Police: 2 Dead at Beverly Hilton in Murder-Suicide

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Two people have been found dead in what investigators believe was a murder-suicide at the Beverly Hilton, just hours before the Daytime Emmy Awards are being held at the posh hotel, police said Saturday.

Police responding to a report of a shooting late Friday found a man and a woman dead from gunshot wounds in a hotel room, Beverly Hills police Lt. Mark Rosen said.



Police would give no other details on the two people, their relationship, or the circumstances of the shooting. Police would not comment on whether the deaths were connected to the Emmy awards.



Coroner's officials had yet to begin their investigation, but said they were a man in his late 60s and a woman in her mid-50s.



The luxury hotel was also the site of Whitney Houston's death in February. The singer drowned in the bathtub of her fourth-floor room, just a few hours before she was to attend record executive Clive Davis' annual pre-Grammy party in the ballroom downstairs.



An HLN spokeswoman, Alison Rudnick, said the 39th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards will go on as scheduled. The cable news channel will be broadcasting live the ceremony, which honors the best in soap operas and talk shows.



The hotel also hosts several other annual galas, including the Golden Globe Awards.



Before the Friday shootings, Beverly Hills had just six homicides since 2008. Such rare cases usually draw national attention, as in the death of a Hollywood publicist who was shot while she was driving after a movie premiere in November 2010. Police say Ronni Chasen was killed in an apparent bungled robbery by a career criminal who later killed himself when approached by police.



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This Day In History

Sep 3 1969
Ho Chi Minh dies of heart failure in Hanoi, Vietnam. He had asked to be cremated and his ashes buried on three hilltops. Contrary to his express wishes, Uncle Ho is embalmed and put on display in a mausoleum just like Lenin's.

Sep 3 1971
The office of Daniel Ellsberg's Beverly Hills psychiatrist is burglarized by Nixon's plumbers, led by CIA operative E. Howard Hunt. Watergate investigators later uncover a memo about the burglary addressed to White House domestic affairs adviser John Ehrlichman, predating the actual crime.

'Person of Interest' in Beverly Hills Case Died on Hollywood's Dark Side

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Aspiring and retiring actors, struggling producers, hopeful musicians, low-income and disabled people fill the aging Hollywood apartment building where a "person of interest" in the Beverly Hills shooting death of celebrity publicist Ronni Chasen killed himself Wednesday.

The Harvey Apartments, a four-story former hotel, draws a diverse group because of its cheap rent, no deposit requirement, proximity to major film studios and a reputation for being roach-free, residents said.

"There's a lot of screaming goes on and hollering and the kind of ruckus you wouldn't find in the traditional apartment complex," said Eddie Burke, who moved in just two weeks ago.

Burke, who was the Tea Party candidate in Alaska's lieutenant governor's race this year, found the Harvey Apartments on the internet while looking for a place to stay while his son trains at a Hollywood gym to be a pro boxer.

If he had known about the neighborhood, he would not have rented here, Burke said.

"It's rough," he said. "The people here are diverse. It's really different from back home in Alaska."

But for $600 a month and with no deposit required, it was a tempting deal.

It also became a profitable arrangement for Burke, who made several thousand dollars Thursday selling a blurry photo of the lobby he took with his cell phone while investigators were still there.

The Santa Monica Boulevard location is just a block from Hollywood Forever cemetery, the final resting place for Rudolph Valentino, Cecil B. DeMille and many other show business icons.

Three blocks away is Paramount Studios, where major movies and television shows are produced.

While the iconic Hollywood sign is visible from the sidewalk, the neighborhood is better known for the darker side of Hollywood where tour buses don't go.

Musician Tommy Zazen moved in three months ago, leaving a $2,500 a month apartment in Venice Beach.

"I've been around the block," Zazen said. He moved to Los Angeles from Chicago nine years ago to pursue his recording career.

He has played his guitar with the Smashing Pumpkins and Red Hot Chili Peppers, he said, but lately his day job as a handy man has paid his bills.

He likes the Harvey Apartment management for keeping the building clean and roach-free, but Wednesday's shooting left him "a little bit scared."

"Time for me to pack my bags," Zazen said.

He did not know many of his neighbors or the man who killed himself in the lobby, he said.

"I'm a hermit," he said. "I stay to myself, in my apartment listening to music, writing my songs."

Terri Gilpin, who claims to be a cousin to "Frasier" actress Peri Gilpin, said she moved into Harvey Apartments because "the rent's pretty cheap and reasonable."

She does make it a point to know her neighbors, who she said include "retired actors and a few producers who are trying to get back on their feet."

Journalists covering the shooting have also gotten to know the residents. Dozens of them were stranded in a strip mall parking lot for several hours as police closed their apartment building for five hours after the shooting.

One man told reporters that the building had a problem with drug users and dealers who come back even after being evicted.

"They make keys to the lock so they can come in and out," he said.

He said the man who shot himself was "really moody all the time" and had been recently evicted, said the man, who was in a wheelchair. He then explained how he knew this.

"I found all this out," he said. "I'm the son of a war hero, my dad was in the CIA, for Air America, in Saigon, for 10 years and I'm, like, kind of smart."

The Harvey Apartments is the kind of place that could keep a journalist covering a mysterious murder busy chasing down stories.

Slaying of Publicist Baffles Police, Hollywood

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — A late-night shooting that left a prominent Beverly Hills publicist dead in her Mercedes on Sunset Boulevard has become a mystery straight out of one of the movies she promoted.

Ronni Chasen, a publicist and woman-about-town, was gunned down Tuesday after attending the premiere of the new Cher film "Burlesque," whose soundtrack she was pushing for an Oscar nomination, according to the trade publication Variety.

She also was working with 20th Century Fox on a supporting actor Oscar campaign for Michael Douglas in "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps," according to Allen Berry, a publicist for the actor.

She was shot in the chest several times in the attack that sent her luxury car careening into a light post.

Police had no motive or suspects and said no threats had been reported against the 64-year-old Chasen. The mystery deepened later in the day when police seized computers from her firm, Chasen and Co.

The attack stunned Hollywood, where she was a revered figure after promoting the Oscar-winning film "Driving Miss Daisy" and other major movies and stars over the years.

"I had the extreme pleasure of working with Ronni on 'Driving Miss Daisy,'" Morgan Freeman, who was nominated for an Oscar for the film, said in a statement. "We've been friends ever since. She is someone I greatly admired, and she will be remembered."

Fellow publicist Howard Bragman called the killing bizarre.

"She wasn't a shady character," he said. "It's a small community and she was one of the fixtures in it."

Witnesses said they heard gunshots in the serene Beverly Hills neighborhood and called 911 before going outside to help.

"I heard the 'Boom! Boom! Boom!' of gunshots, ran up to the window, and there was the back of the car," Nahid Schekarchian, who lives in an apartment above the crash site, told The Associated Press.

She said her son and a neighbor ran down to the car and found Chasen, who was struggling to breathe and bleeding from her nose and chest.

The front passenger's window was shattered.

Bradley Turell, a longtime colleague of Chasen, came to the site to mourn his friend.

"Ronni was a positive force of nature," he said during an interview by The Associated Press and KNBC. "She was just great at what she did, a supreme sales person and a great lady."

Chasen was involved in Hollywood publicity since the 1970s. She also promoted "On Golden Pond," which won Academy Awards for best actor, actress and screenplay in 1981.

In recent years, she worked with a number of music clients, including Janet Jackson, composer Hans Zimmer, producer Glen Ballard and Diane Warren, who wrote the song "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me," which Cher sings in "Burlesque."

Bragman said Chasen had a unique way of doing business.

"She was not a woman who was a slave to the fashion of the day," he said. "She played to her own vision and integrity. She was very bright, very successful."