LOS ANGELES, Jan. 5 -- The holiday season shooting death of a Los Angeles screenwriter received little attention at first, however revelations this week about the victim's penchant for true tales of organized crime stirred speculation that the death had been ordered by the Mafia.
Susan Berman, 55, was found dead on Christmas Eve by Los Angeles police officers investigating the discovery of an open door at her rented house in the upscale Benedict Canyon area of Los Angeles. Police believe she had been dead for a day or two.
There were no signs of forced entry and nothing appeared to be missing. It was believe she was killed Dec. 22 or 23.
As homicide detectives looked into Berman's background, however, the likelihood that mobsters were involved entered the picture.
The Hollywood Reporter said this week that Berman specialized in writing about the mob, particularly the heroic days of Las Vegas during the 1950s when her father, David Berman, was a business associate of mob legend Ben "Bugsy" Siegel; Berman died in 1957.
During the late 1940s, Siegel and Berman were co-owners of the Flamingo Hotel, the first major casino-hotel built in the city that was little more than an isolated, sun-baked small town in the Nevada desert.
Siegel was shot to death in 1947 at his home in the "flats" section of Beverly Hills, not far from the Benedict Canyon neighborhood where Susan Berman had lived after working as a print and radio journalist in San Francisco and New York during the 1970s and 1980s.
Berman was the author of "Lady Las Vegas," the book that accompanied her 1996 documentary "The Real Las Vegas," which was produced for the Arts & Entertainment Network.
Berman was reportedly at work on another mob project when she died, which raised the possibility that she may have been swimming in dangerous waters. Rumors that Berman might have struck a nerve in the underworld circulated in Hollywood this week.
"I heard initially that she was doing a tell-all and naming names and stuff," an entertainment industry executive told United Press International. "I think the mob got tired of hearing about her."
People who knew her, however, were playing down the possibility she had been done in by a hit man.
Her adopted son, Sareb Kaufman, told the Los Angeles Times that Berman dealt mainly with mobsters who had been active decades ago and were "either out of the game, or dead."
"Even then, she was interested in the human aspects of these people," Kaufman said. "She wasn't hitting any nerves."
Kaufman described Berman as a careful person who had no enemies.
Police were also being cautious about an organized crime angle, maintaining that all possibilities remained open.
"At this time, we have no suspects and nobody in custody," Detective Ron Phillips told the Hollywood Reporter. "It could have been a neighbor; it could have been the paperboy -- it could have been anybody."
