Ronni Chasen, one of Hollywood’s grand dame film publicists, was shot and killed while driving through Beverly Hills shortly after midnight on November 16, 2010. Nearly 13 years after Chasen was shot to death on her way home, questions still remain.

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Who was Ronni Chasen?

Ronni Chasen was a well-known and highly successful Hollywood publicist who worked with a number of prominent clients in the entertainment sector. She was born in New York City in 1946, started her public relations career in the early 1970s, and eventually relocated to Los Angeles to work in the movie business.

Chasen was renowned for her tenacious work ethic, meticulous attention to detail and capacity for creating lasting connections with her clientele. She worked as an agent for some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, such as Hans Zimmer, John Williams, and Michael Douglas.

Throughout her career, Chasen directed the Oscar campaigns for more than 100 films, including Driving Miss Daisy in 1989 and The Hurt Locker in 2009. She was killed at the age of 63.

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Ronni Chasen’s alleged murder:

Around midnight, Chasen was shot and killed while driving by herself down Sunset Boulevard close to the exclusive neighborhood on Whittier Drive.

The 64-year-old had just left the after-party at the upscale W Hollywood Hotel after seeing the Cher and Christina Aguilera-starring movie Burlesque at the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

Chasen called her office at approximately 12.22 am while en route in her Mercedes Benz E350 to her Westwood residence, which was only a few miles away. Chasen was shot four times in less than seven minutes, with one of the bullets catching her in the chest.

When Chasen arrived at a red light, the bullets were fired through the passenger-side window. Chasen’s car went through the stop sign and struck a concrete lamppost after the shooting. As soon as Beverly Hills Police arrived, she was brought to Cedars Sinai Hospital, where she was later declared dead.

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The postmortem report states that two gunshots missed her in the chest without immediate catastrophic injury. A second struck her right upper arm. A fourth, the most instantly lethal, entered through her right shoulder and harmed her heart. No shell casings, live rounds, or weapons were recovered at the intersection.

A private lead brought Beverly Hills Police to Harold Martin Smith, 46, a person suspected in the case, after a two-week search. In addition to serving time for robbery, Smith was a career criminal with a long criminal record that includes arrests, felony burglaries, and other offenses.

Without any supporting evidence, the BHPD asserted that Smith had arrived in Beverly Hills by bicycle the night of the murder and had participated alone in a failed burglary attempt that turned to murder. Later, they said that when confronted at his Hollywood flophouse two weeks after the incident, he fatally shot himself.