Publicist Ronni Chasen Shot Dead After 'Burlesque' Afterparty

[KCJackie]

Hollywood Reacts in Shock to Chasen Shooting Death
By Sharon Waxman
Published: November 16, 2010 @ 12:52 pm

The Hollywood community reacted in grief and horror to news of the apparent murder of veteran publicist Ronni Chasen, a familiar figure at industry events throughout the awards season and a tireless advocate for the movie industry.





Comments and tributes poured into TheWrap from longtime colleagues, clients and friends.

Many expressed fear at the apparent randomness of the attack, coming as the awards season and its near-nightly social activities in all reaches of the city.

Please keep refreshing this story, it will be updated throughout the day.

Read also: Publicist Ronni Chasen Shot Dead After 'Burlesque' Afterparty

Morgan Freeman sent the following statement to TheWrap: “I had the extreme pleasure of working with Ronnie on "Driving Miss Daisy." We've been friends ever since.  She is someone I greatly admired and  she will be remembered.”

"I am deeply saddened by the news of Ronni’s unexpected passing. Ronni Chasen is a legend in this industry, and I feel honored to have had the opportunity to work with her. Our thoughts are with her family, her friends and her team at Chasen & Company," said Rich Ross, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios.


Ronni Chasen Shooting: New Details From 'Burlesque' Afterparty
 

Ronni Chasen, Publicist, Fought For Her Award-Winning Clients
 
"Ronni was a dear friend and cherished member of our community," Sony chairman Amy Pascal wrote TheWrap. "She was at our premiere last night and so full of her trademark energy and love of life. We are heartbroken, shocked and completely devastated."

Joe Roth, a client and friend, wrote this to TheWrap: "I"m shocked. She was my friend for 35 years. Ronni was a dogged champion of movies and we all will feel her loss. It's inconceivable, actually."

 


http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/hollywood-reacts-shock-chasen-shooting-death-22562

[KCJackie]

Ronni Chasen, 64, Shot and Killed in Beverly Hills



Famed publicist Ronni Chasen died after being shot five times in Beverly Hills early Tuesday morning.

our editor recommends
Tribute: Hollywood Player...Chasen then crashed her Mercedes-Benz into a light pole around 12:30 a.m.

Ed Winter, spokesperson for the Los Angeles County coroner's office, confirms her death to The Hollywood Reporter. An autopsy will be completed Wednesday or Thursday.

A Beverly Hills Police spokesperson tells THR: "On November 16th 2010 at approximately 12:28 a.m. Beverly Hills police officers received info regarding shots that were heard in the area of Sunset and Whittier, shortly after a collision was reported in the same area. Units arrived and discovered a newer black Mercedes Benz E-350 involved in a solo crash to the light pole. The lone female occupant was located in the vehicle with apparent multiple gunshot wounds to her chest. Beverly Hills paramedics transported the victim to a local hospital where she was later pronounced deceased. The investigation is in the preliminary stages and no further information is available at this time. At this time there is no suspect, info or motive for this crime."

A spokesman from the Beverly Hills police department added that some search warrants have been issued as a matter of routine, a forensic examination of the car is underway and "our detectives are looking at all aspects of this crime." He said the investigation is in its "infancy" and the police are not putting forward any theories regarding the murder at this time.

"It's an unusual incident for the City of Beverly Hills," he added.

Police called to the scene said Chasen was "in and out of consciousness, but breathing,"  according to RadarOnline.com. She was taken by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

Earlier that night, Chasen -- as always a presence on the red carpet eagerly tending to her clients' interests -- attended the premiere of Burlesque.

Chasen began her career as a publicist in 1973, and worked on films such as 1989's Driving Miss Daisy and 1997's Lolita.

In February 1993, she was named senior vice president of worldwide publicity at MGM.

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ronni-chasen-64-shot-killed-45901

[KCJackie]

Slain A-list Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen may have been target of a hit

BY Tori Richards In Beverly Hills, Calif., and Larry Mcshane
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Wednesday, November 17th 2010, 6:09 PM

Ronni Chasen, 64, a Hollywood fixture for more than three decades, was shot five times in the chest Tuesday as she drove home on Sunset Blvd. Related NewsTop Hollywood publicist found shot to death in Mercedes in Beverly HillsBeverly Hills cops are investigating whether an A-list Hollywood publicist was the target of a hit when she was killed behind the wheel of her Mercedes-Benz.

"It's something we are looking into," said police Lt. Tony Lee as the slaying probe stretched into its second day Wednesday.

"It's absolutely possible, and it's something we won't discount."

Ronni Chasen, 64, a Hollywood fixture for more than three decades, was shot five times in the chest Tuesday as she drove home on Sunset Blvd. after the glitzy premiere of Cher's new film, "Burlesque."

Police said they had no suspects and no motive, and they searched for clues and surveillance video in the mysterious shooting.

Six minutes before she was shot, Chasen made a cell phone call to her office, leaving a to-do list for her staff on the answering machine, the L.A. Times reported.

The widely admired publicist's friends were left scratching their heads over who would want her dead.

"Just because somebody didn't win an Oscar?" said Carol Connors, Chasen's longtime friend and an Oscar-nominated singer-songwriter. "I just can't see it being that. It seems so out of the realm.

"I mean, a publicist doesn't make that type of enemies," Connors, who co-wrote the theme to the film "Rocky," told The Associated Press.

Detectives were investigating the theory that after being shot Chasen drove a few blocks before careening into a concrete light pole.

Investigators grabbed computers from the offices of her business, Chasen & Co., as they sought answers in the baffling death.

"I had the extreme pleasure of working with Ronni on 'Driving Miss Daisy,'" said Oscar winner Morgan Freeman. "We've been friends ever since. She is someone I greatly admired, and she will be remembered."

A group of Chasen's friends gathered last night at Manhattan's Michael's Pub on E. 55th St.



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/11/17/2010-11-17_slain_alist_hollywood_publicist_ronni_chasen_may_have_been_target_of_a_hit_cops.html

[KCJackie]

Ronni Chasen slaying has Beverly Hills on edge

Residents of the wealthy community say they're shocked that the Hollywood publicist's shooting could have occurred on their streets.
November 21, 2010|By Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times
After a wearying weekend in New York, Leslie Michelson was unloading suitcases from a taxi around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday outside his Whittier Drive home in Beverly Hills when he heard what he called "very unusual noises."

They sounded like gunshots but they couldn't be, Michelson figured. Not in the flats of Beverly Hills, the platinum-plated home of magnates and movie stars.

Hours later, Michelson was horrified to learn that he had heard the gunfire that ended the life of 64-year-old Ronni Chasen, a veteran Hollywood publicist. She had been shot multiple times on his street while driving her Mercedes-Benz home from a movie premiere after-party.

"In many ways, this shatters our sense of security and comfort in a neighborhood where this sort of thing isn't expected to happen," said Michelson, chief executive of a healthcare company. "It's extremely frightening for all of us."

Frightened. Stunned. Spooked. Beverly Hills residents have searched for the right words to describe their collective mood in the aftermath of a crime that has seemingly stumped police and fueled wild speculation about whether the shooting was the work of a gang member, a hit man or a sociopathic sniper.

"We are all in shock," said Red Richmond, a longtime Beverly Hills resident who worked with Chasen years ago at the Rogers & Cowan agency. "It has really stunned the community."

Richmond, who lives close to the shooting scene, said the slaying had shaken her composure. When the doorbell rang Thursday evening, she said, she peered out to make sure it was her usual UPS delivery man. "He said everyone is double-checking him," she said. "He, too, is watching the corners and streets. We are all on high alert."

So far, the city's police have not revealed whether they have any leads in the case. But Mayor Jimmy Delshad said police had told him that the shots appeared to have been fired from another vehicle as Chasen was heading west on Sunset Boulevard and waiting to turn left onto Whittier. Glass found at the intersection suggested that the shots shattered the passenger-side window of Chasen's car, he said.

In a news release Friday, Beverly Hills Police Chief David Snowden said detectives were "dedicated to this case around the clock." Seeking to soothe the ruffled community, he added: "I would like to assure the public that this was a rare, isolated incident and that the Beverly Hills community remains one of the safest in the nation."

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/21/local/la-me-ronni-chasen-mood-20101121

[KCJackie]

Ronni Chasen Laid to Rest, but Hollywood Can't Shake the Shock

They came by the hundreds from all across the country and within Hollywood. Every senior PR professional and most entertainment journalists but also composers, executives and movie stars -- to pay respects to Ronni Chasen, laying to rest the beloved publicist just five days after she was killed.

The primary message at the packed midday funeral service in the bright, fall air was of shock and loss. Elegant eulogies conveyed how fresh the grief was -- not yet a week removed from her senseless killing at the hands of a person or people still at large.



"My heart is broken," said Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, her client and friend, in his brief eulogy. Later composer Elliot Goldenthal, who had just flown in and arrived late, fell on his shoulders and they embraced, grieving together.

It was a scene repeated many times during the day at a gathering that answered a need for a community in shock. The violence of the act -- five gunshots, the markings of a professional hit -- against someone who was both beloved and in such close touch with people across the movie world made the funeral a moment of communal catharsis.

"She would be shocked by this outpouring," said producer Lili Fini Zanuck. "The industry came to a standstill out of love for this woman."

In their eulogies and in myriad side conversations, Chasen's friends said they were convinced that she could not possibly have seen anything like this coming.

“She was the most innocent of us all,” Zanuck said during her eulogy. “She had no enemies.”

Those who might suggest she was leading a double life,  obviously didn’t know her very well, said Zanuck: “Ronni would’ve been happy to have had a life, let alone a secret one,” she said in her eulogy, a reference to Chasen’s  tireless work ethic.

Chasen's friend and fellow publicist Kathie Berlin added that her friends who spoke to her daily would have known if Chasen were involved in anything sinister.

"If someone was following her, we all would have known it," she said in her eulogy.

Read also: Was Ronni Chasen Shooting a Professional Hit?

The speakers and pallbearers were from Chasen's 40 years inside the industry. The eulogists also included her partner at Chasen & Co Jeff Sanderson, her dearest friends Vivian Mayer-Siskind and Heidi Schaeffer, both publicists who considered Chasen a mentor.

There were laughs as well as tears. "Ronni came to me last night and was pissed as hell," said Mayer-Siskind through her tears. "She said, 'Now you get me a free Armani suit?'"

There were many jokes about Chasen's sensitivity to not telling her age

 

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/indignation-hollywood-friends-set-bury-ronni-chasen-22675

[KCJackie]

Hollywood Publicist Ronni Chasen's Murder Looks Professional and Premeditated, Experts Say

By Hollie McKay
Published November 22, 2010

AP Nov. 16: A towtruck driver stands beside a damaged Mercedes E350 in which well-known Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, was shot several times in the chest and killed in Beverly Hills, Calif.



Friends and family of veteran Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, who was shot to
death early Tuesday morning, gathered in Los Angeles on Sunday to say their final farewells, in a service funded by high-powered Hollywood movie studios.

Among the thousand-plus crowd of mourners was actor Michael Douglas, composer Hans Zimmer, and Chasen’s brother, writer/producer Larry Cohen.

But almost a week after the tragedy, police are still at a loss for leads or motives behind the 64-year-old’s slaying. Her car was not hijacked. Her purse was not stolen. There is nothing to indicate a road rage altercation, and she certainly wasn’t considered a shady lady within industry circles.

After leaving the after-party for the premiere of “Burlesque” in Hollywood last Monday, Chasen is believed to have been en route to her Westwood home when she was shot five times in the chest at the corner of Sunset and Whittier, a prestigious Beverly Hills neighborhood just blocks from the iconic Beverly Hills Hotel. Chasen then crashed her Mercedes Benz E-Class into a lamppost, triggering an array of 911 calls from people who heard the shots and/or the crash.

Now some evidence is starting to suggest that Chasen’s murder was a premeditated, professional drive-by shooting and not a random act of violence as initially speculated, experts said.

"I was up late when I heard the shots, it sound like a hammer. They were immaculately timed,” Beverly Hills resident Claude Dauman told Pop Tarts. “BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. It was perfect rhythm.”

Another 90210 resident, who requested anonymity, said that one of his children heard the crash, and that the evening before the incident, the resident was surprised to hear motorcycles traveling up and down the area.

“Never before in my 40 years have I seen motorcycles pacing Whittier Drive,” a surprised Michael Sands, who has spent several decades working with police officials and the FBI on high-profile cases, told Pop Tarts. “It’s all speculation, but if it was a hired hit job – which it sounds like it was – there is usually a scout, a tracker and a wet man who finishes the job. It is possible the location was being properly scouted out the night before.”

Former FBI Special Agent and Forensic Accountant Harold Copus, who now works as a private investigator for his firm Copus Security Consultants, said if shell casings from the bullets were not left at the scene, and if the shots were indeed methodically timed, that would indicate the work of professionals.

“It seems to be somebody who knows exactly what to do with no hesitation, somebody familiar with military or weapons who was watching their target closely,” Copus told Pop Tarts. “Investigators will now have to go over everything with a fine-tooth comb – check her office, emails, cell phone records, and try to establish anybody she may have had a problem with in the past.”

Yet according to Chasen’s good friend of 30 years, fellow Hollywood publicist Michael Levine, the film rep who worked with numerous Oscar-winning films and talent over the years didn't have many enemies.

“Ronni was a feisty gal and certainly not a pushover,” Levine told us. “But she was a wonderful woman, always beautifully dressed and incredibly passionate about movies and her job. She was a great symbol for all young women in PR. I just can’t imagine anybody that would begrudge her to such an extent.”

The NewYork Post reported over the weekend that Chasen suspected she was being followed by an unknown back in March, and she revealed to friends that she was “scared.”

But despite the eerie murder, Beverly Hills Police Chief David Snowden is urging residents not to be fearful in their highbrow community.

"I would like to assure the public that this was a rare, isolated incident," Snowden said in a statement on Friday. “The Beverly Hills community remains one of the safest in the world."

Nonetheless, this isn’t the first time tragedy has struck that very area where Chasen was killed.

In 1946, controversial filmmaker Howard Hughes crashed his plane into a nearby home on Whittier Drive. While he miraculously survived despite severe third-degree burns and broken limbs, the plane was destroyed and the house burned down. The following year, in an unsolved mystery, infamous L.A organized crime professional Bugsy Siegel was shot dead when an unknown assailant fired at him through the window of his home in that same area. And in 1979, just a block away, the wife, son, and young friend of Lloyd Cotsen, the president of skincare empire Neutrogena, were murdered in Cotsen’s Beverly Hills home.

In the wake of Chasen’s mysterious death, Dauman said the neighborhood is understandably on high alert.

“It’s very disturbing,” he said. “I’m much more aware now when going on my walks, everybody around is very concerned.”

Those close to Chasen are offering a $100,000 reward for information surrounding the shooting, and Copus says he's confident that despite the lack of leads, the details of her death will be uncovered.

“There is still a lot of work to be done, but it isn’t as bad as it seems right now,” Copus said. “It sounds as though it was more a crime of passion than anything else. This case has generated a lot of publicity, and somewhere along the lines people are bound to run their mouths.”

In more disturbing news, reports emerged last week that six unnamed Hollywood casting directors had filed reports after receiving anonymous death threats at their offices. While there is no proof suggesting the incidents could be in any way related, as Chasen was a publicist and not an agent, Hollywood seems to be showing its dark side.

“Hollywood is a very vicious place now, it is not how it used to be,” Sands said. “The mob has always been here, but this place has really changed. You have to really watch where you’re going, be mindful of everyone around you.”

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/11/22/hollywood-publicist-ronni-chasens-murder-looks-professional-premeditated/

[KCJackie]

Ronni Chasen, murdered publicist, felt she was being followed

Ronni Chasen, the well-liked, well-known Hollywood publicist who was murdered early Tuesday morning as she drove through Beverly Hills, began to feel as though she was being followed shortly after the 2010 Academy Awards, according to one report.

A source told the New York Post, “Ronni said in March she suspected she was being followed, but didn’t know by whom. She said she was scared. Some people close to her believe it was a hit, but nobody knows why.”Chasen, 64, sustained five gunshot wounds to the chest as she drove home from a party celebrating the premiere of the new film ‘Burlesque.’

Former New York Police Department and Los Angeles Police Department chief William J. Bratton gave the Post his opinion about the case saying “This is a real Hollywood whodunit. Four days in we still have no idea [what happened]. Nobody seems to have come up with anything substantive as far as motive goes. Beverly Hills has very few homicides, so every resource they have will be focused on this.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Beverly Hills police are considering the idea that the attack on Chasen may have been planned. They are now combing through security footage from at least one home on Whittier Drive, the location where the murder took place.

http://www.examiner.com/crime-in-national/ronni-chasen-murdered-publicist-felt-she-was-being-followed

[KCJackie]

Hollywood Offers Up Ronni Chasen Murder Theories And they are pretty wild, to say the least

By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff

Posted Nov 24, 2010 10:43 AM CST

Ronni Chasen's Beverly Hills murder continues to stump detectives, but Hollywood is offering up some pretty crazy ideas about what happened to the famed publicist. "One theory is that somebody close to Ronni had substantial gambling debts of up to half a million dollars, and she was being chased for the money. She was tough and refused to pay up, and so paid the ultimate price," a decidedly Hollywood-sounding source tells the New York Post.


"Another theory is that it was a Russian mob killing, linked to investors on one of her many movies who were not satisfied with its performance," the source continues, and that's not all: It could also have been "an art deal gone wrong" or "jealousy over her successful Oscar campaigns." Another source mentions gang initiation as a possibility. Police believe the murder was planned, and Chasen had recently disclosed fears that she was being followed.

[KCJackie]

Ronni Chasen's Co-Workers -- It's Not Her

11/24/2010 10:41 AM PST by TMZ Staff   

People who worked with Ronni Chasen tell TMZ ... video of the woman pulling out of Ronni's condo building on October 28 is not her.



A private detective who was surveilling Ronni's building that day claims to have a video (screen grab above) which shows Chasen.

We have forwarded the video on to Beverly Hills detectives, but no word from them on their analysis.

Ronni's co-workers say she was not in L.A. on October 28.

Story developing


http://www.tmz.com/2010/11/24/ronnie-chasen-murder-surveillance-video-beverly-hills-police-detective-publicist/

[MuffyBee]

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=12241300
Experts Say Publicist's Murder Is "Solvable"
November 25, 2010

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - As the inquiry into the killing of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen enters its second week, prominent criminal investigators say that the apparent targeted nature of the crime makes the case solvable.
   (3 pg. article)

[MuffyBee]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/01/hollywood-publicist-murder-suspect-kills-self/
Man Linked to L.A. Publicist's Death Kills Self
December 2, 2010

LOS ANGELES -- A man police called a "person of interest" in the slaying of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen shot and killed himself at a Los Angeles residential hotel Wednesday as Beverly Hills detectives tried to talk to him, authorities said.

The man pulled out a handgun and shot himself as detectives serving a search warrant located him in the hotel lobby aboput 6 p.m. and began talking to him, LAPD Capt. Kevin McClure told reporters outside the building. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Beverly Hills police Chief David Snowden told The Associated Press in an e-mail that the man "was a person of interest only" in Chasen's death.

Police spokesman Tony Lee emphasized at a news conference that the murder investigation was not over.

Terri Gilpin, a building resident, said she was taking a nap when she heard a single shot fired.

"I thought it was backfire, but I was kind of half-asleep, in a drowsy state of mind," she said. "It was kind of like a pop."

Gilpin said she saw blood splattered on the lobby floor of the Harvey Apartments.

The Beverly Hills hotel has about 170 units with rents starting at about $675 a month, 25-year-old resident Terry Pendergrass said.

Two blocks of Santa Monica Boulevard were shut down and dozens of officers and squad cars were gathered outside the four-story hotel, which was cordoned off with yellow police tape.

The suicide was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Chasen, 64, was shot Nov. 16 in Beverly Hills as she drove her Mercedes Benz home from a party after attending the premiere of the movie "Burlesque," whose soundtrack she was promoting for an Oscar nomination.

The attack stunned Hollywood, where Chasen was a revered figure after promoting the Oscar-winning film "Driving Miss Daisy" and other major movies and stars since the 1970s. And it came in the midst of award season, her busiest time of year, when she helped studios mount expensive promotion campaigns for films.

Police haven't released a possible motive in her slaying, and they remained tightlipped about progress in the investigation.

Earlier Wednesday, a retired investigator who saw a preliminary coroner's report on Chasen's shooting said the killer was an expert shot who was able to squeeze off multiple rounds in a tight and deadly formation.

Gil Carrillo, who recently retired as a lieutenant after 38 years with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, said he reviewed the document after it was obtained by KTTV Fox 11 News.

"The thing that stands out is the shots -- where they were and the lack of hits anywhere else," Carrillo told The Associated Press. "It's a good shot group."

The close grouping suggests the shooting was carried out by a hit man and was not the result of a gang attack or road rage, Carrillo told the AP.

KTTV said it appeared Chasen was shot three times in the right chest area and twice in the right shoulder.

"Whoever was shooting was aiming for center mass, and they got center mass," Carrillo said.

Coroner's spokesman Ed Winter would not confirm the authenticity of the document cited by Carrillo, which apparently was written by an investigator before Chasen's autopsy. But Carrillo said he was certain it was genuine.

The document is now under a security hold, which means police must approve its official release.

The document says a hollow-point, 9-mm bullet was recovered from Chasen's body, though Carrillo cautioned that ballistics tests could reveal the slug was a different caliber.

Investigators believe Chasen was shot as she waited to turn left from Sunset Boulevard to Whittier Drive, a road she could have taken to get back to her home in West Los Angeles. After she was shot, she drove about a quarter mile down Whittier before crashing into a light pole.

Chasen was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Snowden said there have been only four homicides in Beverly Hills in the past five years, with three occurring this year. On July 20, the son of movie producer Fuminori Hayashida was found stabbed to death outside his home.

In 2008, actor Mark Ruffalo's brother Scott Ruffalo died from a gunshot wound to the head. The death was ruled a homicide.

[KCJackie]

Ronni Chasen Murder: Man Sought in Publicist Slaying Fatally Shoots Himself
Man's Connection to Chasen's Murder Was Not Immediately Known  

By MIKE VON FREMD and LEEZEL TANGLAO
Dec. 2, 2010

A man wanted for questioning in connection with the slaying of powerhouse Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen fatally shot himself Wednesday night as police closed in, authorities said.

Hollywood Publicist Fatally ShotChasen, 64, who represented A-list movie stars and promoted some of Hollywood's top films, was driving home Nov. 16 after attending the premiere party for the movie "Burlesque" when she was gunned down.

Beverly Hills police confronted the man as they were conducting a follow up investigation in the case at the Harvey Apartments on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles police captain Kevin McClure said at a news conference Wednesday.

"While conducting that follow up, the person they were looking for showed up. They attempted to talk to the suspect. When they did, the suspect produced a hand gun and there was a self inflicted wound at that point," McClure said.

Police said the man killed himself in the lobby and was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to Los Angeles Times, sources told the newspaper that the shooting occurred after 6 p.m. as police were serving a search warrant. The sources said the dead man was a suspect in the case and may have been part of a wider probe of the shooting.

Police sources told ABC News that they plan to do a ballistics test to see if the gun used in the suicide is the gun used to kill Chasen.

Authorities haven't released the man's identity and won't say how the man was connected to Chasen's death.

Residents at the apartment building told the Los Angeles Times that they believed the man was in his 40s and went by the name of "Harold."

Brandon Harrison told the Times that Harold described himself to a neighbor as "an ex-convict who served two stints in state prison, the most recent for firearms and drug convictions" and "vowed he would never go to prison." He told the neighbor that he would be receiving $10,000, either for a job he had done or from a lawsuit.

Beverly Hills Police emphasized that the man "was a person of interest" -- not a suspect and the investigation was not over.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/US/ronni-chasen-murder-person-interest-publicist-slaying-fatally/story?id=12291592

[KCJackie]

Three Theories Behind Hollywood Publicist Slaying

Today 11:48 AM PST by Marc Malkin

Friends and colleagues agree that Ronni Chasen was one of the nicest and hardest-working people in Hollywood. No one seems to know of any enemies she may have had.

But as soon as the news broke that the beloved 64-year-old publicist was gunned down in Beverly Hills...

TWITTER: Follow @marcmalkin

Industry gossip and chatter kicked into high gear. Even as cops appear to be close to solving the murder, the guessing game of who do it and why continues.

Here are some of the scenarios being repeated among colleagues, and yes, friends:

1. The gambling debt. Some think Chasen may have been paying off a gambling debt racked up by someone very close to her. "Maybe she stopped paying and they killed her," one pal says.

Or they found out she had plans to leave town. Numerous sources confirm that Chasen had been talking about living in Paris for a spell after awards season wrapped up . "She said she wanted to rent an apartment and even work from there for a little bit," says another pal

This being Hollywood and Chasen being who she was, no one seems to think she would have been involved in some sort of petty crime.

2. The bad deal. Another friend who once worked with Chasen says if it was business-related, she's heard it was a movie or some sort of art deal gone awry. One of the pals wondered, "What if it's someone in the industry who did it? Someone we know!"

3. The secret lover. Then there's the mystery maybe-boyfriend. Some very close to Chasen say she had told them about a man she had been seeing on and off for years. But others just as close to her insist they didn't know anything about him.

Solved or not solved, it's probably safe to assume we will see a Chasen-inspired ripped-from-the-headline episode of Law & Order: Los Angeles.



Read more: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/marc_malkin/b214044_three_theories_behind_hollywood.html#ixzz16zVMuWpo

[MuffyBee]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/04/police-man-killed-connected-publicist-slaying/
Police: Man Who Killed Himself May Not Be Connected to Publicist Slaying
December 4, 2010

  Dec. 2: Harold Martin Smith shot himself in this lobby Wednesday when approached by police for questioning in the case of the slaying of publicist Ronni Chasen.

Los Angeles police admitted Friday that the man who killed himself after being approached in relation to the death of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen may not have been involved in her shooting, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Beverly Hills Police Department spokesman Lt. Tony Lee said Harold Martin Smith was a "person of interest" but was not a suspect.

"At this time, it is unknown if this individual was involved in the Chasen homicide," Lee said.

He said undercover officers had been led to Smith after a tipoff from a member of the public was provided to the TV show "America's Most Wanted."

The 43-year-old ex-con fatally shot himself in an apartment late Wednesday as Beverly Hills police were serving a search warrant.

It was unknown if Smith knew why police wanted to speak to him, but he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest for an unrelated misdemeanor charge.

A document obtained Friday by The Associated Press says Smith was released from prison in 2007 and discharged from parole last year.

Court documents indicate Smith had a lengthy criminal past that included arrests for felony burglary and other offenses.

Smith pleaded guilty in December 1991 to second degree burglary and was ordered to serve six months in jail and was placed on three years probation, according to court records. He also had a prior burglary conviction in 1985 in New York.

Court records show Smith was a transient and a struggling laborer trying to find work before he was arrested in 1991. He had previously lived in New York and had been in the Los Angeles area for three months at that time.

In February 1998 he was arrested by Beverly Hills police and charged with two counts of robbery. He pleaded guilty to one count and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

He was arrested by Manhattan Beach police last year for investigation of loitering and possession of marijuana. He pleaded guilty to the loitering charge and was placed on three years of probation. He was ordered to return to court this past September for failure to pay a $160 fine.

He failed to appear twice and a bench warrant was issued for him.

Smith shot himself Wednesday evening as Beverly Hills detectives approached to serve a search warrant in a dowdy Los Angeles apartment building.

Resident Terri Gilpin said he had bragged about killing Chasen and was waiting to receive $10,000 he said he was promised for the hit. Gilpin, however, said she and her husband didn't believe him.

Chasen was shot about 12:28 a.m. local time on Nov. 16 after attending the premiere of the new Cher film "Burlesque," the soundtrack of which she was pushing for an Oscar nomination.

The 64-year-old was shot inside her Mercedes-Benz E-350 sedan before crashing into a lamp post near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Whittier Avenue in Beverly Hills. Police found the front passenger-side window of her vehicle shattered.

The host of "America's Most Wanted," John Walsh, told the L.A. Times a man phoned with information related to Chasen's death three days after a Nov. 20 segment on the homicide.

"He said, 'I think I know this guy. Someone has been bragging about it or talking about it and this is a dangerous guy and I'm afraid,'" Walsh said.

Initially the man was too frightened to provide further details, but he rang back on Tuesday and gave an address for the man's apartment building.

The revelation came as entertainment website TMZ published details of Chasen's will in which she intentionally left just $10 to one of her relatives.

The publicist's estate was valued at $6.1 million in the 1994 will, and she had instructed $60,000 be given to various charities.

Three-quarters of her remaining fortune was to be left to her mother, but she has since died, leaving that money to be given to a niece, Melissa Cohen.

But she left just $10 to her niece, Jill Gatsby.

"I have intentionally and with full knowledge of the consequences omitted to provide for my niece, Jill Cohen, also known as Jill Gatsby, except for the gift of $10," Chasen stated in the will.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B300120101204
Police obtain footage of publicist's crash
December 3, 2010

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The Beverly Hills Police Department has obtained and reviewed private surveillance camera video taken from a Whittier Drive house that shows slain publicist Ronni Chasen's car crashing into a light pole on the street November 16, according to the home's residents. It is the first known video of the early-morning incident.

According to Josh Zayon, 29, and Robbie Schaeffer, 31, footage from two cameras at their Whittier Drive home shows Chasen's black Mercedes-Benz driving southbound on Whittier, slowing but not stopping at a stop sign at North Linden Drive, and continuing on briefly before crashing into a light pole.

The video footage also shows a northbound black Lincoln Town Car driving by Chasen's crashed E350 coupe within a minute of the accident and not stopping, Zayon and Schaeffer said.

"From what I saw in the footage, there was a town car that didn't stop and it probably should have based on the circumstances," said Zayon, who added that the town car's license plate number is not discernible in the video. Moments later, police arrived on the scene.

The footage is noteworthy because the presence of the town car has not previously been reported and the video would also appear to allow investigators to rule out several potential scenarios for the incident.

It is believed the shooting occurred while Chasen was stopped at a red light at Sunset Boulevard and Whittier, with the assailant firing shots at the publicist through her passenger-side window.

However, some news reports have suggested Chasen was shot closer to the stretch of Whittier where her car crashed. The video, which shows the publicist driving down Whittier at 12:27 a.m., does not offer a view of Sunset or include footage of the shooting.

Criminal experts cautioned that the while the town car is a detail investigators would look into, it's likely there is an innocuous explanation for its presence and that it is probably not connected to the shooting of the veteran publicist.

"Who is driving town cars? Not the owners, not concerned citizens, it is people on time schedules," said former Los Angeles Police Department detective Mark Fuhrman, who investigated Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman murders and is now an author. "If you are driving a company car do you really think your company wants you to get involved in helping someone with an accident instead of picking up someone who has to be airport?"

Fuhrman said that detectives would likely have already met with local car service companies to determine if any had vehicles dispatched to the area at the time of the shooting. "It's something you have to check out."

In response to questions about the surveillance video, Lt. Tony Lee of the Beverly Hills Police Department said in an e-mail that detectives would not "disclose anything related to the investigation."

Police have also not provided any new information on the "person of interest," identified in media reports as Harold Smith, who killed himself December 1 when detectives tried to question him in the lobby of the Harvey Apartments in Hollywood. It is unclear how Smith may have been connected to the Chasen shooting.

It has been reported that Smith bragged to a neighbor about killing Chasen and was waiting to be paid $10,000 — at one point saying it was for a job he did and on another occasion saying it stemmed from a lawsuit. (A search by THR of California court records did not show any recent lawsuits involving Smith.)

Zayon and Schaeffer declined to show their surveillance video to THR. Zayon, a student at California State University Northridge, said that Beverly Hills police asked them not to release it and he and Schaeffer also want to keep it private out of respect for Chasen's family. Zayon said that after reviewing the footage he called the police on November 16 and told them of the video. They picked it up the following day, he said.

"It's clearly her car," said Schaeffer, who added that the footage shows Chasen driving down Whittier in a normal fashion. He and Zayon said it is not apparent from the black-and-white video that Chasen has been shot.
"The amazing thing is she is driving straight as an arrow and she breaks right before the stop sign, but then continues," said Schaeffer.

At the time of the shooting he was in his garage with a friend, working on a bicycle.

"(I was) just working on the bike and out of nowhere, there were five consecutive shots. It is silent after that, and 25 seconds later we heard an impact, like a crunch," said Schaeffer, who owns and operates a salon.

A three-page preliminary coroner's report obtained last month by Fox 11 News indicates that Chasen, 64, suffered multiple gunshot wounds, including three to her "right breast/chest area," according to the Fox newscast. The report notes up to four other gunshot wounds, though it is unclear which are exit or entry points for the bullets. The newscast also said a "9mm hollow-point" bullet was recovered from Chasen's back at Cedars-Sinai hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 1:12 a.m. Nov 16. Such ammunition is more powerful than conventional rounds, according to criminal experts.

Zayon was driving home when Chasen was shot and passed her crashed car as police were arriving on the scene.

"As I drove past I see a woman slouched in her car," he said.

[KCJackie]

Did Ronni Chasen’s Agressive Communication and Body Language Anger Someone Who May Have Murdered Her?


The question on most people’s minds in the entertainment industry as well as those who live or work in Beverly Hills is who killed publicist Ronni Chasen and why?  Was she specifically targeted or is everyone in danger in Beverly Hills?



CRIME LIKE THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN BEVERLY HILLS




In a town where there is little crime and no murders in 2009,  people are very frightened and on edge.  The reason people are so spooked is because there is little to no crime here. That is due to the Beverly Hills Police Department, who is next to none. They are the crème de la crème.

They watch this town like a hawk with surveillance cars and constant patrolling and monitoring. If they are called for any 911 emergency, they will promptly be at the scene within 60 to 150 seconds. So that is all the more reason people are freaked out by what happened to Ronni Chasen.


POSSIBLE THEORIES FLOATING AROUND AS TO WHY RONNI WAS MURDERED

There have been many theories floating around as to the motive of killing Ronni Chasen from

a) a gang initiation

b) a professionally jealous colleague jealous of her successful Oscar campaigns

c) someone whom she leaked bad press about to media outlets that cost them a relationship or a business deal

d) someone who wanted to stop her from doing her job,  which was to create publicity campaigns in an attempt to persuade the judges of film awards like The Oscars to choose her clients above the rest which would result in big money

e) gambling debts and refusing to pay up

f) someone whom she cut off in traffic six minutes before she was killed because she was talking on her cell phone and leaving a “to do list” on the other end while perhaps not paying attention to the road

g) an art deal gone wrong

h) a mob killing linked to investors on one of her many movies

i) a psychopathic serial killer on the loose

j) a disgruntled  former client

k)a disgruntled  former employee or housekeeper

j) someone whom she snubbed, disrespected,  humiliated,  belittled or  screamed and yelled at because they didn’t do  what she wanted or do things her way


PR PRAISES ABOUT RONNI FROM THE TOP OF THE LINE PR PROS

When it was first in the press that Ronni has been murdered  only her fellow PR colleagues like top of the line veteran PR people like Paul Bloch, Stan Rosenfeld, Howard Bragman, and Michael Levine spoke out and sang her praises in true Hollywood PR fashion.

They  stated  that she was the sweetest woman alive and that everyone loved her and she had no enemies. Powerful Hollywood journalist Nikki Finke spoke  lovingly and kindly as did other journalists who were interviewed.

But as the days have passed, while her clients have also  attempted to say positive things   about her in the press, they also  managed to  leaked out another side to Ronni’s persona that may give us some insight into her personality which may have alienated the wrong person.


THE OTHER SIDE OF RONNI REVEALED BY FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES

Here are some  other revealing comments and descriptions  from her clients, friends  and colleagues:

“She was persistent” Peter Hamond

“doggedly determined”person Eddie Kalish

“She was known for her “fast-talking, old school, New York aggressiveness on behalf of her clients and was not a person one quickly forgot after meeting. Peter Goldstein

Songwriter Diane Warren paints a picture of a publicist who was determined to get what she wanted and who was  ”fiercely protective” of her clients.

When it came to Ronni getting a photo op with celebrities Diane reported  Ronni said” “(Chasen) goes, ‘I don’t care what I have to do – I’m getting that picture,’ ” Warren explains. “That was Ronni — she had something she wanted to do… and she got that picture.” “She really cared, her clients were like family to her,” says Warren. “She’d tell you what to do and people listened to her.”

At her funeral service her  turbocharged drive in a segment of the business never known for the faint of heart was mentioned. Eulogists all described Chasen’s forceful personality.

At the funeral service her close friend Vivian Mayer-Siskind’s seemingly lighthearted comment  about Ronni revealed even more about her and her personality that some would not find so  appealing as she said “Ronni came to me last night and was pissed as hell. ‘Now you get me a free Armani suit.’ “

Perhaps the most revealing insight into Ronni Chasen;s personality came from Producer Irwin Winkler of Rocky fame who said that when his 2004 film “De-Lovely” was not nominated for a Golden Globe, Chasen “was furious.”

“She screamed and yelled at (members of) the Hollywood Foreign Press (Assn.),” the group that puts on the annual awards show, Winkler told The Times.

While she may have been consistently pleasant to her friends and colleagues  and  described as fiercely protective over her  clients who clearly  paid her large amounts of money, the real question is  how was she to others who were not  A list paying stars or movie studio executives?


DID SHE YELL AND SCREAM AT THE WRONG PERSON?

While friends colleague and clients may have appreciated her being pushy and having too much chutzpah,  and sense of entitlement, traits that obviously work in Hollywood,  perhaps there were others who were equally so put off with her  relentless behavior, that they may have found her  to be one of the most Toxic People.

When someone yells and screams at others like Irwin Winkler  reported Ronni  did to the Hollywood Foreign press because her client didn’t get nominated for an award,  it makes you wonder about who else she yelled at because she didn’t get her way or get what she wanted.

Did she scream and yell at the wrong person? Did she humiliate them? Did they harbor such ill feelings  towards her and allow them to fester to the point  they wanted her dead? Did they hate her that much that they took their fantasy of wanting her dead and turned  it a reality by driving up to her car  and shooting her five times in the chest?

SHOOTING SOMEONE 5 TIMES IN THE CHEST SIGNIFIES SEVERE HATRED TOWARDS THE PERSON

Apparently she had been shot while traveling to her home in Westwood  after attending the premiere of Burlesque, a new film starring Cher, and an after-party at the W hotel. The person or people who shot her obviously had such disdain for her that they shot her in the chest not one time- but five times.

That screams of hatred and rage. In a random drive by shooting there would usually be one shot. But for someone to keep their finger on the trigger and shoot five times, it means they were  furious with her. They wanted to make sure she was dead!

While we know that the shooting was from one car to another, as of today there are still no suspects, no motive, no witnesses according to Beverly Hills Police Department Lt. Tony Lee.  So the mystery remains.

The one thing that gives hope  in solving this tragedy is that the well respected  Beverly Hills Police Department is on top of it and they will leave no stone unturned until the killer or killers of Ronni Chasen  are found.     www.drlillianglass.com

[KCJackie]

Just days before publicist Ronni Chasen was gunned down in Los Angeles, another woman driving in the same neighborhood was threatened by a gunman under eerily similar circumstances, according to an exclusive email obtained by The Daily Beast’s Ann Louise Bardach. Plus new details on Chasen’s personal life, her will, and other crimes that may be connected to her death, including:

• An exclusive email obtained by The Daily Beast reports a woman driving in the same neighborhood a week earlier was threatened through her window by a gunman under similar circumstances.
• Just 10 days after Chasen’s killing, an L.A. man barely survived a near identical murder attempt, shot multiple times through the passenger side of his car at 12:50 a.m., virtually the same hour as Chasen’s murder.
• Despite hope that Chasen had a new will in her safe deposit box that might shed light on her killing, her brother, along with the police, found no new will.
• Experts say the killer did not have to be an expert marksman or professional hit man, contrary to reports.
• More details on her personal life, including being the lover of PR impresario Warren Cowan and even dating Larry King.
• Chasen was unconcerned about her safety and was looking toward the future—including plans for plastic surgery.


The end for Ronni Chasen had the requisite elements of Hollywood film noir: a hail of bullets, a tony Beverly Hills address, a swell car, an unsuspecting blonde, and a storyline that made no sense.

A half-hour after leaving the premiere party for Burlesque just past midnight on Nov. 16, the veteran publicist was dead.

On Whittier Drive, just south of Sunset Boulevard, Chasen’s newly leased black Mercedes E350 struck a lamppost with such force that the concrete pole was hurled to the ground. In seconds, Chasen’s luxe-loaded coupe enfolded her like a black metal shroud. Her shoulder length blond hair, expertly coiffed and weave-dyed every few weeks, flopped forward. But it was her navy-blue designer suit jacket, riddled with bullets and awash in her blood, that betrayed the horrific, lonesome death of Ronni Sue Chasen.

It has become an article of faith, fueled by police sources and a leaked preliminary autopsy finding, that Chasen’s murder was the work of a professional hit man. Reportedly, five closely woven 9 mm hollow-point bullets, which do more internal damage, were blasted through the right passenger window. One police source speculated that the first two bullets struck her right shoulder—prompting Chasen to turn toward the shooter, leading to the three frontal chest bullets.

A week before the murder, an unsettlingly chilling incident occurred just blocks from where Chasen was killed, prompting a resident to alert some of her neighbors by email. The source and residents requested anonymity. The email reads:

“Hi ladies, something that I wanted to warn you about in our hood...Over the weekend, a neighbor told me that last week she was driving down Benedict Cyn and an African American guy with a shirt tied on his head—gang garb—was driving crazy behind her, cutting off drivers, then pulled up next to her at the Tower [Road] stop light and, with window rolled down, smiled at her while he pointed a gun at her. She ignored him and drove on. When they reached the Will Rogers Park, just after Sunset, he did a u-turn at high speed into oncoming traffic.

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-06/hollywood-publicist-ronni-chasen-murder-exclusive-new-clue/full/

[KCJackie]

Killing Reveals Truths of Life at Limelight’s Edge

By MICHAEL CIEPLY and BROOKS BARNES
Published: December 4, 2010

Ronni Chasen could be loud. And she pushed. Jackson County Sheriff, via Associated Press Harold Smith

At an event like the Governors Awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, one of the last show business soirées she attended before her murder on Nov. 16, Ms. Chasen sent reporters skittering for shelter as she scanned the room for targets of opportunity — people to introduce to clients like the film composer Hans Zimmer and the soundtrack expert Diane Warren.

At 64, Ms. Chasen was fighting to keep her place in a Hollywood public relations game that had mostly gone to firms bigger than her boutique Chasen and Company, or to players who were younger.

Assumptions of a pampered Hollywood life have shifted since she was killed last month, shot repeatedly while driving home from a movie premiere. The unsolved killing is pulling back the veil on a person who, like many in the show business capital, focused on holding onto a steadily eroding modicum of glamour.

Dismissing impressions of privilege, her longtime friend Martha Smilgis said: “Ronni was not a Jewish princess. She was a Jewish businesswoman.”

The distinction was Ms. Smilgis’s way of sorting through a bewildering thicket of facts that have begun to surface as both friends and investigators come to terms with the shooting of a woman who was hardly the most important in Hollywood but had become one of its best-known stock characters.

Ms. Chasen operated a modest public relations firm with the sort of clients who might be expected to pay fees of only a few thousand dollars a month — not much when measured against the need to pay salaries for her staff of four and the demands of a Hollywood life.

Yet she had become surprisingly wealthy. Documents posted Thursday on the celebrity news service TMZ.com show her to have been worth about $6 million when she wrote a will in 1994.

Ms. Chasen had become even richer since then, said Ms. Smilgis, an executor in her 2006 will. She inherited money from her mother, who for years had invested in high-dividend stocks, and increased its value through her own astute investments. As recently as September, according to Ms. Smilgis, Ms. Chasen said she was writing yet another will, but whether she did so remained unclear.

Ms. Chasen collected art. In the 1994 version of her will, she invited a few close friends — including the publicity baron Warren Cowan and the publisher Michael Viner, both now dead — to choose a painting from her collection.

Still, the art on the walls of her Westwood condominium was often on loan from one or another of her friends who owned galleries, including Jonathan Novak. Mr. Novak, a pallbearer at Ms. Chasen’s funeral last month, owns Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art, a well-regarded gallery in Century City, not far from Ms. Chasen’s home in a “condo canyon” that lines Wilshire Boulevard.

If not exactly in a fashionable neighborhood, her condominium had one perk that Ms. Chasen said was a must: a doorman. It made her feel safer as a single woman, she once told a reporter, but a doorman was a symbol of a certain social class — a belief that was a holdover from her childhood in the Washington Heights and Riverdale sections of New York.

On Wednesday evening, the puzzlement around Ms. Chasen’s death deepened. Police officers investigating her murder tried to speak with a man in a Hollywood transient hotel who had told acquaintances he had shot Ms. Chasen for pay, but he committed suicide first.

The dead man, who is reported to have spent time in prison, has been identified as Harold Martin Smith. The episode instantly fueled a new round of speculation that Ms. Chasen had been killed in connection with a business deal gone bad, or perhaps for refusing to pay a debt for a friend or family member.

Ms. Smilgis, who spoke Thursday from her home in Santa Barbara, Calif., said Ms. Chasen had mentioned no such deal or debt. If pressed, “I could see her being tough about the money,” Ms. Smilgis said.

Ms. Chasen’s brother, Larry Cohen, a well-known director and writer of B movies like “Captivity” and “Maniac Cop,” said he did not believe that the dead man had anything to do with his sister’s murder.

“This guy was a deranged person who just made that up; no way he was involved,” Mr. Cohen said. “I still think this was most likely a case of road rage.”

Toughness had long been one of Ms. Chasen’s trademarks. She was not married, had no children and lived almost wholly within the confines of a Hollywood circle that included other publicists of her era and old-line producers like Richard D. Zanuck, who won an Oscar for “Driving Miss Daisy.”

In March 1982, the real Ronni Chasen was hidden, just barely, behind a publicist called Trixi in an account by P. J. Corkery for Harper’s Magazine of his stint at an unnamed publicity firm. “Trixi’s life is her job,” Mr. Corkery wrote. “She is about 35 and has wrapped her entire existence in her work.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/us/05publicist.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&sq=ronni chasen&st=cse&scp=3

[KCJackie]

Five Lingering Questions About Ronni Chasen's Murder

Today 5:00 AM PST by Ted Casablanca and John Boone

To say we're still confused by the Ronni Chasen murder is a painful understatement.

Ronni's whole horrifying saga plays like an episode of Law & Order: Hollywood, except one thing is missing: a resolution. And while we have hundreds of questions about this par-tick whodunit (ya know, like what beef Ronni actually had with her niece), we rounded up our top five queries that most certainly would help solve the case if they were answered:

1. What did Harold Smith have to do with it? Was Harold Smith a hit man...or just plain crazy? While those close to Ronni (and the LAPD) now lean toward the latter, he was a momentary "person of interest" in the case, following a tip from America's Most Wanted. One neighbor even claims Harold told her that he "murdered that bitch."

But did he have anything to do with it? Unlikely. And we may never know, seeing as Harold shot and killed himself when police tried to serve him a search warrant. Seems suspicious (duh), but cops are now saying that he may have just been looking for 15 minutes of effed-up fame.

2. Who benefited in Ronni's updated will? Or was there even a new will at all? The will on record, which shafts the aforementioned niece by only leaving her 10 bucks, is from 1994, and some claim another will was drafted in 2006 (yet no record of this will seems to exist). But Martha Smilgis, who was coexecutor of Chasen's 1994 will, says Ronni talked about "rearranging" things in her will just two months before her murder.

That's not to say that Ronni ever actually redid her last will and testament, but if an updated will exists, we wonder what changed? And even if it doesn't, what exactly made Ronni want to redo it so close to what would eventually be her death?

3. Was Ronni paying off someone's gambling debt? One of the many (and more realistic) theories behind Ronni's murder is that she was involved in paying off debts for a loved one. While no one has been able to track down any seedy payments and no family member has 'fessed to the debt, pals close to Chasen think this biz—or some other serious kind of money situation—may have gone bad, which led to Ronni getting killed.

Even if Ronni didn't pay off someone else's debt with her life, her history seems to indicate she'd been targeted before by someone who knew her business well, including a robbery at gunpoint years ago where hidden jewelry was stolen. Might the two incidents be connected?

4. Was Ronni a victim of ongoing gang violence? Many think that Ronni's murder was premeditated, with a hit man hired to take her out as she drove home from a ritzy Hollywood premiere. Recent reports from The Daily Beast claim R.C.'s death may have been random, after all, and was another gang-related crime in a wave that also included two similar gun-related incidents a week before and after Ronni's murder.

"No, there are no reports of these types of crimes in the city of Beverly Hills," says Sgt. Shan Davis of the Beverly Hills P.D. Hmmm, consider us perplexed on this one. The police may pooh-pooh it, but we're not entirely sure we believe them.

5. Who killed Ronni Chasen? There may be hundreds of questions, but the numero uno Q is: Who killed Ronni? Was it a hit man with "cop-killer" bullets? Did Ronni know the killer? And did Ronni know the motive behind her own murder?

Will we ever get answers?

It's not looking too good. Sorry, Ronni, you deserved better.


Read more: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/the_awful_truth/b214957_five_lingering_questions_about_ronni.html#ixzz17Wne47x3

[KCJackie]

Publicist Ronni Chasen's Murderer Acted Alone, Police Say

By Ken Lee
Wednesday December 08, 2010 06:20 PM EST


Ronni Chasen and Harold Martin Smith

The murder case that captivated Hollywood is nearly closed.

Publicist Ronni Chasen was gunned down during an attempted robbery by a desperate man, Harold Martin Smith, who was riding a bicycle at the time and later took his own life with the same weapon, Beverly Hills police said Wednesday.

"We don't believe it was a professional hit," police Chief David Snowden told reporters.

Preliminary ballistics tests showed a match between at least one fatal bullet in Chasen's murder and the gun that Smith used to kill himself on Dec. 1 when detectives approached him in a Hollywood apartment lobby, Snowden confirms.

Smith, 43, a transient with a long rap sheet of robbery and drug crimes, had no ties to Chasen, 64, other than a desire to rob her, police say.

"We believe that Mr. Smith acted alone," says Snowden.

Det. Sgt. Mike Publicker added they believe this was a case of a "robbery gone bad," but also called it a "random act of violence."

"Interviews we've conducted lead us to believe [Smith] was in a desperate point in his life," Publicker continued. "We believe he intended to rob her. We don't believe he was a paid hitman."

Police added that no shell casings have been found.

Chasen, 64, was shot multiple times while driving her Mercedes-Benz in the early morning hours of Nov. 16 after leaving a party for the Burlesque premiere.

Despite theories that Chasen was gunned down from another car, police believe Smith was riding a bicycle when he committed the crime. The bike was later found at the suicide scene.

According to Smith's neighbor, Terri Gilpin, 46, Smith had openly bragged in the days following Chasen's death that he was the killer, but questions were raised about whether Smith was telling the truth.

"He said, 'You know that publicist they're talking about on TV? Yeah, I killed her. I'm getting $10,000 for killing her. I did it, I did it,' " Gilpin said.

Publicker added they are 60-70 percent done with the investigation, which is still ongoing.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20448094,00.html?xid=rss-topheadlines&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+people%2Fheadlines+%28PEOPLE.com%3A+Top+Headlines%29&utm_content=Twitter