Beverly Hills, CA --Here is some theory, science and investigative issues police must deal with is this killing of Hollywood publicist, Ronni Chasen . Someone could have searched for and recovered the empty brass ejected by a semi-automatic pistol but at night that seems unlikely. The reality is that the cops simply never determined the shooting location so they did not know where to look for the brass. Ballistic firearm identification science can be easy or impossible. In the case of revolvers there are only the expended projectiles. Soft lead that had been sent into flesh, bones and heavy clothing are often damaged beyond recognition. This is especially true for smaller caliber high velocity ammunition. Slower moving larger bullets suffer less damage and are more easily identified. Most of the modern center-fired ammunition have copper jackets covering the softer lead. This material is more likely to have identifiable rifling marks for the examiner’s microscope. With semi-automati...

Beverly Hills, CA —In fairness to the Beverly Hills police they don’t have lots of homicides they can use to hone their skills. They must rely on help they ask for from other agencies. First the BHPD thought that ex-con, Harold Smith’s gun was not involved in the Chasen killing. Today, they’ve changed their story saying that it was the same gun. It seems on its face that Smith was not a hit man but a habitual criminal that among other crimes served time for robbing two Beverly Hills women in the past. Police now think that Smith shot Chasen from his bicycle in a botched robbery. That is their best guess right now until they finish their investigation. I have problems with that theory in that it looks like Smith shot Chasen through her closed passenger door window rather than threaten or rob her. I’m not buying the robbery angle. Smith strikes me as an irrational, dysfunctional and violent criminal. He’d be a really poor choice as a hired hit man. Smith may have had an accomplice a...

Beverly Hill, CA —When Hollywood publicist, Ronni Chasen was gunned down in her car last month police had a mystery on their hands. The sad truth is that these days with all our technology and tools there is not more that a 35% chance that this or any other murder will be solved. To get to the bottom of this investigation we have to speculate whether this was, or was not a random crime. There is at least one woman e-mailing and making comments on my site suggesting that there was a similar random gun assault where she was the victim. There is no such reported attack and I refuse to buy into this diversion. Crimes like the Chasen murder are almost never random. There is a motive that led to this killing. Greed, jealousy, revenge, hatred are common in every murder since Cain killed Able. This is no carjacking since Chasen was safely locked in her car. No carjacker wants to take a car with a shot out passenger window and a dead or gravely wounded driver strapped in a seatbelt behind th...

Hollywood, CA —It was apparently defective information supplied to the TV Show, America’s Most Wanted and talkative but unreliable neighbors that made an ex-con an unlikely suspect in the Ronni Chasen murder. When police obtain search warrants they are placed under oath. The rub is those who provide such information to police are never under oath. Accordingly search warrants are routinely issued on unreliable hearsay or even gossip. We will have to wait until the Smith search warrant is unsealed to know for sure. California’s public records laws are some of the worst in the nation. It’s unlikely that warrant will ever see sunshine especially now. Had there been a connection between any weapon in Harold Smith’s possession and the Chasen murder, Beverly Hills police would know by now and they’d be interrogating other investigative leads and closing in on the real story. Smith was already a two time loser and apparently his ongoing criminal conduct was making him a solid candidat...

Beverly Hills, CA —When Ronni Chasen was gunned down in her car last month in Beverly Hills it became obvious there was some very bad blood between her and someone else. TMZ.com has published a report that included a copy of the 1994 Last Will and Testament of the murdered women. This very wealthy murder victim stiffed her niece, Jill Gatsby , a near-do-well actress, singer etc. in the Will. Chasen willed her a measly ten-spot as quoted in the document, "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." It is customary to leave something to relatives you hate so they can’t later claim they were somehow forgotten and get a piece of your pie from some sympathetic probate judge. Gatsby chose an entertainment career that has been stuck in park just as many thousands of others seeking fortune and fame in Hollywood. Ronni Chasen had the ability to promote anyone w...

Beverly Hills, CA —My analysis of the scant publicized facts connected to the November 16th murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen has proven to be correct. I said this was no random killing and that Ms. Chasen had pissed off someone in a big way. I properly predicted police would quickly zero in on the offender and clear this case. Tonight the Associated Press published the story that the yet to be identified suspect shot himself dead as police were closing in on him to serve a search warrant. I call him a suspect rather than that nebulous. “Person of Interest” term because of the existence of the search warrant. In order to obtain a search warrant police need to establish Probable Cause under oath that a crime was committed and provide the judge with, the who, what and where facts of the case. There is a very thin line between obtaining a search warrant and making an arrest. Now we know the police have at least one gun in their possession to rule in or out of the Chasen m...

Beverly Hills, CA —Last night they found a Mercedes-Benz E-350 crashed into a light pole on Whittier Drive, just south of Sunset Boulevard just after midnight. Inside the car was well-known Hollywood publicist, Ronni Chasen , 64 who was well-ventilated with five gunshot wounds. They pronounced Chasen dead on arrival at the nearby Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Cedars-Sinai is the last stop for so many of Hollywood's rich and famous. Police say they’re looking for a motive but they’ve confessed anything is possible. Was it road rage perhaps? Somehow this looks to me like a targeted act of revenge. Somewhere in Chasen’s background is a sour business deal, a failed relationship or someone with a career destroyed by bad publicity. You can bet the Beverly Hills cops are going through all of Chasens’s files and computers at this hour. They will be paying very close attention to her client list. It was not even a year ago when Chasen named senior VP of worldwide publicity at MGM . MGM was...