LOS ANGELES — A Southern California man accused of killing his wife and her parents, who remain missing, has died in custody, authorities confirmed.

Samuel Bond Haskell, 37, was found dead at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility just after 4 a.m. Saturday, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The department did not release details on what lead up to his death, but Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman in a statement said that Haskell took his own life, days before he was scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing.

“Instead of standing before a judge and answering for the crimes he’s been charged with, the defendant managed to escape justice,” District Attorney Hochman said. “This is one last cruel act by someone who did the most horrific things for reasons we will never entirely know. A family that has been dealing with unimaginable loss now has been robbed of their chance to face him, hold him accountable for his barbaric actions, and openly share their grief and their cherished memories of their loved ones.”

In 2023, Haskell, of Tarzana, was accused of murdering Mei Li Haskell, 37, and her parents, Gaoshan Li, 72, and Yanxiang Wang, 64, and then tossing dismembered body parts into an Encino trash bin, where the human remains were later discovered.

Haskell lived in Tarzana with his wife, their three young children and her parents. The children were unharmed. Hochman said they are now living together with a relative.

Haskell is the son of Emmy-winning producer and Hollywood agent Sam Haskell, who served as an agent for Kathie Lee Gifford, Whoopi Goldberg, Dolly Parton, George Clooney and others.

The three missing family members were last seen on Nov. 6, 2023.

“On Nov. 7, Haskell allegedly hired four day-laborers to take away several heavy black plastic trash bags from his home in Tarzana,” the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement. “One of the laborers opened one of the bags and allegedly observed human body parts. They called 911 and reported the incident.”

They returned the bags and money, but the bags weren’t there when police arrived, authorities have said.

The same day, Haskell was caught on video dumping something in a dumpster in nearby Encino, authorities said. He was arrested the next day after someone rummaging through trash in the dumpster found a woman’s torso and called 911, prosecutors said.

Hochman said there’s DNA evidence linked to all three victims on a bloody knife found in Haskell’s possession. Hochman also said investigators found a cutting saw, machetes, knives, a .357-caliber firearm and a “bloody plyboard in which the killings had occurred.”

Hochman said Haskell had been having an affair with a 27-year-old woman, but a motive for the killings is unknown.

“The full motive for an individual to so violently and barbarically kill three people and chop up their bodies – Mr. Haskell has taken that motive to the grave with him,” Hochman said.

The Associated Press and the CNN Wire contributed to this report.