There have been a lot of new, shocking developments in the murder case of beloved Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen.
Last night in Los Angeles, a man whom the police considered a suspect in the murder, killed himself when he was confronted at his apartment.
The suspect, according to various reports, was returning home to the dingy Harvey Apartments, a building right out of a Raymond Chandler detective novel, when the cops found him. Without discussion, he shot himself in the head.
Some reports say the police had been casing the apartment house all day, waiting for a man the LA Times has ID’d only as “Harold.” http://tinyurl.com/26d5j24
So what does it mean? Was he an actual ‘hit man’? Most hit men don’t usually kill themselves. And who would have hired someone to kill Ronni Chasen?
This news comes on the heels of other revelations: that whoever did shoot Chasen five times used hollow point bullets, the mark of an assassin. What everyone now knows is that the police do not consider this a random murder.
Last night’s event took place in Los Angeles; the murder was in Beverly Hills. These are two different police departments. As noted everywhere, they famously do not get along or cooperate much with each other. Fifteen years ago, when I covered the OJ Simpson murders for New York magazine, I remember the frustration of dealing with all these different police departments that hadn’t shared information–or actually ignored it. This was before the internet existed. Maybe in this “modern” era, the police can actually all work together to solve this terrible crime.
