Dennis RomeroUpdated after the jump with additional details. First published at 8:18 a.m. See an update with some Hollywood reaction here.
It's the third homicide in the small, gilded city of Beverly Hills this year: A woman in her 60s behind the wheel a late-model Mercedes E350 was found to have been shot five times in the town's tony Benedict Canyon neighborhood early Tuesday, police said.
Following a 12:28 a.m. report of a car that crashed into a pole at 800 block of North Whittier Dr, police found the woman alone and wounded. She was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Beverly Hills police Lt. Michael Hill said.
She was declared dead at the hospital.
Reports of multiple gunshots in the area, adjacent to the exclusive Los Angeles Country Club, were logged by authorities.
Other homicides in Beverly Hills this year:
-Diane Newlander, 73, was the apparent victim of a murder-suicide May 4.
-Twenty-one-year-old Katsutoshi Tony Takazato was fatally stabbed outside his father's Trousdale Estates home July 20. The ex-boyfriend of Takazato's girlfriend was arrested and charged in the case.
Update: Late Tuesday morning county coroner's officials identified the victim as 64-year-old Ronni Chasen, said to be a Hollywood “unit” publicist who worked on films such as Driving Miss Daisy, On Golden Pond and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Update #2: Chasen was identified as a onetime senior vice president of worldwide publicity at MGM who was well known to Hollywood insiders.
Police said she had been shot five times in the chest.
-With reporting from City News Service. Got news? Email us. Follow us on Twitter, too: @dennisjromero.
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