Prosecution lays out case against producer

LOS ANGELES – An actress shot to death at Phil Spector’s hilltop mansion was the last of several women victimized by the legendary music producer in a decades-long series of alcohol-fueled confrontations, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday as they began hearing the case.

The defense countered that Lana Clarkson’s death was an accident, and characterized Spector as an old-fashioned romantic.

Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson outlined what he called a pattern of behavior in which Spector would become exceedingly drunk, take a woman to one of his residences, refuse to let her leave and then threaten her with a gun when she refused to stay.

He said Spector is someone “who, when he’s confronted with the right circumstances, when he’s confronted with the right situations, turns sinister and deadly.”

“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,” Jackson told the jury.

Defense attorney Bruce Cutler told jurors that investigators leaped to the conclusion that it was a murder.

“The evidence will show that back on Feb. 3 of ‘03, before they even had a cause of death, let alone a manner of death, they had murder on their mind. Murder on their mind – the police,” Cutler said.

Spector listened glumly during the televised proceeding as the prosecution laid out the murder case against him.

Spector, 67, whose “Wall of Sound” transformed rock ‘n’ roll in the 1960s, lives in a rambling castlelike mansion in suburban Alhambra. It was there that he took Clarkson, who wound up dead in the foyer with a gunshot through her mouth.

Jackson told the jury that Spector had gone out on the town for an evening with female friends and had many drinks at a series of restaurants before arriving at the House of Blues, where he met Clarkson, 40, who was working in the club’s elite Foundation Room. She had a role in the Roger Corman 1980s cult film “Barbarian Queen.”

Spector appeared particularly downcast when a 911 call from his chauffeur was played. It showed that the operator could not figure out who the person was who had reportedly killed someone, mispronouncing his name.

The prosecutor highlighted Spector’s faded glory by noting that Clarkson did not recognize Spector, tried to keep him out of the Foundation Room and may have at first thought he was a woman.

If convicted of second-degree murder, Spector could face 15 years to life in prison.