrote in the email, the documents show.
Rockwell got the restraining order reissued on numerous occasions, after complaining that she could not eat or sleep, and was suffering from panic attacks “caused by the anxiety and fear for my safety,” according to court documents.
Prior to his death, Latt posted a photo with Rockwell and his mom at the Sundance Film Festival, where the director’s movie won the Grand Jury Prize. “Congratulations to @AVRockwell on your incredible feature film directorial debut, A Thousand and One,” his caption said.
Latt’s mother, Michelle Satter, is one of the founding directors of the Sundance Institute’s artists programs, where she helped Quentin Tarantino early in his career. His father, David Latt, is a film producer, and his brother is an agent.
Michl faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, with no parole considered for 25 years, at her sentencing scheduled for July 10, prosecutors said.
She was held on $3 million bail.
