Police had a mystery on their hands. The acquaintance who found the victim was not there when the shooting occurred, but other people were, including Shaha Mishaal Adham and a male friend.
Mishaal’s attorney, Ronald Richards, said that the two had gone to Ruffalo’s condo to get the keys to her Range Rover. They claimed Ruffalo was high on cocaine and that he said something about Russian roulette before picking up a gun and shooting himself. The police report reveals the terrified couple ran out of the condo, leaving the bleeding thirty-nine-year-old behind. They did not call 911 immediately.
Beverly Hills investigators were suspicious of the suicide theory. The coroner’s office ruled the shooting was a homicide; evidence showed the bullet that killed Ruffalo was delivered at a forty-five-degree angle from above and in front of his head. The autopsy report also notes there was no gunpowder residue or “stippling” of the flesh around the wound, both signs that usually accompany a suicide shot.
Police issued arrest warrants for Adham and her friend; they turned themselves in shortly after, but were released due to lack of evidence.
Compounding the tragedy, Shaha Mishaal Adham died on January 6, 2012, reportedly of a drug overdose. As of this writing, no charges have been filed and the case remains open.
Ruffalo’s stepfather, Jerry Hull, was quoted in local papers saying he was hopeful this mystery would be solved one day. “I just want to see someone brought to justice.”
Scott Ruffalo, show here with his brother Mark (left), had recently separated from his wife and was living alone in the condo where he was shot.
2010
Movie Producer Son Ambushed, Killed • Junior Olympian Center of Love Triangle
The water was cold, but Alexandra Coggins and her boyfriend Scott Barker walked into the Pacific Ocean anyway, shivering. The couple was all alone on an isolated stretch of Malibu Beach. Dawn was breaking on Tuesday morning, July 20, 2010.
Had anyone been watching, they might have thought two crazy lovers were sharing a romantic escapade. In reality, the pair was washing blood off their hands; the blood of twenty-one-year-old college student Katsutoshi “Tony” Takazato, Coggins’ ex-boyfriend. The two ran back to the sand, dripping wet and got back into their car. They had one more stop to make. Once they were deep into the canyons, they pulled over and walked down a hill to bury bloody clothes and a knife.
Meanwhile, neighbors in the exclusive Trousdale Estates area were awakened by sirens and helicopters. Beverly Hills police had responded to a frantic 911 call from a Japanese woman who spoke little English. Officers quickly found a translator. The woman said she was a housekeeper who used to be twenty-one-year-old Tony Takazato’s nanny after his mother died of cancer. The housekeeper said she’d seen two people—a boy and the girl Tony used to date—in the front yard; it must have been around 3 a.m. There was some kind of a fight, and the young man pulled out a knife and started stabbing Tony repeatedly. “So bloody,” she said in a mixture of Japanese and English. “So bloody.”
The housekeeper explained she and Takazato lived alone in the elegant, gated home on Carla Ridge Drive. Tony’s father, Fuminori Hayashida, rarely stayed at the house. In fact, the film executive was living in Japan at the moment (he had produced a few Hollywood films in the Nineties, including Lured Innocence (2000) which starred Dennis Hopper). Father and son weren’t particularly close; the boy had taken his mother’s last name after she died.
The housekeeper said she had no idea why someone would want to kill Takazato, but she did tell investigators he had just broken up with the twenty-one-year-old Coggins. Police had their first clue. Two days later, they arrested Coggins and her new boyfriend, twenty-three-year-old Scott Barker, on charges of premeditated murder. The motive for the killing? Rage and jealousy, lies and misunderstandings.
According to police files and court records, Coggins had just started dating Barker, but may still have been seeing Tony secretly. The night of the murder, she told Barker that Takazato had been physically abusive to her while they dated. Barker was furious; he grabbed Coggins and stormed over to the Trousdale house. When Takazato came outside, Barker viciously attacked him. Footprints in the blood show Barker walked away, then backtracked to the body, perhaps checking to see if Takazato was dead.
Neither of the accused killers had been in serious trouble with the law before this incident. In fact, Coggins, whose full name is Chie Alexandra Coggins Johnson, was a former rhythmic gymnast who won a silver medal at the 2004 Junior Olympics. She graduated from New Roads High School in Santa Monica in 2008.
On social networking sites, people who knew all three young adults took part in several heated exchanges. Here are a few of their comments that offer insight into this tragic killing:
July 23, 2010 at 9:47 p.m.
Tony Takazato was a good guy…He had a hard life and his father was not always there for him… His mother died when he was very young…When [Alexandra’s] new psychotic boyfriend/fiancé found out [that Tony and she were still having sexual relations]…he brutally murdered Tony like a savage heartless disgraceful animal.
August 1, 2010 at 5:16 p.m.
Let me admit that Chie and Tony’s relationship was dysfunctional, but know this: Tony never abused Chie, and if he did even put his hand on her it was to protect himself. Chie was a wild girl. I’m pretty sure everyone knows that.
August 1, 2010 at 7:19 p.m.
None of you knew Tony and Chie’s relationship behind closed doors. Everyone here is an outsider, and shouldn’t even be talking.
Both Barker and Coggins pled not guilty to the charges. After a year in jail, she was released and agreed to turn state’s witness and testify against her boyfriend. She then pled no contest to charges of assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to time served and five years probation. At this writing, Scott Barker is awaiting trial for the murder of Tony Takazato.
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Police called the murder of Tony Takazato, “Horrific... there was blood evidence from the driveway all the way up to the carport.”
2010
Murder on Sunset Boulevard • The Ronni Chasen Story
It was a violent and stunning murder: Ronni Chasen, top Hollywood publicist, gunned down on November 16, 2010, on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Beverly Hills. When the news broke, it rattled the neighborhood and movie community like an aftershock from an earthquake. A bona-fide, murder mystery—could this have been a hit? Who would want the classy blonde dead? Neighbors and colleagues were terrified; blogs were buzzing; everyone was desperate for answers. Such evil doesn’t often visit the entertainment industry, especially not in Beverly Hills.
Chasen was a respected, workaholic publicist who championed composers like Hans Zimmer and successfully created Oscar buzz for movies like Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and The Hurt Locker (2008). On the last night of her life, she was attending the glitzy Hollywood premiere and after-party for the movie Burlesque (2010). Around midnight, Chasen left the party and drove west along Sunset Boulevard, bound for her condo on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood. She stopped at a notoriously long red light at the Whittier Drive intersection, her sleek black Mercedes idling in the left-turn lane.
Exactly what happened during the last ugly minutes of Ronni Chasen’s fabulous life will never be known. Police say it most likely was a botched robbery attempt that led to the shooting. Chasen took several bullets to the chest area but managed to step on the gas and drive off, making the left turn, but moments later crashing into a pole.
The killer, according to police, was Harold Martin Smith, forty-three, an ex-con drug and alcohol abuser, who not only had been arrested in Beverly Hills before, but had also been seen in the area recently riding his bike. Smith, it appears, was a blabbermouth who couldn’t resist bragging to acquaintances that he was the guy who killed “that blonde lady” in all those news reports. When the TV show America’s Most Wanted aired a segment on the killing shortly after the murder, one of Smith’s acquaintance
s called the show’s hotline with news of Smith’s confession, and the show’s producers notified Beverly Hills police.
Investigators wanted to ask Smith lots of questions, but they never got the chance. On December 1, about two weeks after the murder, officers approached their suspect in the lobby of the Harvey Apartment complex in Hollywood. Smith pulled out a revolver and without a single word, shot himself in the head. The bullets in his gun matched those found in Ronni Chasen.
Police officially closed the case, but questions and conspiracy theories remained. We, the authors—investigative reporter and lead CSI forensics specialist for the Beverly Hills Police Department—debate the details of the crime:
Barbara Schroeder: Clark, you know there are a lot of people, me included, who felt there was more to the Ronni Chasen story than just that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Are you one hundred percent convinced that this guy, Harold Smith, killed her? Are you one hundred percent sure it was random, that it wasn’t a hit?
Clark Fogg (with zero hesitation): 110 percent. There’s just too much evidence that points to Harold Smith, and no evidence that points to a hit.
Schroeder: What’s your best evidence?
Fogg: There isn’t just one piece of evidence; it’s taking all the evidence together. This is a case where she was coming home late at night from a premiere, she was making a number of phone calls from the time she left the hotel to the time she was shot. If she was being chased or followed, she wouldn’t have used the phone, or she would have called police to say she was in trouble. Everything she did looked like normal activity up until the confrontation with the suspect.
Schroeder: Convince me that this was not a hit.
Fogg: For one thing, the bullet wounds were not in a tight pattern as was erroneously reported. Her wounds were all across her chest and in her shoulders. A hit man would have chosen a more appropriate location to perform a hit—a boulevard left-turn lane seems unlikely. Professionals wait until they’re in a more controlled environment. I’m not saying hits are never done in the street, but that wouldn’t have happened in a case like this involving a high-profile person in such a public area. Another thing, Chasen was shot with a revolver, a six-shooter, that is awkward to use, and loud. Professionals are more likely to use semi-automatic weapons. Also, usually with a hit there is some telltale sign: the way the person lived, lawsuits, threats. There was nothing like that in her past, nothing on her computer or in correspondence. She had made plans to go on vacation at a chateau in France. There was no sign she felt she was in danger. And finally, we didn’t find any money on or around Smith. His neighbors said he was begging for money, so there was no sign of a payoff.
Schroeder: Do you think Chasen saw the gunman, or could she have been checking messages at that long light, and he just walked up and totally surprised her?
Fogg: That’s one possibility. I think he wanted to do a street robbery and was waiting for a victim. Chasen was that victim, waiting for the left-turn signal on Sunset and Whittier. Smith possibly walked up to her vehicle and stood in front of it to prevent her from taking off. Chasen may have rolled down her window two to four inches then, and an exchange of words may have taken place. Chasen may have accelerated momentarily to scare Smith so he would move. Angry, Smith may have moved toward the passenger side and fired his weapon through the closed window as she sped away. Window glass was observed throughout the intersection.
Schroeder: So you found nothing that led you to believe there was anyone who wanted her dead?
Fogg: No, nothing. There were some individuals who didn’t like her. She had a temper, but we didn’t find anyone who wished her harm. We did a very thorough investigation. There was nothing in her background that indicated someone was after her. She was very respected in her field.
Schroeder: What do you mean she had a temper?
Fogg: There was a report that about a month before the incident Ms. Chasen was driving on Sunset, not in Beverly Hills, more like Hollywood, and she was cut off by two young girls in a car. Chasen got out of her car and walked up to the girls and gave them a piece of her mind.
Schroeder: Could that have happened here? Maybe they got into a confrontation about money or him moving out of the way—you have to wonder why she just didn’t drive off the minute she saw some strange man walk towards her car.
Fogg: She did drive away after the gunshots and before he had the chance to take anything from her or the car. Her purse, phone, everything was still in the vehicle. As for what happened at the vehicle during those last few minutes, we’ll just never know.
Schroeder: A lot of doubters say it’s ridiculous to think someone on a bike could have done this—could kill someone in a car.
Fogg: Those people have the wrong impression. He was not on a bike; he was on foot. He’d driven to the area on a bike and had stashed it in some bushes. Some people thought he was riding alongside of her, but no, that wasn’t the case. We think he was looking to rob someone that night. We had reports from a number of people who saw a man on a bike in that area earlier.
Schroeder: Did you ever get surveillance video from homes or street cameras?
Fogg: No, the camera at the intersection had been removed months before. But we did get reports from various sources that indicated an individual matching the suspect’s description was on a bike, riding around the neighborhood prior to the incident with Chasen.
Schroeder: He had a history of crime in Beverly Hills?
Fogg: Right, he had a history of trying to rob people in Beverly Hills. In 1998, he was sent to jail for assaulting a mother and daughter who were out walking their dog. He put a knife to the mother’s throat; that’s what landed him in jail the last time for ten years.
Schroeder: But what if he was just a nutcase who didn’t have anything to do with the murder? Is that possible?
Fogg: No, he told people, several witnesses, “Hey, you know all that stuff going on the news, I did that.” Plus his weapon was an exact ballistics match with the murder weapon. The ammunition was a unique Hydra-Shok type bullet used both in the murder and his suicide.
Schroeder: There was a local news interview with a retired law enforcement expert, not someone from your department, who claimed the ballistics tests showed the bullets didn’t match the murder weapon.
Fogg: You know, the ballistics report was not completed when that comment was made. It was a negligent remark by an individual who was not connected with the official case. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department findings came out later and showed a hundred percent match between bullets and weapon. Those are the facts.
Schroeder: So, to the people who will never believe your version of what happened, what do you say to them?
Fogg: To those conspiracy theorists I say this: accept all the evidence. That’s it. But there is something to be learned from this: Be aware of your surroundings; don’t be distracted. Perhaps she had the interior light on in the car; maybe she was dialing and distracted; we’ll never know. So be alert. But more than anything, if you’re in a situation where you’re not comfortable, don’t take anyone on; don’t talk; just drive off. This is a case that is so difficult to make sense of, it was such a senseless killing.
Ronni Chasen attended a movie premiere party at the W Hotel in Hollywood just hours before her attack and murder.
Chasen crashed her Mercedes Benz E-350 into a light pole at 12:30 a.m. Several homeowners came to her aid. When paramedics arrived, they determined she had been shot.
The .38-caliber Hydra-Shok bullet that penetrated Chasen’s blue jacket was recovered from under the driver’s seat. There were remnants of fabric in the center of the bullet.
Harold Smith’s body was removed by the Los Angeles County Coroner.
Harold Smith decided to end his life at the apartment building where he had lived instead of being arrested for the murder of Ronni Chasen.
Epilogue
With that, our chronicle of the first century of crimes, scandals
, and stars behaving badly in Beverly Hills comes to an end. What is there to learn from the sweep of an era? Perhaps just this: human nature doesn’t change all that much. There will always be people who crave fame and will do anything to achieve it. There will always be those whose passions and temptations lead them down a path of destruction—or evil. And where there’s big money, big drama is sure to follow. Lives are squandered; fortunes lost; love is skewered.
There are those who find only trouble in this paradise, victims of crimes both heinous and tragic. As the second century begins for Beverly Hills, the drama behind the glitzy exterior continues: a fifty-eight-year-old woman was knifed to death on October 26, 2011. She left mysterious clues behind to help investigators identify their main suspect: a lover she’d met online.
Less than six months later, at the Beverly Hilton hotel, came the tragic demise of revered songbird Whitney Houston, discovered dead in her bathtub on the eve of the Grammy Awards, February 11, 2012—her skin blistered in spots from scalding-hot water. The singer’s death was a supreme tragedy, officially listed as an accident. The cause: drowning, complicated by heart disease and cocaine use.
It is quite the cast, the pioneers of Beverly Hills and subsequent generations. Not even Hollywood could produce its equal. Oscar? Emmy? Golden Globe? One of each please, for this city that has been a playground and home to some of the richest, most eccentric, most famous, most tragic, and most beautiful people the world has ever known. Drama, illusion, human frailty; the players change, but the theme is constant. The audience, always mesmerized.
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