THIRTEEN MONTHS after a jury was deadlocked over the guilt of legendary music producer Phil Spector in the death of an actress, a prosecutor rose before a second jury this week and offered it the same promise he made to the first.
"You will be introduced to the real Phillip Spector," deputy district attorney Alan Jackson told the Superior Court panel. That man, he said, had "a very rich history of violence" towards women that culminated in the murder of Lana Clarkson in the foyer of his Alhambra, California, mansion.
"This is how Phil Spector met Lana Clarkson," Mr Jackson said, as a glamorous head shot of the smiling blond actress appeared on a projection screen. "This is how he left her," he said, as a police photo appeared showing Ms Clarkson sprawled dead in a chair with blood on her mouth and nose.
In the crowded spectators' gallery, there was a soft gasp.
Spector, whose white tie and pocket square stood out against a black suit jacket and black shirt, stared forward at the defence table, acknowledging neither the prosecutor nor photos that flashed on the screen above his head.
In his opening statement, Mr Jackson said the fatal shooting of Ms Clarkson in February 2003 fitted the legendary music producer's 30-year pattern of terrorising women with guns when he was drunk and they wanted to leave his side.
"She was simply the last in a very long line of women who had suffered abuse at the hands of Phillip Spector over the years."
Spector (68), renowned for his work with artists including the Beatles, Tina Turner and the Ronettes, faces a minimum of 18 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder. The jury at his first trial was deadlocked 10 to two in favour of his guilt.
His defence contends that Ms Clarkson was depressed and shot herself with Spector's gun a few hours after they met at a music club.
In his remarks, Mr Jackson repeatedly returned to two disturbing statements he said witnesses would ascribe to Spector. In the first, made a decade before the shooting, he allegedly used a profanity to describe women and said: "They all deserve a bullet in their heads."
The second allegedly was made seconds after the shooting when, according to a chauffeur, Spector emerged from his palatial home with blood on his hands and said, "I think I killed somebody." - ( Los Angeles Times-Washington Post service)