A homeless woman has confessed to killing prominent Hollywood executive Michael Latt over his friendship with a female director who she was stalking.
Jamilah Elena Mihir, 36, pleaded guilty Monday in Los Angeles court to first-degree murder and first-degree theft, according to court records.
Mihir also admitted to using a firearm during the assault, which is a felony.
Latto, who was working on the film with “Selma” director Ava DuVernay and “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler, was murdered in November last year.
Prosecutors alleged that Mihir, a homeless man who lived in his car, knocked on the door of Lat’s Los Angeles home, broke into the house and shot him to death with a semi-automatic handgun. Lat later died in hospital.
According to court documents obtained by The Associated Press, Mihir had been stalking and threatening director A.V. Rockwell, and targeted Latto because he was a friend of Rockwell’s and Rockwell had multiple restraining orders against him.
“She targeted him because he was friends with the woman he was stalking,” the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement last year.
Mihir had appeared as an extra in Rockwell’s most recent film, The Thousand and One, starring Teyana Taylor, for which he won a Gotham Award for Best New Director on the same night as Rat’s murder.
Rockwell said in court documents filed in June that Mihir began stalking her after he appeared in a background role in the same film.
After completing the shoot, Mihir presented the director with a huge gift box. As reported by the Los Angeles TimesHe later contacted her and attempted to establish a personal relationship, according to court records and officials.
According to the lawsuit, when Rockwell did not respond to Mihir’s advances, Mihir sent a terrifying letter to Rockwell’s home, threatening to commit suicide.
“As I write this, my Glock is loaded,” one of the notes read. “I just need to pull the trigger and I’ll be free.”
According to the filing, Mihir sent Rockwell at least five “very lengthy and threatening emails and text messages,” called her multiple times and approached her in public.
“As you continue to bask in the glory of ‘One Thousand and One Wolves,’ I hope you remember and don’t forget all the hardships people went through to bring your masterpiece to the big screen,” Mihir said in an April 29 email.
On May 3, Mihir wrote again, threatening to commit suicide.
“I’m going to bring my Glock into Griffith Park and not come out,” she wrote in an email, according to the documents.
According to court documents, Rockwell complained that she was unable to eat or sleep and was experiencing panic attacks “due to anxiety and fear for her safety,” and she had repeatedly asked for the restraining order to be reissued.
Before his death, Latto posted a photo of himself with Rockwell and his mother at the Sundance Film Festival, where the director’s film won best picture. Judges’ Grand Prize“Congratulations @AVRockwell on your incredible feature directorial debut, A Thousand and One,” the caption read.
Latto’s mother, Michelle Sutter, was one of the founding directors of the Sundance Institute’s Artist Program and helped support Quentin Tarantino’s early career, his father, David Latto, is a film producer and his brother is an agent.
Mihir faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years at his sentencing, scheduled for July 10, prosecutors said.
She was being held on $3 million bail.
