Ronni Chasen slaying: New details, still no motive in shooting of Hollywood publicist

New details emerged in the slaying of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, but police detectives still have no motive or suspects in the Tuesday morning shooting attack.

Detectives now believe Chasen was killed in a car-to-car shooting, with the assailant firing into the passenger-side window of her Mercedes coupe.  Beverly Hills Mayor Jimmy Delshad told The Times that detectives believe a vehicle taller than Chasen's car, perhaps a sport utility vehicle, was involved.

"Indications are [the shots] could have come from another car, higher up, maybe an SUV," said Delshad, adding that it does not appear at this point that the assailant fired while standing in the street.

Delshad and other Beverly Hills officials expressed shock over the shooting, saying the city has not seen anything like it in years.

Councilman John Mirisch said residents are horrified by the ruthlessness of the crime. “We hope the police can bring whoever committed this awful crime to justice,” Mirisch said. “It’s clearly their top priority.”

Lt. Tony Lee of the Beverly Hills Police Department said Thursday that officials have not concluded whether Chasen was shot at the intersection or closer to where her car crashed into a light pole near Whittier and Greenway drives.

Delshad said police found some pieces of glass -- possibly from Chasen's car window -- near the intersection of Whittier and Sunset Boulevard, but they found no bullet casings. He added that Beverly Hills police were working on the case 24 hours a day.

Chasen was shot to death early Tuesday while driving her Mercedes-Benz near the intersection of Whittier and Sunset in Beverly Hills. She was on her way home from a movie premiere after-party.

She is believed to have left the event about midnight, traveling west on Sunset. Friends believe she had planned to head south to her condominium on Wilshire Boulevard near the grounds of the Los Angeles Country Club.

Several residents dialed 911 at the time of the attack. The first call, from a person who lives near Sunset and Benedict Canyon Drive, reported a gunshot.

Moments later, more 911 calls came in reporting shots heard several blocks to the west, near Whittier and Wilshire. Another resident called 911 to report hearing the car crash into the light pole.

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-- Martha Groves, Andrew Blankstein and Sam Allen

Comments

[Jam Master]

Professional hit by a professional, for whatever reasons or motives, who left no shell casings. That is why he/she used a revolver because they would have had to extend their arm out the higher vehicle window and lower it, firing 5 times ( !!?) and then casually driving away.
Professionals use different weapons for different hits. Whatever it takes.
This ain't no amateur crime.

[Shamus]

The credibility of a conclusion that Chasen was shot from another adjacent auto depends in part upon how far she could have driven after sustaining five bullet wounds to the chest. The final location of her car is approximately one and one-half blocks south of Sunset. Could she have been shot on Sunset, made the left turn onto Whittier and continued driving for a block and one-half - I will let a forensic medical expert answer that. If the answer is no, then shots from another car appear unlikely - as the clip points out, Whittier is too narrow for two cars to travel adjacent to each other in the same direction. An interesting fact is that the driver's side window was partially lowered - at midnight in November in a new climate controlled Mercedes, why would the driver's side window be lowered? Was she a smoker? Did someone lure her to stop and engage in a discussion while the shooter took aim from the opposite side of the car? All speculation, but the lowered window is curious. As to the shooter having been in the car, I suspect that forensics can answer whether the shots were fired at close range. Beyond that, if someone fired from in the car, he/she would have had to have shot five times and then exited before the car drove down the street. There appears to have been no one in the passenger seat at the time of impact - the passenger side airbag did not activate.

[Steve Gregg]

Looks like a random murder to me by somebody out looking to kill somebody for the thrill of it. As I recall from Bugliosi's book, "Helter Skelter," the Manson family rode around LA looking for somebody to kill. They nearly shot a guy in a Corvette, stopped at a light, but the light changed before they could shoot him. Maybe this woman wasn't so lucky.

A girl I dated in Fort Worth was nearly killed by a random killer. She and a girlfriend were driving back late after a night in Cowtown. They were stopped at a light, chatting, when her girlfriend screamed and dived under the dash. She looked up to see a Mexican in a van next to them pointing a deer rifle at her, then fire. The windshield shattered. The two of them looked at each other for a few heartbeats, then she slowly drove off. When she collected her wits, she sped off to a convenience store and called the cops.

The windshield had stopped the slug, except for a sliver which penetrated her shoulder and drew a little blood. She was the luckiest girl in Fort Worth that night.

Maybe this woman wasn't so lucky. Maybe some thrill killer drove up to Beverly Hills to shoot somebody at random for kicks and stumbled across her at the stoplight. Guys like that like to bring an audience with them to watch. Sooner or later, that audience will talk to the cops.

[Frink Stink]

@realist

There is no credible theory that this is a gang initiation rite. Shots from and to a moving vehicle with all hitting their intended target? Gang members ("recruits" at that) are not famous for their marksmanship.

Anyone trying to say this is a gang initiation is probably of the same mindset of those responsible for the hi-beam flash gang initiation myth (yes it's a myth with no documented cases. Ever.)

[Mark]

A car "higher up or SUV". What about a bicycle or a motorcycle?

[Gefor]

"Alan Citron, a former reporter for The Los Angeles Times, recalled a vintage moment from 1990, when Ms. Chasen was working on behalf of Giancarlo Parretti, an Italian investor who took and ultimately lost control of M.G.M. Ms. Chasen met Mr. Citron for lunch at the Polo Lounge and playfully “threatened to kill me if we didn’t lay off him,” Mr. Citron said. When he laughed, Ms. Chasen picked up her butter knife and jokingly pressed it against his chest. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/us/18publicist.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=us&adxnnlx=1290162297-H65TlEpSWZp/nNu+1geNtw

[Luis Pineda]

Obviously not due to a gang initiation..someone didn't want her around and a professional hit man obviously took her life away. The murder seems to be well executed for sure. But what scars me is that theres a bunch of these cold blooded killers walking on the streets right now.

[me]

I hope the detectives read peoples' ideas. They might help. Internet usage at its best.

[John]

I hope the detectives are smart enough to realize the most likely reason there aren't any spent shell casings is because the weapon was probably a revolver and not a semi-automatic. They keep saying they can't find any shell casings and they seem surprised by that. C'mon, I'm "Joe average cititzen" and even I can figure out it wasn't a semi-auto.

[RussT]

I believe this horrible crime exonerates Randy Quaid and his wife. Clearly there is an organization out there targeting Hollywood.

[Mookie]

She looked like a small framed woman, I can't picture her being shot, and then still making a left turn. The shooter probably would have injured her on the right arm or she would have been incapacitate almost immediately and crashed somewhere in the Sunset Blvd intersection. I really don't see how she drove as far as she did and not even tried to call for help?!

[John Steel]

Clearly this is a random shooting, probably gang related. There is no reason for anyone to kill this woman and professional hit men do not shoot people in moving cars.

Of course the cops and many in LA don't want to admit their city has become such a cesspool that no one is safe anywhere. Soon it will truly be Mexico Norte.

[Peter lee]

attempted robbery thieves probably saw her at the movie premiere followed her to the after party. waited and attempted to rob her. 2 robbers on foot 1 on driver side 1 on passenger side she tried to drive off robber on passenger side fired at her. no shell casings a revolver or BH PD hasn't found them yet
why would a hitman waste shots into the torso. 5 shots 1 should of been a headshot.

[Lt Scrounge]

Five shots into the chest of a small woman in a moving vehicle, through a window and from an adjacent taller vehicle? And did they get Arlen Specter from PA to come up with this magic bullet theory?

It MIGHT be possible into a convertible with the top down, but hard tops are another story. TRY to draw a straight line from the height of the victim's gun shot wounds, through the passenger window and to the height of a taller vehicle WITHOUT hitting the roof. Pretty hard to do unless the taller vehicle is at least two lanes over. Adjacent lane trajectories will almost certainly be too steep. If the street is less than 3 lanes wide, my guess would be a motorcycle or bicycle with motorcycle being the most logical choice since it would allow the gunman to exit the area in the fastest manner. Since gunshots were reported, a suppressor was definitely NOT used. My guess would be that she was stopped and the shooter pulled up along side of her car and then fired. Humans can stay alive and conscious for over 2 minutes AFTER all blood flow to the brain has ceased. Look at the FBI Miami shoot out reports from 1984. The prime perpetrator in the shoot out was shot through the aorta and would not have survived the trip to the hospital. EVEN AFTER being shot, he was able to dodge between cars and shoot 7 FBI agents including two of them fatally. IF her lungs were punctured (high probability with five chest shots fired from a side) she wouldn't have been able to say much to any 911 operator anyway. Many people believe the hype in the movies that people collapse after a single gunshot to the body. Unless it's a spine shot, that doesn't happen frequently enough to matter.

The shooter was probably using a revolver. My guess would be one with a ported barrel to reduce recoil and possibly a laser sight to improve hit probability. This was NOT the work of some simple gang banger. This person KNEW what he/she was doing. Whacko thrill killer? Maybe. Professional with a contract? Most likely.

[Sanfranman]

She took too much Smiley.

[Edward]

The article erroneously states that the second round of 911 calls were near Whittier and Wilshire, when it should say Whittier and Sunset.

[Gary]

Cameras not working, how convenient. Where was Mayor V?

[paul]

Giancarlo Parretti cannot be ignored even if his tenure ended at MGM in the nineties. He complained to an Italian newspaper in 1990 "that the Jews had ganged up on him." In 1999, he was sentenced to four years and fined 1 million francs for misusing funds. Parretti, eating at the Polo Lounge with Alan Citron, a former LA Times reporter, recalls when when Parretti "playfully" said "he'd kill me if I didn't lay off." Ronni "jokingly" held a butter knife to Parretti's chest. All could be innocent fun, but I guarantee the police are looking into everything. That's what police do in a murder investigation.

[no_slappz]

Five shots? Lots of revolvers hold five rounds. Meanwhile, if this was a hit, or even if it wasn't, there were probably two people in the car from which the shots were fired. One guy driving, and one guy who was, as they say, "riding shotgun."

Meanwhile, what reason might drive someone to have this woman executed? Did she poach the clients of other publicists? Was she married? Did her husband want her dead?

[claudiaT]

Robert Blake .....

[Barney]

Question 1: Did she have a legitimate need for the handicapped placard that was hanging on the rear view mirror? Question 2: Was she "relentlessly pushy" as reported in the OC Register? If she parked in handicapped spaces without a real handicap, then to me that suggests she might have thought herself above others. Put a person like that behind the wheel of a flashy mercedes, being pushy while driving, and I can easily see a road rage incident. She might have just tried to get pushy with the wrong sort of people, like killer gang member types--who felt disrespected--and they pushed back.

[Sari]

I hope police have more evidence than they are stating.

[Freddie]

This looks too professional. No shell casings, she probably died quickly, no one saw anything. Someone wanted to make sure she was dead. It sounds like she was shot 5 times and each time they had a hit. She probably heard the first shot, tried to make the turn and to get away. Very sad but Hollywood is a snake pit.

[URwhatiswrong]

Thousand dollars says it was random road rage - I say this because I read or heard that she was on her phone in the car -calling her own office answering machine to leave a "to do" list. Random road rage - if it were a planned hit - there would be plenty of leads by now.

[Atticus]

Perhaps a pissed-off valet?