TIMELINE: Keith Green's murder case
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This case made headlines after murder suspect Tiffany Li and her family posted a record bail -- $65 million in cash and real estate. Now, her former friend and alleged accomplice is talking to Dan Noyes from jail, saying he wants to make a deal with prosecutors.
The I-Team met 42-year-old Olivier Adella at San Mateo County Jail, but had to settle for a phone interview because of the jail's long-standing policy banning cameras.
Operator: "You may start the conversation now."
Olivier Adella: "Hello."
Dan Noyes: "Hey, Olivier."
He told Dan Noyes that Keith Green and Tiffany Li knew each other for years, had two children together, and that problems began when Kaveh Bayat entered the picture.
Noyes: "Kaveh was Keith Green's friend, right?"
Adella: "Yes, he met Tiffany through Keith Green and he went behind Keith Green, end up brainwashing Tiffany, take Tiffany from Keith Green, making Tiffany kick Keith Green out of the mansion, moving in, make Keith Green's daughter call him daddy, and him and Tiffany only together for six months."
Adella told us he worked as a bodyguard and trainer for Kaveh Buyat and Tiffany Li.
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February of last year, he said they invited him to the Hillsborough mansion for a meeting in the basement, the "man cave" as seen in court exhibits obtained by the I-Team ... and that Bayat told him to leave his phone outside, patted him down, and made an offer.
Adella said, "'I want you to get rid of Keith Green.' I say, 'What do you mean rid of Keith Green?' Kaveh's the one was talking, 'We want you to pretty much kill Keith Green.'"
Adella talked to detectives for hours -- his story, a central part of the preliminary hearing earlier this year. The I-Team read the 830-page transcript.
Noyes: "How much did they offer to pay you to kill Keith Green?"
Adella: "50,000."
Adella says he refused.
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As the months passed, prosecutors say cell phone records show tensions grew between Tiffany Li and Keith Green over child custody and support.
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One text shows Green, an aspiring chef, wanted the new BMW Tiffany had purchased, $4,000 a month, and $20,000 for furniture. "I do want to create a life that is parallel to yours with the kids," Green texted.
Tiffany forwarded that exchange to Kaveh Bayat, who answered, "He was tyn 2 work u 4 money agin!!! ... That's all he wants. Its not about the kids."
She answers, "I know. ok so nvm. green light..."
Prosecutors allege that meant, green light for murder.
Olivier Adella said, "Kaveh called me when I was getting ready to go to the gym."
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The evening of April 28th, 2016. Adella told the I-Team Bayat asked him to go to the Millbrae Pancake House, where Tiffany was meeting Keith Green in her gray Mercedes G-Wagon.
Adella said, "They were there, so I called him and said, 'Yeah, you were right, they're here, there's nothing going on, they're sitting, they're not kissing, light inside of the car, nothing going on.'"
After about an hour, Tiffany and Keith pull away. The Mercedes, caught on a traffic camera -- Olivier Adella following in his Chrysler 300. He turns off and goes home, but records show the signals from Tiffany Li and Keith Green's cell phones travel from Millbrae south toward her mansion in Hillsborough. Prosecutors say investigators found gun shot residue in the garage on a golf bag, Green's DNA on the floor and on the door sill of the Mercedes.
Cell phone records pick up, showing three signals heading back north from the mansion -- for Tiffany Li, Keith Green and Kaveh Bayat.
Olivier Adella says he was shocked to see them arrive at his apartment.
Adella told the I-Team, "So, they pull up with the car, Kaveh was in the back seat, Tiffany was in the front seat and Keith Green was in the front seat, but Keith Green was dead."
Adella told police, Kaveh Buyat lifted his shirt to reveal a black handgun and, "So, he told me, 'I got, I did what I have to do, it's time to pull up your weight.'"
Adella said Tiffany watched as he and Bayat stripped Keith Green's body, and put him in Adella's trunk.
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Noyes: "Why take off his clothes?"
Adella: "No, it's very simple, because I don't think Kaveh was satisfied on killing, it looked like Kaveh wanted to humiliate Keith Green."
Adella told us he worried about his girlfriend and child in the apartment upstairs, so he agreed to dispose of the body. On the way, he tossed Keith Green's cell phone in Golden Gate Park.
Noyes: "As you're heading north in your car with Keith Green's body in your trunk, what's going through your mind?"
Adella: "What's going through my mind, well, you're a black man in America, my friend. You're screwed. You get rid of the body, you're screwed. Don't get rid of the body, you're screwed."
He found a turnout off 101 near Healdsburg and rolled the body out. For two weeks, friends searched for Keith.
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Finally, a sheriff's deputy found his body, badly-decomposed. The coroner determined he died from a gunshot, the weapon placed in his mouth before firing.
A SWAT team raided the Hillsborough mansion arresting Tiffany Li and Kaveh Bayat. They picked up Olivier Adella at his apartment, charged them with murder. They've all pleaded "not guilty". Adella now wants to testify for the prosecution in return for reduced charges, saying, "So, the D.A. offered me the deal, and without me, they can't get Tiffany, they can't get Kaveh."
Time ran out on the phone call from jail.
Noyes: "Are you going to take the deal and agree to testify against Tiffany and Kaveh?"
Adella: "Yes, yes, yes, yes."
But, prosecutors tell the I-Team there is no deal, at this point, and that they are confident they can make a strong case against all three defendants -- even without Adella's testimony. Li and Bayat's attorneys tell us Adella can't be trusted, that he's a liar. One goes so far as to call him the killer.
Kaveh Bayat's criminal defense attorney Chuck Green told Dan Noyes, "We believe that Adella is the killer, we believe that he fired the shot that killed Keith Green."
One other item from the court file: investigators found this picture on Keith Green's phone, him wearing a new pair of pink Nikes. They found what appear to be the same shoes in the man cave, size ten and a half. Bayat's feet are smaller. Adella says Bayat ordered him to strip the clothes off the body before he took it away. Investigators say Keith Green was only wearing socks when a sheriff's deputy discovered his body near Healdsburg.
Click here for full coverage on the investigation into the death of Millbrae father Keith Green.