Dag Drollet

Prosecutors in the Brando murder case will go to federal court in Los Angeles Monday for help in bringing Cheyenne Brando back from Tahiti to testify at the trial of her half-brother, Christian, next month. He is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Cheyenne Brando's lover, Dag Drollet, last May, at the home of their father, actor Marlon Brando. A district attorney's spokeswoman said U.S.

Marlon Brando's son said he killed his half-sister's boyfriend in the actor's house during a struggle that began when the boyfriend "went nuts," a police officer testified today. Christian Brando said the fatal shot was fired accidentally as the two men wrestled over a handgun kept in the actor's Hollywood Hills mansion for family protection. "(Christian Brando) said he wasn't sure who was trying to shoot who," Officer Steve Cunningham said.

Prosecutors trying Marlon Brando's son for murder said Tuesday they probably will fail in bringing the actor's daughter back to California in time to testify against her half-brother. At a hearing Tuesday in Santa Monica, a judge ordered jury selection to begin Nov. 5 in Christian Brando's first-degree murder trial in the shooting death of his half-sister's boyfriend. The district attorney's office has sought for months to return Cheyenne Brando from Tahiti.

Flamboyant defense attorney William Kunstler took time off the murder case involving Marlon Brando's son to act in Oliver Stone's movie "The Doors." The movie, which stars Val Kilmer as the late Jim Morrison, leader of "The Doors," and includes rock star Billy Idol in the cast, features the wild-haired Kunstler in a familiar role. "I play a lawyer in the movie," Kunstler said.

Actor Marlon Brando's son, Christian, facing trial in the slaying of his half-sister's boyfriend, will remain jailed until his passport can be found and surrendered to authorities, his lawyer said Wednesday. A judge on Tuesday set Brando's bail at $10 million, with the condition that he give up his passport to help ensure that he does not flee to avoid prosecution.

A federal judge refused Monday to ask the French government to compel actor Marlon Brando's daughter, Cheyenne, to testify at the murder trial of her half-brother, Christian, next month or to answer questions by satellite from her new home in Tahiti. U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. told prosecutors in Los Angeles they should either seek to serve her with a subpoena through the state courts or cite legal precedents for his acting in the case.

Christian Brando's defense lawyer has asked a court to reduce the murder charge against him to manslaughter. Another motion, filed this week in Superior Court, seeks to suppress a tape-recorded police interview with Brando, son of actor Marlon Brando. Attorney Robert Shapiro will argue the motions before Superior Court Judge Robert Thomas on Sept. 14, said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney.

With their star witness in Tahiti and their murder case in shambles, Los Angeles County prosecutors on Friday struck a plea bargain with actor Marlon Brando's eldest son, who pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the killing of his half-sister's lover. In a proceeding that took only 10 minutes, Christian Brando entered his guilty plea to the charge--including a special allegation that he committed the crime with a handgun--before a packed courtroom in Santa Monica.

Christian Brando is "vicious, callous and a serious danger to society," a man who "solves his problems by firing a gun at people's heads," according to a prosecution brief that alleges other violent episodes by the actor's son and asks that he be imprisoned for the maximum 16 years for killing his half-sister's Tahitian lover. The 32-year-old welder, eldest son of Marlon Brando, "has engaged in a pattern of ever escalating violence.

An independent autopsy was conducted Friday on the man who allegedly was shot to death by Christian Brando, son of actor Marlon Brando. The autopsy on Dag Drollet, 26, of Tahiti, was performed by forensic pathologist Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner of New York City, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's office, which had conducted its own autopsy. Baden also reviewed coroner's documents filed in connection with murder charges against Christian Brando, 32.