Producer Spector’s case proves to be a bizarre noir

Deliberations in the 2003 case are to begin Friday.

By LINDA DEUTSCH

AP SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

LOS ANGELES — In the annals of celebrity crime, record producer Phil Spector’s murder trial may stand as one of the strangest.

The saga of a forgotten music industry legend and a fading cult movie actress found dead in his hilltop castle is the stuff of film noir, those dark epics that explore a world of glamour, dread and danger.

At the center of the drama is Spector, 67, a diminutive figure in long frock coats and wild hairdos, a millionaire rock music producer past his heyday, holed up in a Victorian mansion far from the Hollywood music industry he once ruled.

The tragic figure is Lana Clarkson, 40, a 6-foot actress with Marilyn Monroe dreams who craved fame more than anything but was so down on her luck that she took a $9-an-hour hostess job at the House of Blues nightclub.

Ironically, she became more famous in death, her picture splashed across newspapers and TV screens the morning after Feb. 3, 2003, when she was found with a bullet through her mouth in the formal red foyer of Spector’s home.

Getting closer

It would take eight months for police to charge Spector with a crime and four years to bring the case to trial. Now, after five months of testimony, the end is near. Final arguments are scheduled today and Thursday and jurors are to begin deliberations Friday. And, like any intriguing murder mystery, the outcome is unpredictable.

Prosecutors, haunted by the acquittals of stars such as O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake and Michael Jackson, seem invested in making Spector the first showbiz star to be convicted in a major criminal case. But his lawyers have fought fiercely to prove Clarkson pulled the trigger.

Spector rose to fame in the 1960s with what became known as the “Wall of Sound” recording technique that changed pop music. Clarkson was best known for her role in Roger Corman’s 1985 cult film “Barbarian Queen.”

They met after Spector spent a night on the town drinking with women friends. He wound up at the House of Blues. When the club closed at 2 a.m., he asked Clarkson to go home with him for a drink.

What happened next is the heart of the case.

Prosecutor Alan Jackson claimed at the start that it would be a simple case.

“The evidence is going to paint a picture of a man who on Feb. 3, 2003, put a loaded pistol in Lana Clarkson’s mouth — inside her mouth — and shot her to death,” he said in his opening statement.

Not a simple case

But by the time 77 witnesses had testified and more than 600 pieces of evidence were submitted, the case was anything but simple.

On the prosecution side, five women returned from Spector’s past to tell of being threatened by him when he was drunk, even held hostage in his home, with a gun pointed at them and threats of death if they tried to leave.

The chauffeur who delivered Spector and Clarkson to the mansion testified that he waited outside and heard the “pow” of a gun some two hours later. Adriano De Souza would recall Spector emerging from the house, a gun in his hand, declaring, “I think I killed somebody.”

He was the only witness to place the gun in Spector’s hand. The prosecution’s scientific experts could not say for sure if the gun was in Spector’s hand or in Clarkson’s when it was fired.

Defense lawyer Linda Kenney-Baden had promised jurors at the outset that scientific evidence would show the truth.

“The science will tell you that Phil Spector was not holding the gun in the decedant’s mouth, that he was not close enough,” Kenney-Baden said.

Dr. Louis Pena, the deputy medical examiner who did the autopsy, said Clarkson had gunshot residue on both of her hands and that he classified the case as “pending” for seven months until he finally called it a homicide on the death certificate. He said the residue didn’t necessarily mean she fired the gun.

Defense witness Dr. Vincent DiMaio disagreed: “She died of a self-inflicted wound. There is no objective scientific evidence that anyone else held the gun. Everything else is speculative.”

Experts also debated Clarkson’s mental state. Pena thought she was a hopeful person, not prone to contemplate suicide.

But jurors saw an e-mail she wrote saying, “I really feel like I’m losing it. I’m kind of feeling like giving up the dream and therefore the struggle.”

Beyond legal points and science, the case came down to the two personalities involved: Spector and Clarkson.