![]() He was greeted by a throng of photographers, his once-wild hair newly styled into a blond moptop reminiscent of the Beatles. The trial gets under way more than four years after B-movie actress Lana Clarkson was killed at Spector's faux castle outside Los Angeles on February 3, 2003, and it promises to be the biggest celebrity court case since pop star Michael Jackson's 2005 acquittal on child molestation charges.Ī smiling Spector, 67, arrived at court like one of the 1960s rock stars he made his name producing - escorted by lawyers and beefy bodyguards. Spector, 67, rose to fame in the 1960s with his revolutionary "Wall of Sound" recording technique.LOS ANGELES - Jury selection began today in the murder trial of pioneering rock producer Phil Spector, who came to court in Los Angeles sporting a new blond, Beatles-style shag and smiling broadly as he made his way past photographers. "I don't see anything here that rises to the level of stopping this trial and starting again," Fidler said. The motion contended that prosecutors kept them in the dark about a man who came forward to accuse defense experts of hiding evidence. In a hearing with jurors absent, Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler rejected a defense request for a mistrial. Renteria also said that an old-fashioned cloth diaper found in a downstairs bathroom contained three bloodstains matching Clarkson's DNA and that a fourth stain with Clarkson's DNA and a little bit of DNA that could be identified only as from a male. Spector's and Clarkson's DNA were both found on a pair of brandy snifters in the house, and tests of Clarkson's wrists yielded DNA primarily from her but included a "minor donor" who was Spector, Renteria said. "Had there been blood spray, would Luminol have detected it?" asked Jackson. Renteria said he sprayed the area around Clarkson's body with Luminol, a chemical designed to detect blood unseen by the naked eye. Renteria, who set up the Sheriff's Department's DNA program in 1994, also testified about the unexpected absence of blood spray from Clarkson on a wall near her body or on the carpet in front of it, suggesting something or someone in front of her could have blocked it. ![]() he heard a loud noise and saw Spector emerge from his home holding a gun and saying, "I think I killed somebody." The gun was found by police on the floor by one of her feet.īest known for her role in the movie "Barbarian Queen," she was working at the House of Blues when she met Spector and agreed to go home with him for a drink after closing time. Her body was found slumped in a chair in the foyer of Spector's mansion. 3, 2003, from a single shot fired from a revolver in her mouth. ![]() Testimony was scheduled to resume Tuesday.Ĭlarkson, 40, died on Feb. The prosecution may argue that Spector wiped off the gun at some point. The defense is expected to argue that the absence of Spector's DNA on the gun means he did not pull the trigger and that Clarkson killed herself. "It all has to do with the amount of cells present." "Just because Lana Clarkson was the sole donor (of DNA) that doesn't mean that nobody else on Earth came in contact with those things?" prosecutor Alan Jackson asked the witness. Sheriff's criminalist Steve Renteria, called by the prosecution, also acknowledged that numerous items analyzed by the crime lab showed the DNA only of the dead woman. ![]() LOS ANGELES - The Phil Spector murder trial entered its seventh week with the emphasis again turning to forensic evidence and the defense losing a bid for a mistrial.Ī criminalist testified Monday that the music producer's DNA was not detected on the gun that killed Lana Clarkson, but suggested it might have been hidden under the large amount of the actress' blood on the weapon. ![]()
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