America's Got Talent's Got a Death Mystery

Guy who auditions for America's Got Talent has talent for trouble apparently

By Josh Grossberg, Soo Youn Oct 25, 2010 10:01 PMTags
America's Got Talent JudgesChris Haston/NBC

Somehow we don't think Piers, Sharon and Howie will wind up being the only judges determining how this turns out.

This weekend's America's Got Talent auditions in Los Angeles was upstaged by a dead body and a drug arrest.

And it was one of the wannabes who was as the center of the whole mess.

Joe Finley, who auditioned for the NBC talent contest, was busted for drug possession. But that's not the worst part. The performer's arrest came after he was declared  a "person of interest" in his wife's death at the downtown L.A. hotel where tryouts were being held.

The LAPD confirms that detectives took Finley into custody on Saturday after he copped to having three Ecstacy pills on him. The admission came as he was being questioned in the death of his 48-year-old wife, Laura, whose body was discovered earlier that day in a stairwell of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel.

Joe Finley reported her missing to the hotel staff  without knowing that her body had already been discovered and her death was being investigated by police, according to Lt. Paul Vernon.

"Right now her death is still considered undetermined—it could be an accident, a suicide or a homicide," Vernon told E! News. "He woke up in the afternoon and realized she was gone. We later interviewed him for several hours. He was booked on possession of Ecstasy pills." 

The Finleys daughter, Lauren, took the LAPD to task on Twitter: "The LA Police Dept. is not doing much of anything to help my family. Please share this with everyone.

"My mom was murdered last night at the Biltmore Hotel in LA . If you were there to audition for Americas Got Talent and know any info please...I woke up and thought it was all just a dream."

Manfred Westphal, a spokesman for show producer Fremantle says the Talent team is "fully cooperating with authorities to investigate this very unfortunate situation and have no further comment at this time."

Finley was released on $10,000 bail early Sunday.

No doubt he's going to need the talents of a good lawyer.