Ronni Chasen’s Murder: Lawsuit Raises Questions Over Police Investigation

This story first appeared in the Oct. 24 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Filmmaker Ryan Katzenbach‘s public-records lawsuit against the Beverly Hills Police Department over access to its case file about murdered film publicist Ronni Chasen raises new questions about the 2010 homicide investigation. (The BHPD ruled the case closed after suspect Harold Martin Smith killed himself in a Hollywood flophouse; alternative theories persist that he didn’t act alone.)

An Oct. 6 brief filed by Katzenbach in L.A. Superior Court before the Dec. 11 trial asserts that Chasen’s friends, songwriter Diane Warren (who saw her less than a half-hour before her death) and producer Lili Zanuck, both of whom he’s interviewed for his in-progress documentary, told him that neither they nor anyone in Chasen’s circle were interviewed by police. Katzenbach says the BHPD “was eager to close the murder case as quickly as possible.” The BHPD could not be reached for comment.