The man pulled out a handgun and shot himself around 6 p.m. Wednesday, as Beverly Hills detectives were delivering a search warrant to the apartment-hotel where he was staying. Detectives were conducting a "follow-up investigation" when "the person they were looking for showed up," Los Angeles Police Capt. Kevin McClure told CNN.
"They attempted to talk to the suspect," McClure said. "When they did, the suspect produced a handgun, and there was a self-inflicted gunshot wound."
Police wouldn't identify the man and wouldn't call him a suspect -- only a "person of interest" in Chasen's Nov. 16 killing. They said their investigation wouldn't end with the man's suicide.
Resident Terri Gilpin told The Associated Press that she was awoken from a nap when she heard a single shot fired. "I thought it was backfire, but I was kind of half-asleep, in a drowsy state of mind," she said. "It was kind of like a pop." Gilpin later saw blood splattered on the lobby floor.
The man's suicide is the latest twist in a mysterious murder case that's riveted Hollywood and shaken the area's elites in their upscale neighborhoods. Beverly Hills has seen only four homicides in the past five years, Police Chief David Snowden told the AP.
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The 64-year-old Hollywood publicist died from gunshots fired into her Mercedes-Benz as she turned off Sunset Boulevard on her way home from the premiere of the film "Burlesque" after midnight a little over two weeks ago. Investigators believe at least four shots were fired, and an autopsy of Chasen's body revealed a hollow-point bullet -- designed to cause maximum damage by expanding once it's inside the body. All the evidence points to a planned, targeted and sophisticated killing rather than a random act of violence, detectives have said. The suicide on Wednesday occurred in a drastically different setting from those Chasen is believed to have frequented. The Harvey Apartments on Santa Monica Boulevard are transient month-to-month housing in a rundown section of Los Angeles, where small studios rent for about $625 a month, The New York Times reported. The complex is popular with struggling actors and others down on their luck.
"There are people on fixed income, people on government disability and families crunched into one place," resident Kaisi Berick told The Hollywood Reporter. "It's slummy for this area."