The other day when I told you that the gun used by the only suspect in the murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen in his suicide didn’t match the murder weapon, I wasn’t talking out of my ass. I was quoting the AP.  Well yesterday afternoon the police held a press conference, and now they say it WAS the same gun, and that the suspect killed Chasen in a “robbery gone bad,” performed on a bicycle.

Speculation that Chasen was targeted by a professional hit was shot down Wednesday by investigators who said much of what has been reported by the media since her killing three weeks was untrue.
Harold Martin Smith, 43, was apparently riding his bicycle when he shot Chasen several times as she was on her way home from a Hollywood movie premiere party, police said.
Smith later committed suicide with the same gun that was used in the Chasen killing, Beverly Hills Police Chief David Snowden said Wednesday. Smith shot himself in the head last week as police approached him for questioning as “a person of interest” while he was at his Hollywood apartment building.
A preliminary ballistics test showed that Smith’s gun was used in the slaying of Chasen, 64, said Beverly Hills Detective Sgt. Mike Publicker.
“With Mr. Smith’s background [!!!], we believe most likely it was a robbery gone bad,” Publicker said. “We believe it was a random act.”
Publicker said it appeared no connection existed between Chasen and Smith prior to slaying.
“The detectives were able to do numerous interviews and through the information obtained in the interviews, it appears that he did act alone,” Publicker said. “We believe his mode of transportation was by bicycle.”
“We don’t believe it was a professional hit, and this is an open and ongoing investigation,” Snowden said.[CNN]

Ooh, that’s impressive, the way they totally shot down everyone’s speculation with… GRRR, MORE SPECULATION!  Basically, we know that the gun was the same (even though a “law enforcement official” said they were different two days ago), and that this guy liked to go places on a bicycle.  Ergo, “because of his background”, it was clearly a robbery gone bad.  Well sure, I know I always bring my bike along when I rob people.  Man, wouldn’t it be convenient for the Socal police if the only suspect in everything committed suicide?  “I dunno, the dead guy probably did it, just look at his yearbook quote.  Now who wants pizza?”

After Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was shot five times on the way home from the Burlesque premiere, it seemed unlikely they’d catch the killer.  But then when a suspect committed suicide while police searched his apartment a few weeks later, it seemed like an open and shot case (get it? You can even use that one, NY Post).  Now that more details about the dead man are coming to light, his involvement in the murder seems less certain.  For one thing, the suicide weapon and the murder weapon were two different guns, and since the guy was known to live in a squalid, $625-a-month hellbox, it’s hard to believe he could afford two.

Officers approached [Harold Martin] Smith after someone phoned a tip into the TV show “America’s Most Wanted.”
At least one resident of the apartment building from which he was being evicted told reporters that Smith had bragged about the killing, though others thought he had mental issues and could not have carried out the homicide.
He had a long criminal history and carrying a gun could have landed him back in prison. [AP]

Let’s just say you were the guy who killed the publicist, and you knew of this crazy guy who owned a gun illegally and might kill himself to avoid going back to prison.  Say you called the cops and told them he’d been bragging about the murders, they showed up to search him, and he killed himself.  Pretty brilliant cover up, no?  Maybe the autoerotic asphyxiation ninjas are real.

And now that I think about it, “Harold Smith” sounds like the fakest name ever.

(Serious Cat was among the first on the scene.  Photo credit: Kevork Djansezian)

Two weeks ago, famed Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, 64, was shot to death in Beverly Hills late at night while driving her Mercedes home from the Burlesque premiere.  Chasen was found inside her crashed car at the corner of Whittier and Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills with five bullet wounds.  The story was baffling because the autoerotic asphyxiation ninjas who go around killing Hollywood’s elite usually don’t work this way.  Last night, police say a man sought as a “person of interest” in the case committed suicide as police tried to search his apartment.  Perhaps he was guilty, or maybe he just had some awesome porn.

The man — who was not immediately identified — pulled out a gun and shot himself as members of the Beverly Hills Police Department approached him in the small lobby of a transient apartment building just before 6 p.m., according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

The Los Angeles Times also quoted a neighbor who identified the man as being named “Harold.” The neighbor, Brandon Harrison, said that the man had said he had served in state prisons twice, and that he had stated that he expected to receive $10,000 for a job he did.

After the suicide, officers swarmed in front of the Harvey Apartments, in the 5600 block of Santa Monica Boulevard, putting up barriers to hold back a growing throng of reporters and onlookers.

The scene was a world away from the corner in Beverly Hills where Ms. Chasen was found slumped behind the wheel of her black Mercedes-Benz, the victim of multiple gunshots: A transient month-to-month hotel in a run-down section of Los Angeles, on the east side of Hollywood, officials said, where small studios rent for $625 a month. The suicide took place just outside the manager’s office in the small lobby right off Santa Monica Boulevard, residents there said. [NY Times]

Okay, settle down, spaz, you’re not writing a Ray Chandler novel.  “Bucky Chandler squinted his eyes as the light of his Lucky glowed in the flophouse squalor — he’d never seen such a maggot-ridden pus bucket in all his life.  Not in ‘Nam, not in his 15 years on the force, not even during his days as an exhibition wrestler for a male strip club.  $625 a month?  He’d seen veal with better apartments.  An animal, that’s what this was.”

An Indianapolis woman was killed when she tried break up a swordfight between her grandson and brother in law.  Police say sword-related violence is on the rise after a 100-year decline.

Chris Rondeau, 39 and Adolf Stegbauer, 69, got into an argument at a home at about 1 a.m. that escalated when one of the men grabbed a sword, prompting the other man to also brandish a sword.

Say what you will, at least they both brought the correct weapon to the correct type of fight.

Franziska Stegbauer, 77, died as a result of stab wounds, Indianapolis police Sgt. Matt Mount said.  Investigators are trying to determine which man stabbed the woman, but Rondeau was already being held on an attempted murder charge because of wounds that Adolf Stegbauer suffered.

“We’re unsure yet who started this fight, how the swordplay got involved,” said Indianapolis police Sgt. Matt Mount. “We’re not sure who it was who stabbed the woman. We’ll have to do some testing on the swords and figure out who had which sword, whose blood is on which sword.” [IndyChannel]

No word on whether the late Ms. Stegbauer also “lived by the sword,” which would’ve made her death seem seem so much less senseless.