Palm Springs Fest offers $100K for info on Ronni Chasen's murder (DH, NYT, TW, LAT)

By Nancy Tartaglione

The Palm Springs Film Festival has offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the murder of Ronni Chasen. The investigation into the slaying of the veteran publicist has thus far reportedly left detectives baffled.

"It is a wide open investigation; we don't have any concrete leads at this time," Beverly Hills Sgt. Lincoln Hoshino told TheWrap late Wednesday.

The New York Times also quoted Hoshino on Wednesday as saying, "There's no damage to the car that I'm aware of from the gunshots. The person could have been in the car, outside the car, could've walked up to the car, driven up - we don't know at this point."

According to The Los Angeles Times, Hoshino said that while investigators are not sure exactly where the shooting occurred, their working theory is that it happened before the crash.

Hoshino further told the NYT that investigators were collecting security camera images from home and business cameras along the stretch of Sunset Boulevard where Chasen had driven before turning onto Whittier.

"Hard drives and other material from Ms. Chasen's office and home have been collected and are being analyzed," Sgt. Kelly Speddon told TW. Obtaining and parsing video from all points between the W Hotel in Hollywood, where Chasen was last seen and the Sunset/Whittier intersection where she was killed is a process that could easily take "weeks or months," Spedden said.

It was reported on Wednesday that publicist Michael Levine started a reward fund to find Chasen's killer.

Also on Wednesday came the announcement from Palm Springs. Deadline has the press release here.

Those with any information about the death of Ronni Chasen are asked to contact the Beverly Hills Police Department Tip Line at (310) 288-2656.

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