No motive, no suspects in slaying of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen

Authorities searched the home and office of veteran Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, who was killed early Tuesday morning in an attack in Beverly Hills. But they have no immediate motive for the slaying.

Beverly Hills Police Sgt. Lincoln Hoshino said detectives are pursuing all possibilities, including any links to her business or personal life. They are also looking into whether the shooting was a random act.

Detectives were dispatched to Chasen's Westside office and her high-rise condominium unit, where they dusted for fingerprints and took evidence from computers.

“We don’t know what the motive is. This is a fresh, active homicide,” Hoshino said, confirming that detectives had served search warrants at the home and business. “We are obviously conducting a forensic investigation concurrent with the detectives’ investigation.”

Hoshino would not directly comment on whether detectives would review security video footage between the W. Hotel, where Chasen was attending a premier after-party, and the crime scene at Whittier Drive and Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

But he said the department “will conduct a thorough investigation and that will be part of it.”

A woman who lives near where Chasen crashed after being fatally shot said she heard gunshots and ran outside to find the veteran Hollywood publicist bleeding profusely, with her car window shattered.

The quiet neighborhood, once home to Julie Andrews, is one of stately multimillion-dollar homes and gated estates on tree-lined streets that wind between Sunset and Wilshire boulevards. Whittier is often used as a cut-through route, and neighbors say automobile accidents are fairly common.

But this situation was different.

Nahid Shekarchian, a 33-year resident of the neighborhood who lives just south of the house where Chasen's car crashed, said sometime after midnight she heard gunshots --"boom-boom-boom" -- and opened the curtain of her upstairs bedroom. She told her daughter-in-law to call 911 and went outside to see what had happened.

Shekarchian said the woman in the car was bleeding profusely from her nose and had blood on her chest. The window on the passenger side of the front seat had been shattered. Another neighbor walked to the car window and asked: "Can I help you?" Shekarchian said the driver "was breathing very heavily" and did not respond.

Shekarchian said the police told her that whoever shot Chasen might have been walking rather than in another vehicle. But Shekarchian said she saw no one in the vicinity.

"Oh, my God. Oh, my God," she said after learning that Chasen had died.

Chasen had just attended the premiere of "Burlesque" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre as well as a party after the screening, sources told The Times. Authorities said she was shot multiple times in the chest in her Mercedes-Benz E-350 and crashed into a light pole at Whittier Drive, near Sunset Boulevard, at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday. No suspects have been arrested.

-- Andrew Blankstein in Los Angeles and Martha Groves in Beverly Hills

Photo: Ronnie Chasen.  Getty Images

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Comments

[tgefilms]

@Duped Tax Payer - show a little respect. Keep your inappropriate comments to yourself.

[asian annie]

Is this the area Bill Cosby's son was gunned down?

[Asian Larry]

Yes, very close. Except his son was on a freeway, not a residential street. And the freeway was the 405 going thru the Santa Monica mountains. But yes, right in that same residential area, except in the mountains on a freeway.

C'mon, how about looking up info for yourself instead of wasting people's time.

[markiejoe]

No, it's not anywhere near where Bill Cosby's son was gunned down.

[George]

It's all speculation at this point -- but if it wasn't a carjacking, it could well have been road rage. Perhaps she cut off someone with both a temper and a gun?

[Jim]

Good god, Watts has come to Beverly Hills. Time to move to Idaho.

[jane]

These comments ARE inappropriate and ghoulish. Nothing to do with Cosby's murder which was on the 405 south of the Skirball - where there have been several serious hit-runs of people who stop to fix their broken vehicles.

THIS was as story states a quiet residential, upscale street in Beverly Hills, but if the assailant was on foot, how could he have been targeting this woman? Not likely he'd have stood there IN CASE she passed home this way - unless she had a passenger who escaped. But being shot through the PASSENGER side, while she was traveling NORTH, means shooter was probably driving SOUTH on Whittier and shot her through the window, a passenger in that car shot her.

This might mean there are random gangs prowling around. Maybe there IS a motive but on the other hand, it IS a cut-through street and there are more and more gangbangers on the Sunset Strip, all over, they could have been heading somewhere in Westwood./ Century City or back south to WLA/ Culver City AFTER partying on the strip.

West Hollywood's got too many clubs, and some like the House of Blues have attracted gangbangers intent on fighting each other. The other clubs aren't known for that, but there have been incidents at other clubs in West Hollywood recently between gangs, and someone got shot at Beverly Center last year. My guess it was a random act by punks but maybe she WAS handling some gangster rapper or something.

We should not be engaged in idle and disrespectful speculation, but it's important to know if this was isolated and random - so we should all be afraid - or somehow targeted, but how would they know she'd be going home THAT way? If it's a a condo it must have been the Sierra Towers, only one I know of north of Sunset. Why wouldn't they have hung out closer to her home then?

I drive that area myself at night so I'm concerned not some busybody interested in "celebrity murders," get a grip some of you. This is a real neighborhood of real people too.

[PJ]

@asian annie and asian larry -- this is not NEAR the 405 freeway & Sepuleveda where Ennis Cosby was murdered, nor was that location in the Santa Monica mountains. Asian Larry, obviously you are not familiar with the areas or simply don't know east from west. This unfortunate and horrific crime was committed on Whittier near Sunset Blvd. (several block from the BH Hotel).

[Burbank]

Jane, nice job of blaming "gangbangers" (code for black and brown people) for yet another murder.

[lm945]

@ Jane. That doesn't make sense. She was shot through the passenger window. So unless the other person was driving on the wrong side of the road, the driver would have been driving in the same direction as her. Possibly having followed her from the after-party. That's somewhere the police should be looking. Did she have an altercation with someone at the party?

What was she doing on Whittier? The W. Hotel, where the after-party was held, is on Hilgard. If she was heading towards Sunset, why didn't she stay on Hilgard, or take Beverly Glen? It doesn't make sense for her to take Whittier to get to Sunset. Unless, perhaps, she wasn't going straight home. Which would again suggest that someone followed her from the party.

[Donne]

Gotta be some gang initiation thing, or road rage. I highly doubt it has anything to do with her professional life. City of Beverly Hills needs to offer a large reward and people would come out with info

[jane]

just read the updated article and realize I was off by detail of shooter, because if she was driving north/ home from the Beverly Hills Hotel, and she was shot from the passenger side, the shooter WAS on foot on the sidewalk OR did she get shot at the big intersection? This article isn't specific enough, just says "near" Sunset. For some readers they have NO idea of anything remotely on the westside within a 10 mile radius clearly, but we locals would be helped by this story being MORE specific - I'd like to know if it was random, on foot or by car.

Now I have to worry every time I drive there late at night myself.

[sleuth]

first of all, the after party was at the W in hollywood, on hollywood blvd and vine/argyle. she left there and was traveling west on sunset blvd. there is a light at sunset and whittier. sunset has two lanes going west with a left turn lane to go south onto whittier and two lanes going east. there is a grassy median between the directions. there is also a small park at the southwest corner of this intersection...a very small, very dark park. she turned south onto whittier to cut down to wilshire to go to her condo (it's either in century city or westwood). whittier is basically the last street you can cut south from sunset on and still be in the "flats" of bev hills. this stretch of sunset would be pretty quiet at midnight on a weeknight. i've driven it a million times, and many of those, i've been the only car on the street. she crashed the car on whittier just before walden.when she crashed she was going south but her car ended up face first into the curb as if she grabbed the wheel and yanked it to the right. she knocked down a street lamp. if she was shot through the passenger window then i can only see one of three ways it could have happened. either she was shot by the driver of a car in one f the two lanes to her right as she was in the left turn lane on sunset waiting for the arrow to turn left onto whittier . or she was shot either mid turn or just as she completed the turn and by someone standing in the dark park. they would have had plenty of time to aim and focus while she was waiting for the green arrow. or the shooter was sitting at the stop sign of greenway and whittier, his car facing east, leaning out the driver or passenger window of his car and as she drove south (perpendicular) past the front of the shooter's car, they shot her and she pulled the wheel to the right within half a block.
the first scenarios one and two would mean she drove quite a ways with the gunshots in her chest without driving all over the place. the last scenario seems more likely but it also seems like it was no coincidence and that the killer was waiting deliberately. who knows? it's mind boggling

[Moonbeam]

Bill Cosby's son was shot in a robbery attempt while he was changing a tire, if I remember correctly. He was turning over his wallet, but the robber didn't think he did it fast enough. And it was along the freeway, not in the residential side streets.

I doubt this was road rage by someone who happened to be able to shoot well enough to put several bullets into the chest of a moving target. During an interview this morning I heard the police are viewing whatever is available from traffic stops and other security cameras so see what other vehicles or people may have been near Ms. Chasen's vehicle.

Still seems logical to me that it might have been a deliberate hit, and quite likely carried out by someone in a car behind her who was coordinating with a shooter up ahead.

And as to one of the posters above, it is not idle curiosity about a celebrity: not only do we want justice for well-loved woman, but those of us in this area need the peace of mind of knowing whether or not it was random because we drive these streets as well.

[PATTY CAKE]

GANGBANGERS? Really? I mean Seriously? I mean I'm just saying... Really? Gangbangers? LOL!!!! You guys with the "gangbanger theory" give street punks too much credit for having a level of tactic and intelligence that they do not obviously have. I guess "gangbangers" were also responsible for the hits on MLK, JFK and YITZHAK RABIN too! I mean... I'm just saying.