Dateline NBC tonight, December 17, 2010 is going to look at the investigations and questions surrounding what now appears to be the senseless murder of Ronni Chasen by Harold Smith.
The views in Hollywood are varied, here is some of what I found that the famed Beverly Hills crowd are musing about.
In the extreme you have one “unnamed source” telling Deadline, “After listening to the details of the press conference, one of my police sources familiar with the investigation questioned the credibility of the investigation and quipped, “If I’m murdered and you find my body in Beverly Hills, please drag my body to LAPD. Even if you have to leave a bloody trail.”
I will be adding some additional details in a few minutes but Date Line NBC should be interesting and our favorite Hollywood PI, John J. Nazarian will be on talking with others. The Ronni Chasen case will not be covered with the whole show as there are other interesting crimes scheduled for tonight on the program.
The Beverly Hills police held a press conference on Wednesday stating that they believe that Harold Martin Smith, a career criminal who served time in state prison, shot and killed Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen. Police announced that lab tests revealed a preliminary match between the murder weapon presumed to have killed publicist Ronni Chasen and the gun used by Howard Smith to kill himself. The Beverly Hills Police stated that Smith acted alone in killing Chasen and police don’t believe the murder was a professional hit, but rather a “robbery gone bad.” The police theory is that Smith was on his bicycle and intended to rob Chasen, but she sped off after he shot her.
The Daily Beast gives us a synopsis of facts and just how this murder might have been a random act.
Police believe Smith carried out the shooting on foot as Chasen waited for the light to turn. He could well have staked out the corner, waiting past midnight into the wee hours of Nov. 16, a weekday, when traffic is at its lightest. He would have waited for a clear stretch without other passing cars, then made his move for Chasen’s vehicle, goes the police’s theory.
Smith reportedly killed Chasen with a .38 revolver, which can take regular or hollow-point bullets. A revolver does not discharge cartridge casings, as has been endlessly speculated.
In the botched robbery, Smith unloaded five bullets at the veteran publicist, then dashed back to his seven-speed and fled the scene, police say. Chasen did not surrender her purse, jewelry, money, or car, but lurched leftward onto Whittier, where she crashed into a lamppost.
Questions were hurled back at the Beverly Hills Police Department. A black man cycled seven miles to Whittier and Sunset, a cornerstone of ivory-white Beverly Hills, and no one clocked him when police are famously alert to African-American men in the area? Not a snippet to be found on any of the security cameras at the grand homes along Sunset Boulevard? No spent cartridge casings in the street? In short, the general complaint went, a thief simply does not accost a Mercedes on the most famous boulevard in Southern California in order to rob its driver and take nothing for his efforts, all with just a bicycle for transportation.
Harold Smith, a lifelong drug and alcohol abuser who was in and out of prison for much of his adult life, was indeed crazy.
On that point, the denizens of the Harvey Apartments, the benighted rooming house worthy of a Raymond Chandler novel, on Santa Monica Boulevard near Vine Street, tend to agree.
“He was always wearing these over sized gray gardener’s gloves,” said his neighbor Robin Lyle. “I think it was some germ phobia thing of his. Even if he shook my hand, he put the glove right back on.”
John Kratzel, 60, a self described “survivor of Vietnam, the Marine Corps, and 14 foster homes” maintains a well-kept room down the hall “He was always roaming the halls trying to engage me,” said Kratzel, who added that he told Smith more than once not to come into his room. “He was troubled and he was in trouble. He had several different bikes, stolen bikes. He used to keep them next door by the Dumpster.”
A longtime employee of the Harvey said Smith had four or five bikes during the few months he lived at the Harvey. “All stolen,” he added. Smith’s favorite, and the one he kept in his room, he said, was a burgundy-colored seven-speed, which the LAPD have taken into evidence. “I saw him once on that bicycle with the banana seat and curled handlebars,” said neighbor Terri Gilpin, 46, who occasionally chatted with Smith, “and he was holding a can of soda in his right hand. And he could ride with both hands in the air.”
That’s where Smith ended his misery with a bullet to his skull with a .38 revolver on Dec. 1 at 6 p.m., when police arrived to question him. It was the same gun that police say is a ballistics match with the one used to kill Chasen.
About two weeks before Smith took his life, he showed up excitedly outside Robin Lyle’s door. He had received “a few thousand dollars” from a lawsuit filed on his behalf by personal injury law firm of Larry H. Parker, though he complained about the lawyers “taking most of it.”
Michael Baden, the chief pathologist for the New York State Police, never doubted that Chasen’s murder did not require a trained hit man. But the Beverly Hills Police Department’s press conference, he said, raised more questions than it settled: “What is the provenance of the gun?” asked Baden. “When did he get the gun? Was it a hot gun someone wanted to get rid of? Were there other fingerprints on the weapon? And most importantly, did the bike have trace evidence on it?
That said, “trace evidence,” in the words of one police source, was found at the intersection of Sunset and Whittier, referring to the shattered glass of Chasen’s passenger window. The source also clarified that the investigators were not suggesting that Smith accosted Chasen’s Mercedes on his bicycle—but rather on foot.
The blowback from “the industry” was fast and fierce: from the friends and clients of Chasen to her fellow publicists, and even the local newspapers, websites, and bloggers who had run with the assumption that a professional assassin or mob hit man was the killer. “I don’t believe it for one minute,” Kathie Berlin, longtime Chasen friend and fellow publicist, told KNBC. “And not one person I’ve talked to believes it. You’re going to shoot someone in the heart five times from a bicycle and then just ride off?” Chasen’s friend, the film producer Lili Fini Zanuck, was nonplussed: “Anyone watching CSI can do better. It’s from an SUV?! It’s from a bike?!” she said. “What the fuck?”
While “the industry” scoffs at the police’s resolution of Chasen murder, Hollywood’s tourist industry has found a way to embrace the tragedy. The Starline bus tour, which features the homes of the stars, now drives by Sunset and Whittier, with its bullhorn announcing the intersection as the famed murder site of Ronni Chasen.
This morning Beverly Hills P. I. John J. Nazarian appeared with Jamie Chambers of Los Angeles KTLA TV
In an interview this morning on Los Angles TV station of KTLA, John J. Nazarian shared his thought on the murder of Ronni Chasen, 64, with reporter Jamie Chambers discussion in part that Chasen suffered five gunshot wounds to the chest and her black Bentley 350 car crashed into a light pole just after turning off Sunset Boulevard. Police found the publicist slumped in the driver’s seat, bleeding profusely, with her passenger window shattered. Police said that the car was on Whittier just south of Sunset, not far from the Beverly Hills Hotel. That route would have been on her way from the movie premiere to her home on Wilshire Boulevard near Westwood.
One Beverly Hills resident described hearing “immaculately timed” gunshots at the time of the incident, another said he heard motorcycles traveling around the area the evening before Chasen was killed. The crashed Bentley into a lamppost triggered an array of 911 calls from people who heard the shots or the crash. Detectives are also pouring over 911 tapes and surveillance footage from the crime scene. Chasen is believed to have been driving from the W Hotel in Hollywood to her condo six miles away, near the grounds of the Los Angeles Country Club. The route took her along the Sunset Strip, an area where many businesses have sophisticated video surveillance equipment that could have recorded footage of anyone trailing her car. Police are also analyzing video from security cameras mounted outside multimillion-dollar mansions that line the road where Chasen’s car crashed. They also removed all of her computers from her office to have them analyzed.
Experts say the circumstances of the publicist’s killing don’t suggest a random crime, a theory that Mr. Nazarian also supports more than just random road rage.
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 was not believed to have had any shady associations.
The New York Post reported over the weekend that Chasen suspected she was being followed by an unknown person back in March, and she revealed to friends that she was “scared.”
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office stated that it may be some time before results of an autopsy will be released.
A $100,000 reward is being offered for any information that leads to the conviction of Chasen’s killer.
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This morning Beverly Hills P, I. John J. Nazarian appeared on the NBC Today show for an interview with Kristen Welker in Los Angeles.
Mr. Nazarain disagrees that this was a simple road rage saying in part that the, “the level of anger in this case is evident in that the killer used all five shots adding that if the shooter would have used all 20 bullets if the gun had held that many “.
In a quick follow-up interview this morning I asked Mr. Nazarian about the road rage theory and he again said the shooting was too accurate and all in the chest area which is a very precise target area which would be more likely a person familiar with shooting and not a random road rage shooter. Nazarain also commented on how clean the crime area was left with little evidence for Beverly Hills Police to follow.
Ronni Chasen, 64, suffered five gunshot wounds to the chest and her black Bentley 350 car crashed into a light pole just after turning off Sunset Boulevard. Police found the publicist slumped in the driver’s seat, bleeding profusely, with her passenger window shattered. Police said that the car was on Whittier just south of Sunset, not far from the Beverly Hills Hotel. That route would have been on her way from the movie premiere to her home on Wilshire Boulevard near Westwood.
The first people at the scene around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday said Ronni Chasen’s passenger side window to her Bentley had been shot out and that they only heard the gun shots and then the Bentley crashing into a light pole. The neighbors near the shooting said that when they arrived that Chasen was breathing heavily and had blood coming from her nose and her chest. They said there was no SUV’s speeding away and no shooter hanging around. According to Beverly Hills police there were some pieces of glass, possibly from Chasen’s shattered window found at the crash site, but no bullet casings were found.
The theories are swirling in Beverly Hills from road rage to a target shooting or “hit”. Beverly Hills police find themselves working over time to attempt to put the pieces together.of is this the unfortunate victim of a random drive-by shooting, attempted robbery, carjacking or a road rage incident gone awry. But investigators now believe her killing was planned in advance, though they won’t say whether they have any suspects or a motive.
One Beverly Hills resident described hearing “immaculately timed” gunshots at the time of the incident, another said he heard motorcycles traveling around the area the evening before Chasen was killed. The crashed Bentley into a lamppost triggered an array of 911 calls from people who heard the shots or the crash. Detectives are also pouring over 911 tapes and surveillance footage from the crime scene. Chasen is believed to have been driving from the W Hotel in Hollywood to her condo six miles away, near the grounds of the Los Angeles Country Club. The route took her along the Sunset Strip, an area where many businesses have sophisticated video surveillance equipment that could have recorded footage of anyone trailing her car. Police are also analyzing video from security cameras mounted outside multimillion-dollar mansions that line the road where Chasen’s car crashed. They also removed all of her computers from her office to have them analyzed.
Experts say the circumstances of the publicist’s killing don’t suggest a random crime, a theory that Mr. Nazarian also supports more than just random road rage.
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 was not believed to have had any shady associations.
The New York Post reported over the weekend that Chasen suspected she was being followed by an unknown person back in March, and she revealed to friends that she was “scared.”
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office stated that it may be some time before results of an autopsy will be released.
A $100,000 reward is being offered for any information that leads to the conviction of Chasen’s killer.
Be sure to participate in our COMMUNITY , get the most out of the site by learning your way around in the community where you can discuss things about the cases in a debate area of the site.
Visit our Download Section for all documents on the cases we are following:
We will be listening to all of our readers about new cases. Do you have a tip for us on a case to follow? If so Contact Us, a link appears at the top of all pages; ALL TIPS ARE OF COURSE CONFIDENTIAL
The expressions in this blog article are based on the opinions of Rose Turner or our featured authors, please remember we are not lawyers and those opinions expressed here are each of our individual opinions and should not be taken as legal advice and/or legal opinions. The comments following this blog article are the opinions and sole property of the blog site members and do not necessarily reflect those of the site owners. If comments to this or any other articles are not related to the article or does not meet the terms of use for Rose Speaks, they will be removed by the moderators.
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