Phil Spector Found Guilty of Killing Actress (Published 2009) (2024)

LOS ANGELES — Phil Spector, the rock music impresario behind hits like “Da Doo Ron Ron,” and “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling,” was convicted Monday of murdering a struggling actress at his mansion in 2003 after a night of drinking.

Mr. Spector, 68, faces at least 18 years in prison. The jury, ending a five-month trial, reached its decision after 27 hours of deliberating whether he shot the woman in a fit of anger or, as his lawyers argued, merely witnessed her suicide.

In addition to second-degree murder, the jury found Mr. Spector guilty of illegally discharging a firearm.

This was the second murder trial in the case; the first ended in a hung jury in 2007. Mr. Spector has been out on bail for most of the last six years, but was immediately taken into custody after the verdict on Monday.

Mr. Spector came into court looking frail and sullen. He wore a long blue overcoat, a bright red tie, and a shaggy shoulder-length hairstyle. Gone were his psychedelic glasses and the swagger that carried him through decades at the top of the pop music scene.

Mr. Spector whispered only a few words to his lawyers. As a court clerk read the verdict, he leaned forward intently. His face betrayed little emotion throughout the proceeding.

The family of the actress, Lana Clarkson, who was 40, reacted with relief and embraces. They declined to speak to reporters gathered at the Los Angeles Superior Court downtown.

Mr. Spector, who was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, was famous for his Wall of Sound, lush orchestrations heard on an array of hits in the 1960s and 1970s with groups like the Ronettes. He worked with the Beatles, Tina Turner, the Rolling Stones and others but had receded from the public stage and in recent years was known as much for his eccentric behavior — he has been often photographed wearing a large fright wig — as for his talent as a producer.

And according to at least five women who testified in court, Mr. Spector also had a frightening penchant for firearms and drunken discourses — often mixing them.

On Feb. 3, 2003, Ms. Clarkson’s body was found in the foyer of Mr. Spector’s eccentric, castle-style mansion in Alhambra, a Los Angeles suburb. She had been shot in the mouth. Prosecutors said Mr. Spector had tried to clean up the murder scene. Defense lawyers argued that Ms. Clarkson’s Hollywood ambitions had been frustrated, that she had been suicidal and that she had turned the gun on herself.

The previous trial ended in September 2007, when a jury deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of conviction.

The verdict was a victory for Los Angeles prosecutors who have endured high-profile defeats in celebrity murder trials, including the acquittals of O. J. Simpson and the actor Robert Blake.

Alan Jackson, a deputy district attorney who rose to national prominence as the Spector case played out on Court TV, now truTV, was the prosecutor in both trials.

Just as in the Simpson case, the Clarkson family is pursuing a wrongful-death civil suit against Mr. Spector, which has been pending while the criminal case proceeded.

Ms. Clarkson starred in a 1985 cult hit, “Barbarian Queen,” and had a bit part in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” in 1982.

She was working as a hostess at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip when Mr. Spector visited, struck up a conversation and took her out drinking.

They finished the night at his mansion, known as the Castle, but, when she spurned his advances and tried to leave, he shoved a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger, prosecutors said.

The prosecutors argued that this fit a pattern of Mr. Spector’s drinking and threatening women with guns over decades.

“I want to acknowledge the many women who testified and presented a picture of Phil Spector,” said Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County district attorney, after the verdict.

Mr. Spector, prosecutors said, essentially confessed when he emerged from the home, gun in hand, and told his limousine driver, “I think I killed somebody.”

The defense disputed the accusations on several fronts, including the account of the limousine driver, Adriano De Souza.

They noted that Mr. De Souza was a Brazilian immigrant not fully proficient in English and said he might have misquoted Mr. Spector, who they suggested might have actually been telling him to “call somebody.” A gurgling fountain nearby and the driver’s fatigue and hunger from working all night may have added to confusion, they told jurors.

Mr. Cooley said Monday that he had no idea how much money the county had spent to convict Mr. Spector.

“We just get the job done,” Mr. Cooley said. “We don’t really keep track of that.”