Himegami Sakura

In 2011 (5 years before the events of "Turnabout Samurai"), Dee Vasquez witnessed a fatal accident involving action star Jack Hammer and a fellow actor named Manuel. Vasquez was producing a show starring Jack Hammer, but during a fight scene, Hammer accidentally pushed Manuel onto some sharp fence tips, killing him. A paparazzo took a photo of the incident, but he was silenced by Vasquez's mob contacts. Vasquez later used the accident to blackmail Hammer into doing what she wanted, including working on kids' TV shows as villains for petty change.

Five years later, Vasquez produced the TV show The Steel Samurai: Warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo, starring Will Powers as the Steel Samurai and Hammer as the villainous Evil Magistrate. By this time, Hammer was fed up with the blackmail; he donned Powers' Steel Samurai costume and confronted Vasquez in Studio 2 of Global Studios, intending to kill her. However, the ensuing fight ended with his (accidental) death on the same fence that had killed Manuel.

Vasquez's extreme reaction to Manuel's death, as shown in a flashback, could indicate that she knew the actor personally. Alternatively, it may just show a producer panicking at having an actor die in front of her and under her care. She also at one point during Wright's investigation suggests that Manuel's death was not an accident, but that Hammer had done it on purpose. It's never confirmed whether what she says is true, although she does ask why else Hammer would let her mercilessly run his life otherwise.