S1: The Ronnie Chasen Story EP 06 New Documents Revealed

With Ronni Chasen's investigation officially closed, Beverly Hills Police would be challenged over the next several years to release over 200 pages of semi-redacted documents relating to the investigation. Those documents, reviewed by the Hollywood Reporter, show conflicting information about the evidence implicating Harold Smith, and call into question some of the police department's public statements over the course of the Chasen investigation. In the final episode of our six-part series, we discuss what the documents reveal, and the most significant unanswered questions remaining about Ronni Chasen's murder.

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
This is once Upon a Crime inHollywood. The Ronnie Chasen Story. We
left off with new revelations about RonnieChasen's murder from the release of her autopsy
report. By November twenty fifteen,Beverly Hills Police turned over one hundred and

(00:34):
twenty semi redacted pages, including witnessreports, call records, and evidence logs,
to Ryan Katzenbach, the filmmaker.According to Baum, the case files
did not include a definitive ballistic match, only an inconclusive report stating the fired
bullet jacket could have been fired fromthe smith gun as they exhibit similar general

(01:00):
rifling characteristics and some agreement of individualcharacters, but insufficient for an identification.
It also noted that the fired bulletcore is consistent with thirty eight Special three
fifty seven magnum caliber ammunition, butoffered no comparison value. Let's welcome back

(01:25):
Barry Fisher, former crime Lab directorfor the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office.
He is now a senior forensic advisorfor Park Diaz and Associates and author of
Techniques in Crime Scene Investigation. Barry, can you explain how a definitive match

(01:47):
would be found? And what wouldqualify as an inconclusive report. Well,
the examiner looking at the bullets,the bullet fragments or pieces of bullets recovered
at the crime scene and comparing itwith a test fire from the weapon in

(02:14):
question would have to find sufficient detailsfor the individual the examiner to draw a
conclusion. From your reading of thereport, there just was not sufficient details
present to reach a conclusion other thanto say, well, it's it's it's

(02:38):
consistent with well, it's probably consistentwith that that gun and any other kind
of similar manufacturer and make So youknow, that kind of information only go
so far in an investigation. Itdoesn't. It doesn't rule allowed the individual

(03:01):
as the it doesn't willow have itdone as the weapon, but it doesn't
specifically prove that it was that gun. Are you surprised Beverly Hills Police Department
was confident enough to speak about theballistic match based on the preliminary report.

(03:23):
You know, it's it's hard toget into somebody's head when they're confronted by
a gaggle of reporters. I've beenin situations like that. You just wanted
to go away, and you knowthat they may have had some level of
belief that they had enough information tomake that statement. But I'm from the

(03:50):
school where I like to have alot more details before I'm willing to make
a statement like that. Gary Baumalso found no record that Miss Chason's car
was dusted for fingerprints on the passengerside where the shooting came from, and

(04:13):
no evidence placing Smith at the sceneof the crime. The next release of
files came a year later, whenKatzenbach was given two hundred pages of a
semi redacted witness reports, evidence logs, and financial documents, once again reviewed
by The Hollywood Reporter in two thousandand seventeen. According to Baum, Detective

(04:38):
Eric Hyon noted in Beverly Hills PoliceDepartment final report there has been no evidence
to directly place Smith at the sceneof the murder, adding there is a
substantial amount of circumstantial evidence which implicateshim. Now to Joshua Ritter, criminal

(04:59):
defense attorney, former Deputy District Attorneyfor La County and host of the True
Crime Daily Sidebar podcast, josh,are you surprised Beverly Hills police close the
investigation with only circumstantial evidence? No? I mean many cases get closed just

(05:25):
based upon circumstantial evidence. It's it'simportant to understand that circumstantial evidence, you
know, includes almost everything outside ofeyewitness evidence direct evidence of having seen the
crime take place. So many timescases are pieced together with circumstantial evidence.

(05:45):
What I find surprising is with theamount of evidence that they've released to the
public, that they would declare itclosed so emphatically. And I think that's
where a lot of questions have arisenfrom, is that, you know,
people are trying to piece this together. It's obvious that there's interest from the

(06:08):
outside as to how this case isbeing investigated, and who are the suspects,
and why did the murder take place, and all of those kind of
normal questions, but probably amplify someand it may have been helpful to be
more transparent about the amount of evidencethat they did have, because sitting here
as I do, with the evidencethat we know about that they have released,

(06:31):
it does not seem like as muchof a slam dunk case as they've
described it to be. The casefiles also include video of the crime scene
and searches of miss Chasen's home andoffice, as well as semi redacted witness
reports, evidence logs, and financialdocuments. Those records show police spoke to

(06:57):
the following her close friend and rumoredboyfriend, Jonathan Novak, an art dealer,
and Paul Bearer at her funeral,Miss Chason's brother Larry Cohen to discuss
a rumored alleged gambling problem, JillGatsby, Larry Cohen's daughter, employees of

(07:20):
miss Chason's PR firm, friends ofmiss Chason, several residents of Whittier Drive,
where Miss Chason crashed, but accordingto The Hollywood Reporter, surveillance footage
was pulled from only a handful ofbusinesses and residential security cameras, with none

(07:43):
of them showing Harold Smith in thevicinity, and some of Chason's closest friends
were never interviewed. A brief filedin Los Angeles Superior Court by Ryan Katzenbach,
claims that two of Ronnie's best friends, songwriter Diane Warren, who saw
her less than half an hour beforeher death, and producer Lily Zanick,

(08:09):
told him they were not interviewed bythe police. The documents also reportedly showed
that police spoke to multiple individuals whoknew Harold Smith, who claimed he made
comments to them in the days afterthe murder, including statements I messed up

(08:30):
and have the cops been around?According to Cassembach, some of the still
unreleased case files include surveillance video footageof the Harvey Apartment lobby before Smith's fatal
interaction with police, as well asSmith's cell phone records and interview footage with

(08:50):
witnesses. In their review of thedocuments, the Hollywood Reporters spoke with several
law enforcement experts who were critical ofthe Beverly Hills Police department handling of the
investigation, highlighting the police departments inexperience in investigating homicides. There were five
homicides in Beverly Hills between two thousandand five and two thousand and ten before

(09:13):
Ronnie Chason was killed, and allwere solved, except for the shooting of
actor Mark Ruffalo's brother Scott in twothousand and eight, and in that case,
Beverly Hills please called the death asuicide by Russian roulette, then reversed
their stance after the coroner's report showedit was impossible for him to have shot

(09:35):
himself in the head based on theangle of the entry of the bullet.
It was then relabeled as a homicide. David Snowdon, Beverly Hills police chief
until two fifteen, retired after questionsthat he allegedly earned a salary from a

(09:56):
second job from a private sector job. Beverly Hills Police Department also recently faced
accusations of racial bias on the heelsof the George Floyd protest in two thousand
and twenty one. According to aclass action racial discrimination lawsuit filed in California
Superior Court by civil rights attorney BenCrump and Bradley Gage, Beverly Hills police

(10:22):
allegedly targeted black people with harassment andarrest for low level or non existent violations
in an effort to keep them awayfrom Rodeo Drive as part of the department's
Operation Safe Street campaign. The Siouxclaims that between March twenty twenty and July

(10:45):
twenty twenty one, the task forcemade a hundred and six arrest, one
hundred and five of whom were AfricanAmerican people. Sandra Spagnoli, Beverly Hills
police chief, who was in chargewhen new documents were released in the case,
retired in twenty twenty after lawsuits allegingracism, anti semitism, and harassment

(11:13):
Joshua Ritter, Is it unfair tosuggest Beverly Hills Police Department would be underqualified
to handle a murder investigation should thiscase have been handed off to Los Angeles
Police Department. I think it wouldbe unfair to say that they could not
handle a homicide investigation. They certainlyhave handled homicide investigations in the past,

(11:39):
now granted, not a lot,and many of those homicides are, you
know, usually involving domestic violence,where it's fairly clear from the onset who
the suspect is. Where I wouldbe critical of Beverly Hills is in a
case of this magnitude. Not inthe sense of its complexity, because the

(12:05):
crime scene itself isn't hugely complex andyou don't have a bunch of moving parts
that you would expect a larger agencyto be brought in, but the case
does have a magnitude in the senseof how it took on a life of
itself, and how there was suchpublic and media intrigue that you would think,

(12:26):
in an effort to just get itright and show that they are team
players, that they would have encouragedbringing in other agencies and at the very
least the District Attorney's office, whowould ultimately be the department deciding whether or
not to bring criminal charges in thiscase. You would have thought that they
would have brought them in early on. Instead, Beverly Hills seemed to kind

(12:52):
of show a desire to keep thisto themselves and to only release information that
they felt a propriate and only inthe means and mechanisms by which they felt
to be appropriate, and I thinkthat was where some missteps were made.
It's been over twelve years since RonnieChason was murdered, and perhaps more questions

(13:13):
now than the day Beverly Hills PoliceDepartment close the case. Thanks to new
documents, continued coverage by The HollywoodReporter and Ryan Katz, and Box six
thirty eight documentary still reportedly in theworks. Interest in the case remain strong,

(13:35):
and new information has only brought potentiallymore questions about Beverly Hills Police department
handling of the investigation. Here aresome of the biggest questions that remain.
How did the police determine Miss Chasenwas killed by a suspect on foot,

(13:58):
Why did the initial corner's report suggestshe was shot from a vehicle, and
what evidence changed that analysis. Howdid police determine Harold Smith was at the
scene where Ronnie Chason was murdered.How did the police determine Harold Smith use
the gun to murder Miss Chasen.If Smith did commit the murder, how

(14:24):
was it determined that he acted alone? Is there any evidence that rules out
the possibility of another suspect or amurder for hire? If Miss Chasen was
killed in a robbery gone bad,why were none of her valuables taken?
How was it determined her murder wasa failed robbery attempt. How reliable is

(14:50):
the information from the residence at theHarvey Apartments and how much stock the police
place in those witness statements. Whywas the case never brought to a prosecutor.
What were the results of the ballistictesting done on the gun Harold Smith
used to commit suicide. Were thebullets a conclusive match to Ronnie Chason's murder

(15:15):
weapon. Why hasn't the Beverly HillsPolice Department released a surveillance footage from the
Harvey Apartment lobby before Smith's fatal interactionwith the police. With only circumstantial evidence,
how could Beverly Hills Police Department knowconclusively and without a doubt that Smith
alone killed Jason. How could Smithhave traveled from Sunset Boulevard and Whittier Drive

(15:41):
back to the Harvey apartment after themurder? Why was Rodney Chason's autopsy report
placed on a special indefinite hold,and why did it take three years for
it to be released to the public. We reached out to the Beverly Hills
Police Department for this podcast. Theydid not on to our request, and
nor do they provide a common orstatement about the case. Former police Chief

(16:06):
David Snowden declined an interview. Engler, Knapp and Alan, the Strategic Communication
firm, where Snowden now works asa senior advisor in the firm's law enforcement,
executive search and Training practice, responded, the chief is not interested in
participating in efforts to make a robberyhomicide into a conspiracy. Several of Ronnie's

(16:29):
friends and family still have doubts aboutHarold Smith's role in her murder. According
to an update The Hollywood Reporter publishedin November twenty twenty two, the Katzenbach
documentary is still in the works,and the battle with the city of Beverly
Hills for access to the complete Chasenfiles is ongoing. We open up the

(16:53):
floor for our final thoughts we havewith us. Joshua Ritter, criminal defense
attorney, former prosecutor in Los AngelesCounty, Deputy District Attorney. You can
catch him on Twitter, Instagram,and Facebook at josh Ritter EESQ, or
at josh Ritter dot com. AlsoSteve Kat's former co executive producer and showrunner

(17:18):
for America's Most Wanted Moral Stebbin,licensed private investigator, former police investigator,
instructor at California Police Science Institute whospecializes in crime scene proceedings, and forty
five years of homicide investigation experienced.Let's start with Steve. Thanks. So,

(17:42):
I think that Josh really has itright when he says the main reason,
maybe the only reason why we're talkingabout this today, still twelve years
later, is because the police ofthe time didn't do a stellar job communicating
with the public, and they justopened the door to questions being asked.
Now, we have a right ascitizens to ask all these questions, but

(18:07):
as I said before, to whatend? Now? Why are we asking
these questions? Most of the public, and I think everybody involved with this
understands but most of the public doesn'tunderstand the idea of circumstantial evidence, and
that phrase is thrown around it andagain, Josh had it right. Like

(18:29):
many, many, many, manymany cases, most cases are closed on
circumstantial evidence. You normally don't havedirect evidence of a murder. And the
circumstantial evidence in this case was very, very strong. The publicity was very
very weak. I one of myjobs that Americans most wanted. I used
to read every letter from every viewerand every family that wanted that show to

(18:55):
profile the crime that happened to theirfamily, to try to get some justice.
So I made it a point toread every single letter. Sometimes they
were a single page, please helpme. Sometimes and this is what some
of the discussion of this case remindsme of. Sometimes there'd be thirty pages
long of scribbled handwriting and tiny littleprint saying, notice the angle of his
hand was in this direction, andthe sun was I went there the same.

(19:19):
And I'm not being pajaradive about anybodyin particular here, but I'm saying
sometimes people get so caught up.And Josh, as a former defense or
as a defense lawyer and a foreignprosecutor, I'm sure you appreciate the fact
that throwing out shaved to try tocreat reasonable doubt is one of the reasons
why people do this. But Iremember seeing letters about cases where they went

(19:40):
into such intricate detail that, youknow, the old Kennedy sassion up into
the left? Why did he goup into the left? Things like that,
and we drive ourselves crazy. Yeah, chewing on questions like that,
we're again not being pajarative about anybody. This is, um maybe not exactly

(20:02):
an open and shut case, butit's what happened was terrible. It happened
to No murder should happen to anybody, but it happened in bizarre circumstances from
people from two different worlds clash aterrible person and a good person, and
people found it hard to believe thata good person was killed that way.
I mean, there was a similarcase in Hollywood with Bill Cosby's son,

(20:25):
Remember he was he was shot bya roadside and it turned out to be
a random type of thing such asthis. People didn't want to believe that
either. I think that one thingI think telling stories about crimes and investigating
crimes for decades, as I've done, is that sometimes Akham's razor is is

(20:48):
exists for a reason. Sometimes thesimplest explanation is what really happened, and
and sometimes some folks find it hardto just accept that. Thank you for
that insight, Josh, Yeah,I really appreciate Steve's comments, and I
agree with everything he's saying. Ithink what you had here was kind of

(21:12):
a perfect storm of elements that ledto again, why we're talking about this
case so many years later. Youknow, first, you have this seemingly
random crime taking place in a placewhere random crimes do not take place,
and that immediately pits it as somethingwe can't understand and are not willing to

(21:36):
accept immediately, and involving a personthat is not a person we would expect
to be involved in a random actof violence, and so immediately people are
going to start to speculate. Thenyou couple that with the investigation, and
we've talked about this a lot,but it's not so much how they ran

(21:56):
the investigation, but how they ranthe the publicity or pr of the investigation
for lack of a better word,and how they shared that with the public
and the media that kind of addedfuel to the fire of the speculation.
Surrounding all of this, and thenyou have the unfortunate circumstances of how it
was concluded, and that you havesuicide apparently of the man who is the

(22:19):
prime suspect, which not only istragic in itself, but then doesn't allow
us to have, you know,the sunlight shed upon this case, and
an open trial where we could haveseen all of the evidence, and all
of the stuff that we're waiting tosee in the autopsy reports and the experts

(22:41):
and the ballistics and everything else wouldhave been presented in an open trial.
One of the great things about thiscountry is that our trials are open to
the public and open to the press, and every would have been able to
witness and report on it. AndI think that we would have had far
fewer questions than we have now andstill to this day have and rightfully so,

(23:03):
as Steve pointed out, we're rightto ask those questions and right to
have them, and it's unfortunate thatwe're still out of place where we kind
of can't put all of this torest. Thank you, Marl. Yes,
well, I agree with in particularlyAkhman's raiser. I liked that I
have heard that in a while,but the simplest things are really what really

(23:29):
will answer most of this. NowI come in at an appellate level looking
at what should have done or whatwas mister or all these kinds of things.
During the investigation file face, weactually, when I say we am
talking about Ryan Katchenbacher myself, weactually did a life our demonstration. He

(23:52):
bought an actual Mercedes dislike us,and so we did delinear past. We
went on and did life shooting andko manakins to hind the trajectory and the
linear path and everything based upon thestatements that we're written about possibly shooting off
of a bicycle or standing there tofind what the trajectory would have been at
those p Kicker angles, to includeshooting from a vehicle passenger window, drivers

(24:19):
window where you have a stabilized shootingplatform like the window field. The other
thing is that I've not heard anythingor read anything for my time coming onto
this. When Ronnie was killed onNovember sixteenths to December first, when Harold
committed suicide, nobody knows when Haroldgot that weapon. He could have got

(24:45):
it two days before he committed suicide. These things to pass all over LA
and unfortunately through those kinds of contactson the streets, So there's a lot.
I agree circumstantial evidence can be insome cases more eliminating and stronger than
the other evidence because the timelines andthings of this nature are just making virtually

(25:11):
more understandable. But to actually closethe case, and I was reading it
that you high and report when heclosed it. In one of his closing
statements, he positively identified the weaponas being the one that killed Roy,
Yet the ballistics report does not saythat its a sense sufficient. So those

(25:33):
are the things that I think thatthe general public has a right to know.
Why are we using two different conclusionshere and they're just the opposite of
each other, And that raises alot of these questions that everybody else is
talking about. And I do believethat the public taylor right can know.
But more important, it's my beliefthat we have two individuals that lost their

(25:57):
lives nycase in arrow Smith and ifHarold did it, then then let's show
that he did that. But thesehypotheticals just are not fair to him,
if you want to use that wordfare. But Ronnie Chason also deserves the
right to have her assailant actually positivelyidentified and until that's done, these questions

(26:18):
you're going to continue. They wantto be out there ten years from now.
So I just find it that weneed to be a little bit more
accepting of the writings as whether they'refactual or circumstantial and then move. And
I'm not an attorney, I workedwith a lot of them that even on

(26:40):
this particulication would be, my opinion, be very difficult to get if you
was to go and file to getan actual conviction, because there's a lot
of what if in the law enforcements, reports and everything, and what if
it is not what our judicial systemis made of. Do you think morel
that this investigations should be reopened orshould it remain closed? The case closed?

(27:07):
Well, my understanding that Beverly HillsPolice Department has already closed it,
and therefore the new chief of policeor whomever they have over their review cold
cases or something in this nature,I believe that it will not be reopened
unless they really have some more factualinformation that will warrant it being reopened.

(27:32):
And there's a difference between ebody says, well, these are the factories and
facts. I work on facts forthose things that both sides agree on right
now there are issues because there's stillsome issues that I don't I believe this.
You believe that they're not factual untilthey've improven or shown to be immacutable.

(27:55):
So at this point in time,I think Beverly Hills Police Department will
not you open it. I don'tthink that they will go through the process
of doing it again. And it'sbeen years later that they're gonna have our
time trying to put together any formof a monodequal case to either go out
to somebody else or assum it comesforward and confesses things of that nature.

(28:18):
But no, I don't think thatit would be who've been a Beverly Hills
Police Department to reopen or to takeanother little look at it. I think
it would just open up more theold runs again. I think, yes,
it is what it is right now. Well, thank you all for
your time, and I just wantto get everyone a quick thirty seconds,

(28:42):
So let's start with Steve. Ithink that it's um as we've been saying,
we're right to ask questions. Ithink that there's there's resents questions are
being asked about this case. Butum I would disagree with one thing well
said facts are facts, whether ornot you agree with them or not,

(29:03):
and there are certain facts in thiscase and that may be open to interpretation.
But I think that Ronnie Jason wasmurdered by Harold Smith in an attemptive
robbery gone bad, and everything elseis just noise. Joshua, I think
it's a fascinating case for many reasons. I think it says a lot about

(29:26):
us culturally, the kind of thingsthat we find intriguing. I think that
in some respect it's it is unfortunatethat there are kind of these demons that
haven't put been put to rest forsome people who are still involved in the
case. But I think it atthe end, it's kind of a lesson

(29:52):
hopefully moving forward. And how myou know in this modern day that we
live in, especially this case wasn'tso much in the in the depths of
social media, but nowadays, Uh, there's police departments need to have some
cognizance towards how their investigations will beperceived, and it's probably best that they

(30:18):
get out ahead of that in away that will build a public trust.
Well. Well, I I wantedto say I would greatly appreciate the comment
about the facts that I understand themto a certain extent, I will agree
with that, um facts do becomefacts. But as long as we're still

(30:44):
debating it, it hasn't really beensettled unless one side of whole hand on
the other. But I think thatthe memory of Ronnie and Harold, I
think, because this has gone onfor a long time, maybe they sort
of just settled on here list andrescue peace. Well, thank you all
for your time, and like tothank our wonderful panel, Joshua Ritter,

(31:10):
Steve Katz, Roll Stemmon, andthank you the listener for listening. And
that wraps up and concludes our sixpart series Once Upon a Crime in Hollywood
The Rodney Chason Story. If youhave more questions or thoughts about this case,
please feel free to go to onceUpon a Crime in Hollywood dot com

(31:30):
or connect with me on social mediaor Kelly Himan dot com. Thanks for
joining us,