EXCLUSIVE: I-Team obtains exhibits in Hillsborough murder case against Tiffany Li
This is the first time the public will hear from Li as police confront her with the evidence of Keith Green's murder against her.
HILLSBOROUGH, Calif. (KGO) -- We're getting an exclusive look at evidence from a case that stunned an upscale Peninsula town and made headlines across the country -- a wealthy Hillsborough woman accused of killing the father of her two children. But, in 2019, a jury found Tiffany Li not guilty and deadlocked over the guilt of her boyfriend.
It took us a long time to gain access to the evidence - even a court order - and now, we have the clearest picture yet what led up to the killing and how the case went so wrong for prosecutors.
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Investigator: "I appreciate you coming down."
Li: "No problem."
Tiffany Li told investigators her family in China is worth between $50 million to $100 million, and that she worked in San Mateo County real estate: "I do real estate, we do real estate development."
MURDER MYSTERY TIMELINE: The disappearance of Millbrae resident Keith Green
Li said she broke up with the father of her two daughters, Keith Green, in Oct. 2015 and moved him out of her Hillsborough mansion seen here on video taken by the defense. She started dating a man she described as Green's marijuana dealer, Kaveh Bayat, and moved him into the mansion - just a month after Green left.
Tensions were building between Li, her ex, and her new boyfriend, as heard on recordings that became evidence in the murder case. The recordings include Green's friend, Jasmine.
Li: "He wants Kav killed and just now hang up saying, 'I'm going to kill you.' That's not cool."
Jasmine: "So, so, okay, hold on. So, Keith said that? So, if I ask Keith that right now, he's going to say yes, right?"
Li: "Yes."
Bayat: "We'll send you the recording."
Li: "Hold on."
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Here, Tiffany Li with Kaveh Bayat on the line argues with Jasmine.
Jasmine: "In front of you, I'm asking him, okay?"
Li: "Yeah."
Jasmine: "Did you say that you're going to have Kav killed?"
Green: "I told him I'm going to kill Kav because he wasn't listening to what-"
Jasmine: "But why, but why?"
Keith Green complained that Kaveh Bayat was interfering in his relationship with his kids.
Bayat: "She hittin' that donut, bruh."
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This court exhibit shows Bayat calling one of them "his" daughter: "Her first donuts, y'all. My daughter doing her donuts."
By April 25, 2016, things seemed to have calmed down. Keith Green called Tiffany Li to say he's moving to Ohio where his grandmother has a rental property because he couldn't make ends meet in the Bay Area while finishing culinary school.
Green said, "I mean, it sucks, I don't want to leave the kids, but I just - I don't know what to do. I've been so stressed trying to figure this out. It's been really, really bad."
Tiffany Li offered to bring the kids to Ohio for holidays if Green couldn't afford to fly back, but the feelings were still raw.
Li: "I'm saying to you, we, both made mistakes and that you know, let's just move on. There's nothing I can say right now."
Green: "It's very easy for you to sit here and say whatever you want to say because your life has not changed at all. The only thing that's different is that you have a new man that you sleep next to at night. That's it."
Li: "I'm very happy, aren't you happy that I'm happy? I thought you care about me. You would think that I'm happy."
The call ended abruptly.
Green: "Bye. Uh-" (beep beep)
Li: "It's always the hang up."
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Just three days later, Keith Green disappeared; his cell phone, found in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Tiffany left a message on his voicemail: "I guess you're missing or something? Like I - can you give me a call back, like, you know, I don't know if it's... give me a call back when you hear this, 'kay? Bye."
While his friends and family searched for him, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department called in Tiffany Li for questioning. She made a shocking accusation about Keith Green, the father of her children.
Li told investigators, "In the beginning, when we first broke off. He asked for each kid $20 million. He asked my mom, for each kid and my mom said, 'You're ridiculous.'"
After Li described the tensions between her, Keith Green, and her new boyfriend, the investigator asked: "Would you harm Keith?"
Li: "No, I would not harm Keith."
Investigator: "Would you have anybody else harm Keith?"
Li: "No, I would not do that."
Li told investigators she met Keith Green at the Millbrae Pancake House the night he disappeared, to discuss their daughters and to give him a car seat he could use. She claimed to have driven away leaving Green in the parking lot, but police tracked the cell signals for both their phones to her Hillsborough mansion.
Investigator: "Keith was in the car with you, Tiffany, because it's following your same time."
Li: "He was not in the car with me."
Investigator: "So how did his phone stay in your car without him?"
Li: "That's why I'm like, what you're telling me, I'm hearing for the first time, he was not in the car with me."
At trial, prosecutors claimed Tiffany Li drove Keith Green to the mansion, where Kaveh Bayat shot and killed him. The couple's trainer and sometimes bodyguard, Olivier Adella, told the I-Team's Dan Noyes in an exclusive interview from 2017 that the couple arrived at his apartment complex with Keith Green's body: "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 said Bayat flashed a black handgun and ordered him 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. You don't get rid of the body, you're screwed."
He found a turnout off Highway 101 near Healdsburg and rolled out the body. Nearly two weeks later, Keith Green's badly-decomposed remains were found in a field, as evidence photos show.
Investigator: "We have some difficult news."
Prosecutors questioned why Tiffany Li seemed to show little emotion when detectives came to the mansion and broke the news to her.
Investigator: "We found Keith's body, not necessarily, we didn't find it. But another agency found Keith's body."
Li: "Okay."
Investigator: "And so I wanted to let you know that kind of as a courtesy. Um-"
Li: "Are you guys sure it is him?"
The defense said her normal sing-song voice did change. Ten days later, Tiffany Li, Kaveh Bayat and Olivier Adella were arrested and charged with Keith Green's murder. But the jury acquitted Li and deadlocked over the guilt of her boyfriend, Kaveh Bayat. Adella is now free after pleading guilty and serving time as an accessory after the fact.
The defense was able to cast enough doubt on the prosecution case, by saying it was Adella who killed Keith Green in some sort of kidnapping plot. His attorney insists that's not true, and that Adella has been consistent about his role in this tragic story.
Take a look at more stories by the ABC7 News I-Team.
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