Phil Spector: As the Jury Deliberates

As I write this, the jury is still in deliberation on the Lana Clarkson/Phil Spector murder trial. I have been asked to review this case for months, and with no intent to upset anyone, I just had no motivation to look into the case: Quite simply because Spector never made a public statement nor did he testify on his own behalf, and Clarkson was dead.

With that, I didn’t want to shift through all the videos on Court TV.com to determine who was who, and who was honest. I actually don’t spend much time researching case facts. I much prefer to simply watch suspects and victims talk: it’s much more accurate and requires less time. But luck has arrived for those of you who are still interested. Dateline NBC did a nice roundup of the case for me yesterday, and I watched it today. They titled it aptly Facing the Music.

Read moreDateline gave brief facts of the case, and then showed a fair amount of people testifying about their relationships with both Spector and Clarkson, which is just what I need. With testimony, I can usually pick out the honest people, and from their testimony surmise the truth with decent accuracy. I don’t need to hear all the case details. The facts of the case, while they enter into my ears, are usually taken with a grain of salt, especially in a case of a wealthy person. There is an expert to support every belief, somewhere, if you have time and money to seek them out. I’ve seen it one too many times, unfortunately. As Dateline says, “…no Hollywood jury has ever found a major celebrity guilty of murder.” Eerie.

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Perhaps money was his lure,
but his company the distraction?
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With that, do I think Clarkson killed herself? I do not, and I say that confidently and without hesitation. I think most people with reason can come to this determination. You don’t need wizard insight here. This is a case of logic and listening to people’s accounts of their relationships with both Spector and Clarkson, and applying logic. It doesn’t take much more than that.

Spector was a social misfit from a very young age. He was “off beat” and “awkward” until he started producing music. That’s when life came easier to him to a degree. He got the opportunity to enjoy the company of woman, and married four times. Obviously, staying married was difficult for Spector. Perhaps money was his lure, but his company was the distraction?

Add to that that Spector’s father committed suicide, and he himself had been diagnosed as a manic-depressive. Spector’s medical past doesn’t stand on stable ground, and through testimony in the trial, many women attest to this fact for decades. Many women testify about how Spector would surprise them with a gun, often when they were leaving and tell them that they weren’t going anywhere. He’d threaten them in attempt to gain control of what he had no control over: women.

(from Dateline NBC)
Dianne Ogden: He was screaming at me. He was screaming the f-word. You’re not f-ing leaving … He had a gun to my face, a pistol of some sort. I wouldn’t look at it. I couldn’t, you know. I was afraid to touch it, I was afraid it would go off. I wasn’t sure if it was loaded, and he had it here (moving her finger like a gun over her face) here, he put it all over me.

Melissa Grovsnor: He walked right up to me and held the gun right to my face. With just inches between my eyes and said if you try to leave I’m going to kill you.

Dorothy Melvin: He took his right hand that was holding the revolver and smacked me in the side of the head and said I told you to get the f- back in the house. Eventually he got up and he back handed me with the pistol again and said I told you to take your f-ing clothes off.

When I watched the women talk, it was cement on the block against Spector. They were honest in their accounts of how Spector treated them. Why would we believe Spector would act any different this night?

Add to this that Spector’s driver saw Spector in the doorway with a gun in his hand, and he heard him say, “I think I killed somebody.” That’s pretty damning alone but seeing the driver say it nails it for me. He is confident about what he heard and saw that night. He had no doubts. What would be his reason for lying be anyway? To lie would be to cut off his left arm– sending himself into the unemployment line.

Spector was a serious social misfit, outcast by his oddities, and I believe Spector had great anger inside him that had been brewing over a lifetime. He had it all, but the company of women, women who liked and wanted to be around him. And as he aged, fewer and fewer could handle a dirty old man who I suspect lusted after them. More and more women flew out that door than he could handle, and I think he finally pulled the trigger in a fit of rage.

Sepctor is a man with wealth and power, but little ability to keep women in his life for a satisfactory relationship that mends the wounds of life. Something so simple, that every poor man can enjoy, and all the money in the world couldn’t buy: true companionship.

Clarkson, while certainly facing a difficult time in life, hits me as a woman who endured and forged on. Sure, she may have spoken of a need to pull the plug to a friend, but many women will tell you they feel they can’t go on, but don’t mean a thing by it.

Clarkson had fought to make it in Hollywood for years, without ever making it big, and she was still trying, still hopeful underneath it all. As a matter of fact, she had just landed another part that she had yet to complete. If she was contemplating suicide, why would she still be trying? People who commit suicide often plan it out, slowly withdrawing from life. It didn’t appear that Clarkson was withdrawing from what I could see? She was still calling her friends and going out, too.

The majority of women statistically don’t kill themselves with a gun, either. Nor would I suspect women who do use a gun for suicide, use it in front of other people. They do it when they are alone, so they can be sure to get it right and won’t be talked out of it.

And last, I bet it is exceptionally rare, if even documented before, that a woman has gone to a stranger’s house and pulled the trigger on herself. That’s just out of the logical ball park, folks. It doesn’t happen, or if it has, it is statistically one-in-a-million odds.

I suspect Clarkson saw Spector that night and realized the enormity of the situation before her. Here was a powerhouse in Hollywood, and I suspect she thought perhaps if she shared a drink with him, he might return a favor to her in hopes of kindling a relationship with her. Perhaps he would connect her to the right people. Perhaps she thought her good looks might help her. Little did she know, they may have been the reason for her end.