2 Texas Fugitives Jump to Deaths at Hollywood Hotel as Police Close In

Two men--one of whom was wanted in the brutal murder of a University of Texas freshman--jumped to their deaths from the top floor of a Sunset Strip hotel before dawn this morning, just as police broke into their hotel room, authorities said.

Matthew Novatny, 22, and Jason Smith, 19, were pronounced dead on the pavement where they fell. Novanty was being sought by police in Austin, Tex., as a suspect in the Oct. 19 murder of Tiffani Bruce, an 18-year-old fashion and design major at the University of Texas.

Novatny and Smith, described by authorities as “best friends,” fled to the Los Angeles area from Texas several days ago in an effort to elude a nationwide manhunt, Austin police said. Early this morning, they made a telephone call from their room at the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Boulevard to a friend in Austin.

In the call, the two fugitives spoke of a suicide pact, Lt. Juan Gonzalez of the Austin Police Department said in a telephone interview.

Gonzalez said Austin authorities were able to trace the call back to West Hollywood and notified Los Angeles police, who immediately dispatched officers to the hotel.

As police tried to break into the hotel room, Novatny and Smith apparently leaped out the window, authorities said.

“We were punching in the combination (to unlock the door), but we discovered it was deadbolted,” Los Angeles Police Sgt. Pat Findley said. “They heard us fiddling with the door.

“A security guard was coming up with the keys (to the deadbolt), and we grabbed them out of his hands and opened the door. . . . (But) by the time we got the deadbolt open, they had jumped.”

Austin police tied Novatny to Bruce’s murder by finding what they said was his palm print in the dead woman’s blood. Bruce’s bound and gagged body was found at her off-campus home in Austin. She had been shot once in the chest and twice in the head at close range, a coroner’s spokesman said.

It was not yet clear whether Smith had any role in the murder.

Investigators believe Novatny may have killed Bruce because she spurned his affections.