Police: 2 dead at Beverly Hilton in murder-suicide

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Two people have been found dead in what investigators believe was a murder-suicide at the Beverly Hilton, just hours before the Daytime Emmy Awards are being held at the posh hotel, police said Saturday.

Police responding to a report of a shooting late Friday found a man and a woman dead from gunshot wounds in a hotel room, Beverly Hills police Lt. Mark Rosen said.

Police would give no other details on the two people, their relationship, or the circumstances of the shooting. Police would not comment on whether the deaths were connected to the Emmy awards.

Coroner's officials had yet to begin their investigation, but said they were a man in his late 60s and a woman in her mid-50s.

The luxury hotel was also the site of Whitney Houston's death in February. The singer drowned in the bathtub of her fourth-floor room, just a few hours before she was to attend record executive Clive Davis' annual pre-Grammy party in the ballroom downstairs.

An HLN spokeswoman, Alison Rudnick, said the 39th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards will go on as scheduled. The cable news channel will be broadcasting live the ceremony, which honors the best in soap operas and talk shows.

The hotel also hosts several other annual galas, including the Golden Globe Awards.

Before the Friday shootings, Beverly Hills had just six homicides since 2008. Such rare cases usually draw national attention, as in the death of a Hollywood publicist who was shot while she was driving after a movie premiere in November 2010. Police say Ronni Chasen was killed in an apparent bungled robbery by a career criminal who later killed himself when approached by police.