Legendary music producer Phil Spector has been a Hall of Rock and Roll inductee since 1989. At 67, he is revered for having created the wall of sound technique and for having worked with The Beatles, The Ronettes and Tina Turner. Spector is also accused of having murdered Californian actress Lana Turner more than four years ago, in his Los Angeles home.
The two met on February 3 at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, where 40-year-old Clarkson was a hostess in the VIP area of the Foundation Room. He invited her to his hilltop mansion in Alhambra, a suburb in the north-east of Los Angeles, to have just one drink. The producer s driver waited outside, in the car.
On that day, Clarkson was shot in the mouth, sitting in an ornate chair in the grand foyer. Spector initially said he had shot her by accident. The driver told police that Spector had said to him, I think I killed somebody.
In a police record, he was quoted as saying, I didn't mean to shoot her. It was an accident. I have an explanation.
He later claimed that she had committed suicide and has maintained that claim to this day. The murder trial began this Wednesday with opening statements from the prosecution and the defense. On the second day of the trial, Spector s defense team told the jury that Clarkson killed herself.
Her death was an accident, but in no way caused by Spector. The evidence will show he had no motive to hurt this woman, bore no malice toward this woman. The evidence will show the gun was held by the decedent when she died.
The gun was in her mouth, put there by her. The evidence will show this is an accident, attorney Bruce Cutler said. Linda Kenney-Baden, one of Spector s lawyers, specialized in forensic evidence, said science will prove that her client couldn t have shot Lana and that the actress in fact took her own life.
The evidence will show that the science proves Philip Spector is innocent. The science will tell you that Philip Spector did not shoot Lana Clarkson, that he did not hold the gun, and that he did not pull the trigger, Kenney-Baden told the jury The defense lawyers statements, which are to be validated by scientific experts, say that gunshot residue was found on Clarkson s clothes and hands but not on Spector s clothes, which indicates he didn t hold the gun. The prosecution called its first witness Thursday, Dorothy Melvin, a former assistant of talk show host Joan Rivers.
She testified that Spector threatened her with a gun in 1993. She explained that she never pressed charges against him because I didn't want it to become a National Enquirer cover. Phil is a very brilliant and charming man, Dorothy Melvin said.
Only when drinking he snaps and becomes a lunatic. Prosecutor Alan Jackson claims that the accused has a record of manifesting violence towards women. On the first day of opening statements, Jackson portrayed Spector as a man with a long history of drinking and threatening at least five different women with guns when they refused his sexual advances.
Four women will be brought by the prosecution to testify, all former girlfriends of the music producer. When confronted with the right situation he turns sinister and deadly, Jackson said. This pattern repeats itself over and over and over again, he added.
The defense argued Thursday that Lana was actually a troubled woman, suffering from depression and taking pills. Kenney-Baden revealed e-mails sent by Lana, in which she said she wanted to chuck it all because it's too much for a girl to bear. Cutler meanwhile said that police had murder on their mind and as a result they considered Spector guilty from the beginning, without verifying or taking into consideration other possibilities.
The trial goes on, with the special feature of being televised, as approved by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler. He has stated that celebrities do not receive special treatment in a court of law and that the cameras will prove this. He has also promised the twelve jurors, nine men and three women, that they will remain anonymous.
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