How Paris Hilton helped solve a crime

Keith Morrison Correspondent • Profile

It’s hard to imagine that there is a side of Paris Hilton that most of us haven’t explicitly already seen: Paris the singer, Paris the TV star, Paris the unintentional porn kitten. 

She’s almost more brand than person. But now, you’re about to hear an aspect of Paris Hilton the marketers and PR agents  would probably rather keep secret... In this report , you’ll hear Paris help solve a crime. Sort of.

Paris Hilton (law enforcement interview audio tapes): Like I really—I don’t remember.  I’m not like that smart.  I like forget stuff all the time.

Det. Koman: Don’t cut yourself short.

Hilton: But I don’t remember.  I don’t remember.

Paris...not that smart?  This is going to be, need we say, a bizarre little movie—except this one not only happens to be true.

It shines a strange new light on dark secrets.

Hilton: It was like four in the morning at a party.

Det. Koman: At a party?  

We’re about take a tour of a sometimes dangerous place:  there will be stars, playing themselves. The supporting cast includes the rich and famous, those who just want to be,  and the scene is the Hollywood party world.

Heather Bernardcyck: It’s not a pretty picture.

Kristen Williams: It’s not as pretty as a lot of people want to paint it.

Williams: Right.  It’s not what it’s all cracked up to be of this glitz and glamour.  There really is a lot of downsides.

You could be standing with the charming ex-con who just might know something about ¤what happened the night of the 22^nd or not.

Will Wright: In Hollywood, celebrities, you know, party on the fringes of people who are in the grey and in the dark.  You know what I mean? It’s a very interesting crowd.  It’s like celebrities mix with people who sell drugs for a living or commit crimes.  I mean, Hollywood’s weird like that.

How weird? That crime drew this reporter like a moth to a flame... or like a star to a dangerous friend.

Mark Ebner, investigative journalist: The pampered celebrity wants to be associated with that person with the shady past.

Morrison: Because?

Ebner: Because it gives them that edge.  It gives them that kind of outlaw cool. 

Hoon Chun, L.A. county prosecutor: It’s a crowd that goes partying late at night at very trendy clubs.

Los Angeles prosecutor Hoon Chun knows the scene because he found the case on his desk:   a violent robbery, January 22, 2004. On a hilltop mansion was a celebrity victim. But unlike everyone else, Chun was Not exactly star struck.

Chun:  A sort of jet set version of high school, is what we’re talking about.

Scene one of our mystery
The first scene takes place in the nightclubs, the VIP-rooms, and the after party clubs. It’s  the party scene that aspiring actress Kristen Williams and her best friend Heather Bernardcyck had come to know so well…

Kristen Williams: It’s like a clique.  Hollywood is like a big clique—like you would have in high school. And everyone wants to be in the popular clique.

And the popular clique, it turns out, is at the very center of our story a  sort of nexus for everyone connected to that robbery: from the heiress with key information to the ex-con with an  alibi; from the victim to the that man in the mask; to the aspiring actress who helps us understand the scene from right in the middle of it.

Kristen Williams wanted so badly to be a star, but Hollywood can be brutal.

She got a bit part once on FX’s Nip/Tuck and she and Heather had line or two in a movie called “Skippy” that ran on Showtime.

Not much to write home about.

But after dark, it was different. In the nightclub world.

Morrison: The velvet rope is there and there’s a lineup to get in. You can’t get in. 

Williams: It’s very difficult for men to get into the clubs out here.  We’ve never had a problem. Because we walk right up to the front and we kind of flirt with the door guy. And we stand there and we’re all nice and he lets us in.

Then it’s like, then you wanna get to the VIP.  And then you wanna get to the after hour party of the club. There’s always another door you have to get through. 

And behind those doors are the instantly recognizable features that grace the whole world’s gossip mags.

Williams: There’s celebrities everywhere.  There’s, you know, ball players, there’s—

Bernardcyck: And yeah, you just kind of run into different people.

A little discretion among the stars, the celebrities... the king of soft core porn like “Girls Gone Wild.” That would be Joe Francis

Joe Francis:  I used to go out. You know?  And I have been out playing in the Hollywood nightclub scene. 

After all, it was Joe Francis at the center of events here in Hollywood that dark night of January 22^nd, 2004. And where did that night begin? Why, at a Hollywood club of course .

Scene two: The crime

Morrison: So you had gone out one evening? Where?

Francis: I went out to a nightclub. And came home around midnight.

Morrison: That’s relatively early for the night crowd.

Francis: That’s what the guy said.

The guy was an intruder waiting in Joe Francis’ house when he came home. And the terror was about to begin.