by Mick Brown
Clarkson, the coroner’s report stated, had died from a gunshot entering “front to back and slightly upwards” and lodging in the skull. The weapon was actually “in the mouth” when it was fired: “The entrance wound of the oral cavity to include the tongue shows gunshot residue consistent with close range of fire.”
Describing the death scene, it noted that “directly in front of the decedent, next to the stairs” were “two small white objects that appear to be tooth material.” Two more fragments were noted “about halfway up on the stairs.”
Lana Clarkson’s waist-to-ankle black skirt, it stated, had been found in her handbag along with long black dress gloves.
The report went on to note that traces of hydrocodone—better known as Vicodin, a powerful opiate-based painkiller—had been found in Clarkson’s bloodstream, along with traces of alcohol. A county coroner pathologist would later testify at the grand jury that the combination of Vicodin and alcohol would “most likely” have made Clarkson “very sleepy.”
The report concluded: “It should be noted that there was no history of suicidal ideations of the decedent and there was no suicide note found at the scene.”
Police visiting Lana Clarkson’s home in Venice after the killing had found her work records laid out neatly on her desk. She was apparently in the midst of filing her tax returns.
“Based on the history, circumstances, law enforcement police reports and autopsy, as currently known,” the coroner’s report concluded, “the manner of death is homicide.”
Three days after the release of the report, Spector appeared in court for a procedural hearing. The occasion quickly turned into a fireworks display. In the course of the hearing, the deputy DA, Douglas Sortino, asserted that police had collected three incidents over the past ten years in which Spector had allegedly threatened women with a gun. Abramson retorted that the DA was playing to the media, and that the women were all liars “who had crawled out from under rocks” turned over by the sheriff’s department, and were simply trying to cash in on a high-profile case.
Outside the courtroom Spector could hardly be restrained, interrupting Abramson on several occasions as she staged an impromptu press conference. When Abramson mentioned the coroner’s report, Spector interjected, “He works for the sheriff.” Abramson tried to shush him—“Phillip, darling…”—but Spector plowed on. “He stated in the L.A. Times he would not have ruled it a homicide were it not for the sheriff. He said that in the L.A. Times.”
When Abramson raised the matter of Spector having been Tasered by police in the hall, and “thrown to the ground at the feet of the poor, deceased Ms. Clarkson—,” Spector again interrupted. “Broken nose and two black eyes, and 50,000 volts of electricity shot through me, unarmed, inviting the police into my house…” (This conflicted with the statement by Officer Page that the Taser had actually failed on both occasions.)
A few minutes later, Spector erupted again when Abramson was asked how the defense would deal with Adriano De Souza’s claim that he had heard Spector say “I think I killed somebody.”
De Souza, said Abramson, was “sitting inside a closed car, with the radio on…”
“Asleep…” interjected Spector.
“Asleep…Phillip, please, darling. I do wish you wouldn’t say anything,” said Abramson, adding to reporters, “You can’t stop a starring talent from being a starring talent, you just can’t! But it’s okay, I don’t mind.”
SPECTOR: I should stop now?
ABRAMSON: You have to stop me, darling, and I have to stop you.
De Souza’s native language, Abramson went on, was Portuguese. “He is not perfect in his English. I will not say he is illiterate, he is not. I will not say he is stupid, he is not…”
SPECTOR: But he is illegal!
ABRAMSON: Well, that’s a different issue.
SPECTOR: Yeah, he’s an illegal alien. And he was threatened with deportation.
ABRAMSON: Exactly. He is undergoing deportation proceedings but the district attorney’s office has interceded on his behalf…
At the end of the conference Spector exploded again, referring to one of the prosecutors as “the one who proves you have children through anal sex,” before again being cut short by Abramson saying, “Phil, I get to be nasty, you don’t.”
If Spector’s outbursts had occasioned a certain froideur between him and Abramson, matters could hardly have been improved a few days later when Spector again found himself in trouble in a bizarre incident in which he and his new chauffeur, Tobie Wheeler, attempted to put each other under citizen’s arrest, following a fight over what police described as their “business relationship.” Both were arrested for investigation of misdemeanor battery.
Rumors now began to surface of discontent in the Spector camp, and were confirmed in August, when, after barely eight months as Spector’s counsel, Abramson abruptly resigned, after discovering that Spector had been talking with yet another high-profile defense attorney, Bruce Cutler—best known as the longtime attorney of convicted Mafia boss John Gotti, the so-called Teflon Don. Cutler, whom Spector described as “a genius,” had successfully defended Gotti in three trials, before he was finally convicted on racketeering charges in 1992. (He died in prison ten years later.) Explaining her resignation, Abramson said she and her associate Marcia Morrissey had been taken by surprise when Cutler filed a motion to take over the case while Abramson was out of the country.
“We were put in an untenable position,” Abramson said. “If we wanted to be ethical and competent, we had to resign.” Cutler stated that he had been engaged as Spector’s “attorney and confidant” the previous January. “Leslie and Marcia were brought on in February and they quit in July. They just jumped ship, and I had to take control of the ship and bring it in into port.”
Cutler is famous for his booming voice, finger-jabbing theatrics and intimidating demeanor. His habitual strategy, he once boasted, is “to pulverize, to eviscerate [his opponent’s case]. That’s my defense—attack.” One reporter noted that, on occasion, talking to Cutler, “you get the sense that he is about to grab your throat with both hands and pop your head off with his thumbs.”
His appointment seemed to have had the effect of buying Spector more time. In September he was granted a court delay in scheduling what might, in normal circumstances, have been the next stage in the proceedings—a preliminary hearing. This is where a judge listens to arguments from both the prosecution and defense, and then decides whether there is enough evidence for the case to go to trial.
However, in order to speed proceedings along, it is within the gift of the DA to opt instead for a grand jury—a sitting jury of “community stalwarts” who consider a scaled-down version of the prosecution case behind closed doors and decide whether the evidence connecting the accused to the crime “is not beyond a reasonable doubt.” In a preliminary hearing witnesses can be interrogated by a defense attorney—a useful device, since in the trial itself any anomalies and contradictions in their testimony can be pounced on to undermine their credibility. However, no defense attorney is permitted in the grand jury room. Defense attorneys often claim that grand juries favor the prosecution, and “would indict a ham sandwich” if the prosecutor told them to.
In September, Spector’s preliminary hearing was waived, and he was indicted by a grand jury, finally paving the way for the murder trial itself to begin. Grand jury testimony is usually made public, but Spector’s lawyers immediately appealed to have it sealed. In a bizarre courtroom exchange over the currency of fame, they argued that such was Spector’s renown as a “musical icon all over the world” that the testimony would inevitably influence any future jury. In a riposte that must have wounded Spector’s ego more than anything, the DA countered that most of Spector’s hits had been made in the ’60s and ’70s and that therefore “most people who came of age after that period have no idea of who he is.” Spector’s appeal was turned down, and the judge ruled that the testimony should be made public.
Spector immediately called foul. After appearing in court to enter a not-guilty plea, he dramatically addressed reporters outside the court-house, likening the district attorney, Steve Cooley, to Hitler and accusing Cooley “and his storm-trooping henchmen” of conspiring to deny him California’s constitutional right to a preliminary hearing.
“Instead,” Spector went on, “he secretly, as fascists would, went to a secret grand jury, to seek, and get an indictment. Why? Is anyone about to flee the jurisdiction? The only one involved in this case, I know, who is seeking to flee the jurisdiction, is the district attorney himself, who longs to get on an airplane to Sacramento to become the attorney general of California.”
By not having a preliminary hearing, Spector argued, his expert witnesses, Dr. Henry Lee, Dr. Michael Baden and Dr. Cyril Wecht—“three of the most respected forensic scientists, pathologists and coroners in the world”—had been prevented from testifying. All, Spector said, had examined the coroner’s report “and concluded, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the deceased’s wounds were consistent with that of a self-inflicted wound” he claimed that these three eminent coroners would not have ruled it a homicide.
“Why does the district attorney not want that evidence brought forth to a judge and to the public? And why does he not want the judge and the public to know that the deceased was legally intoxicated on the drug Vicodin and alcohol at the time she took her own life? And that her DNA was found on the gun, not mine; and that my fingerprints were not on the gun; and that Dr. Henry Lee found no ‘crime scene’ in my home on the morning of February 3, 2003, and that the gun the deceased used to kill herself was not owned by me, nor registered to me. Ask yourself why, and you’ll see why I am not getting a preliminary hearing.”
Spector further urged “fellow artist” Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to “stop this miscarriage of justice…so I, and my attorney, Mr. Bruce Cutler, can put an end to this travesty of justice, once and for all, and I can get on with my life.”
In fact, Spector was wrong; under California law, a defendant is not guaranteed a preliminary hearing; only a trial by jury, once indicted. But his outburst had the effect of keeping his declaration of innocence in the public eye, and portraying him, not Lana Clarkson, as the victim of horrendous circumstance.
In January 2005, the grand jury testimony was finally made public. Contained in the five volumes of 1,000 pages was the most complete accounting thus far of the events of the night of Lana Clarkson’s death and the prosecution case against Spector. They included police accounts of Spector’s behavior and his statements at the time of his arrest, expert forensic evidence, and testimony about Lana Clarkson. Among the thirty-one witnesses who gave evidence were the three women cited earlier by Douglas Sortino, describing incidents in the past in which Spector had allegedly threatened them with firearms.
Deborah Strand told of an incident at a party in Beverly Hills in 1999, when Spector allegedly flicked cigar ash at her dog after it had jumped up at him and then, when Strand asked him to leave, pointed a handgun at her right cheek. More significant would be the testimony from two other women, Dorothy Melvin and Stephanie Jennings.
Melvin, who had worked as Joan Rivers’s personal manager, stated that she had dated Spector sporadically from 1989 to 1993, seeing him between five and ten times a year, mostly when Spector was visiting New York. On July 2, 1993, Melvin said, she visited Spector for the first time at his home in Pasadena. They spent the evening playing pool and listening to music, Spector consuming almost a whole bottle of Smirnoff vodka, Melvin drinking nothing. At around midnight she fell asleep on the sofa. At about 5:00 a.m. she awoke, went outside and found Spector pointing a handgun at her new car that was parked in the driveway. When she went to confront him, she alleged, he struck her with the back of the hand that was holding the gun and told her to “get the fuck back in the house.” Inside, Spector sat on a staircase in the foyer, pointing the gun at her, repeatedly demanding that she undress and go upstairs to the bedrooms. When Melvin didn’t immediately respond, she alleged, Spector hit her again. He then accused her of searching his house, “snooping” and “stealing things,” and took her purse and went through it. When, at last, he ordered her out of the house, Melvin said, she ran sobbing to her car and drove to the locked gate. “I heard him running down the drive, and then I heard the pump of a shotgun,” she said. When she turned around to look she could see Spector pointing the shotgun at her. Eventually Spector opened the gate and Melvin made good her escape. Outside, she called the police, who came to the house and handcuffed Spector in the kitchen. Melvin was able to retrieve her purse, but declined to press charges, she explained, because she did not want to bring Joan Rivers’s name into the newspapers.
The following day, she alleged, Spector left threatening messages on her answering machine, complaining that she had called the police on him. “He had Marvin Mitchelson ready to sue me.”
( Joan Rivers recalls another incident at a Christmas party she threw where both Melvin and Spector were present. “He got angry,” says Rivers, “and pulled a gun on Walter Cronkite’s daughter. We had a security guard who got him out very quickly. That was the last time I saw him, going down the elevator in his little shoes with lifts. He was escorted out of my building. I have a very nice neighbor on the ground floor, an elderly lady who was dressed in Chanel. On his way out, she said to him ‘Merry Christmas.’ He said to her ‘Fuck you.’ Later I said, ‘Cindy, you could have been shot. You could have been in a Chanel suit that was black, white and red.’”)
Stephanie Jennings, a photographer, testified that she had first met Spector in April 1994 at a music awards show in Philadelphia and then a few months later in New York, when she had spent the night with him in his suite at the Carlyle Hotel. In September 1994 he invited her to come to Pasadena. She stayed the night, but in the morning when she wanted to leave, she alleged, Spector locked the doors and refused to let her go. He then left. Jennings contacted Spector’s assistant Paulette Brandt, who advised her to wait Spector out. Jennings said she remained in Spector’s bedroom for most of the day, until he finally returned and let her go.
Jennings next met Spector at the induction ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Spector, she said, paid for her room at the Carlyle Hotel, but at the party that night he drank heavily, becoming increasingly obnoxious. She eventually went to her room alone. At about 4:00 a.m., Spector’s bodyguard appeared at her door and told her Spector wanted her to join him. When she refused, Spector himself came to her room, and when she again refused his request to join him, sat in a chair in front of the door with a gun in his hand, refusing to let her leave. Jennings used the hotel phone to dial 911, Spector apparently thinking she was calling her mother. “He said, ‘You can call your mom. She can’t do anything,’” Jennings testified. After the call, Spector left the room. When the police arrived, Jennings told them she did not want to press charges and left.
The testimony also provided compelling forensic evidence that would prove highly significant in building the case against Spector.
Looking at the question of the gunshot residue found on Spector and Lana Clarkson, Christine Pinto, a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office (LASO) criminalist, and an expert in GSR, said that it was possible for a person to fire a gun and not have residue on their hands—a crucial point pertaining to the relatively small amount found on Spector, one particle on each hand. Pulling one’s hands in and out of one’s pockets several times would easily dislodge particles, she said; and about 90 percent would fall off within the first hour just by normal use of the hands. The amount isn’t important, she said, only the fact that it’s there.
Steven Dowell, a criminalist for the coroner’s office, testified that the GSR on Clarkson could have come from her putting up her hands in a defensive gesture, from her wrapping her hands around the cylinder of the gun in an attempt to push it away, or even if her hands had been in her lap. The pattern of GSR makes a cloud of about three feet anyw
here from three to fifteen feet in distance, he said, and most of the particles fall downward.
Most critical was the testimony of Lynne Herold, an LASO forensic scientist, since it seemed to establish that Spector was standing in front of Lana Clarkson when the gun was fired. Herrold determined that the gun had been fired from the normal, upright position, rather than turned to the side (as might be expected in suicide), and that the “mist-like spray” of blood found on Spector’s white jacket could only have come from the backflow of bullet gases from the mouth, and put Spector “within two or three feet” of the discharging weapon.
Herrold had examined the gun and found evidence that someone had wiped blood off it, but leaving some inside the cylinder and on the remaining bullets. She said it was possible that the cloth, or diaper, as she described it, found in the bathroom had been used to wipe the gun after it had been fired. This diaper was identical to others found with Spector’s guns upstairs: such diapers were ordinarily used to clean guns. Herrold thought it was possible that someone had tried to wipe the blood from Lana Clarkson’s face, because there were obvious smears on it. Someone had moved Clarkson’s head in trying to wipe the blood, she believed, and it was possible that some of this blood had been transferred to the diaper found in the bathroom—in fact, that the diaper had been used to wipe Clarkson’s face.
Louis Pena, the pathologist at the L.A. County Coroner’s Office who had performed the autopsy on Lana Clarkson, said the amount of Vicodin in Clarkson’s system was at “the lower end of the therapeutic level,” and stated that the combination of alcohol and Vicodin “can make you sleepy in general.” Pena also stated that he had found bruising on Clarkson’s body—on the right hand, right forearm, right lower leg and upper right thigh. A bruise on the back of her left hand was “acute.” The bruising, Pena thought, had occurred anywhere “from zero to four or five hours” before her death, not a day or so earlier. Asked to explain how the bruising might have occurred, Pena replied, “I will decline.”