Beverly Hills PD rules that Scott Ruffalo committed suicide by playing Russian roulette.

Yesterday I reviewed the movie The Last Castle. In the process of doing research, I learned about the murder of Mark Ruffalo’s younger brother Scott.

So, as what might be expected of America’s Best Crime Writer, I stuck my nose in to see what I could learn in a few hours. Here’s I learned, plus some editorial commentary.

Paramedics respond to a condominium in Beverly Hills and find a white male lying on the floor in a pool of blood with a gunshot wound to the head. The man’s still breathing.

It’s late on the night of December 1, 2008.

Paramedics rush the bleeding man to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where emergency personnel keep him alive by using life support apparatus. But a week later, when recovery seems to be out of the question, they pull the plug.

The victim is Scott Ruffalo, 39, a well-known, married, Hollywood hairdresser. He’s also the younger brother of Mark Ruffalo. Yesterday, if you heard my podcast reviewing the movie The Last Castle – or read about it on my website – you know my opinion of the “Hollywood star” who plays a leading role in The Last Castle.

I quote: “Mark Ruffalo pretty much plays himself in real life – a scrawny little runt who vacillates between being a weasel and a rat.”

Please, don’t anyone play “Hearts and Flowers” or “Kumbaya” about the misfortunes in this man’s life – or what an outstanding individual he is.

The way I see it, he’s just another Hollywood creep who thinks his shit don’t stink. You, of course, are entitled to your own opinion. But today’s story is not about Mark Ruffalo. It’s about his dead brother Scott.

Police investigate the incident and find a surveillance video showing two individuals inside Mark Ruffalo’s condo at the time of the incident.

One is Shaha Adham – described as a 26-year-old wealthy Saudi businesswoman. Hmmm. Wealthy businesswoman at 26? How does that work? I don’t know. Ask Chelsea Clinton.

Oh – wait – here it is – she’s the daughter of wealthy Saudi businessman Mishaal K. Adham, granddaughter of Sheikh Kamal Adham, and a princess in a royal Saudi family. So I guess she used her astute business acumen to become a wealthy businesswoman by the age of 26.

The other individual on the video is her boyfriend, 29-year-old Brian B. Scofield. Looked him up but found nothing other than this.

Investigators from the Beverly Hills PD identify the pair and bring then to police headquarters for questioning. The princess admits to being there but insists that Scott Ruffalo was alive and well when she and her boyfriend left. She learned about the shooting incident later and it came as a complete surprise to her.

Her lawyer, Ronald Richard, adds to the bullshit spin by confirming that his client was present on the night Mr. Ruffalo shot himself. She left her keys at his condo the night before and returned there that night to pick them up.

The lawyer said that when his client was picking up her keys, Scott Ruffalo decided to play a game of Russian roulette. Shit. I mean, that’s believable. Who among us doesn’t play a game of Russian roulette at least every now and then?

But that unnerved her. So she grabbed her keys, then she and her boyfriend immediately left the condo.

The lawyer says the gun belonged to Ruffalo, who was a known cocaine user.

For the record, in April of 2002, Scott Ruffalo was convicted on a felony charge for possession of a controlled substance for sale. So there’s the drug connection – but Russian roulette?

And when her boyfriend sings the same tune, Beverly Hills PD rules that Scott Ruffalo committed suicide by playing Russian roulette – just can’t get away from the popular pastime of playing Russian roulette. Guess they do that in California. Who woulda thunk it?

“We expect the coroner’s report,” the mouthpiece tells the Daily News, “to show that the shooting was a result of the victim’s chronic playing of Russian roulette and his dangerous habit of playing with firearms while under the use of controlled substances.”

Not so fast, Flannagan.

The coroner’s report comes out after the autopsy and, for your information, it says exactly the opposite. It proves that the bullet’s angle of the entry makes it impossible to have been a self-inflicted wound. Wow. So he didn’t shoot himself. Someone else shot him in the back of the head.

Comes as a tremendous surprise to me.

Guess we’re looking at a homicide, Dano.

Was anyone with him at the time of the incident? Oh, yeah, wait. That’s right. We have the surveillance video showing the Saudi princess and her boyfriend with Ruffalo on the night someone murdered him. Unfortunately, it doesn’t show the shooting. But, once again, what’s she doing there in the first place?

Oh, yeah. Forgot. She wasn’t there to do cocaine or to buy cocaine or to contest a previous cocaine purchase. She just went there to pick up her keys. And when she and her boyfriend left, Scott Ruffalo was alive and well. Guess he was winning at Russian roulette – at least for the time being.

Anyway, Beverly Hills PD changes the cause of Scott Ruffalo’s death from suicide to homicide, and issues two arrest warrants.

The next day, the princess surrenders at the police station. Homicide detectives question her, then charge her with attempted murder. Hmm, attempted murder? What would make this homicide an attempted murder?

Boyfriend Brian Scofield also surrenders and Beverly Hills PD holds him on a warrant for a previous misdemeanor traffic offense.

But the questioning still goes nowhere.

According to both the princess and her boyfriend, neither one of them saw anything. Neither one of them did anything.

But when pushed, it works out that the princess isn’t telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. As she now admits, both she and her boyfriend witnessed Scott Ruffalo shooting himself in the head. But his act put such fear in their hearts, that they immediately fled the scene – and kept the incident to themselves.

“My client was a good friend of the victim,” her lawyer says, “and is very sad for the loss. She made a mistake by fleeing the scene and not reporting the incident. However, she played no role whatsoever in his accidental death.”

Without tangible evidence to place the gun in the hand of the princess or her boyfriend – and with no other witnesses to the shooting – Beverly Hills PD release the princess and her boyfriend without any charges filed.

So Scott Ruffalo’s homicide goes into the books as an unsolved case.

And when Shaha Adham died of an apparent drug overdose four years later, in January of 2012 – which, by the way, went unreported for a month – Beverly Hills PD closed the case – and it will remain unsolved forever.

However, as America’s Best Crime Writer, I, of course, have my own theory. But that’s all it is – a theory.

Perhaps after reading this, you might formulate a theory of your own.

I’m America’s Best Crime Writer, and I approve this message.

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The story takes 21 years to play out – with many twists & turns – an amalgam of Sons of Anarchy & Breaking Bad – but these outlaw bikers make the Sons look like Cub Scouts.

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