Phil Spector guilty in murder case

Music producer convicted in 2003 shooting

By MARC GRASER

Phil Spector was found guilty on Monday of killing actress Lana Clarkson at his home in 2003.

Conviction for second-degree murder ends a six-month retrial after a jury was unable to reach a verdict in 2007.

Spector faces at least 18 years in prison when he is sentenced.

The jury has been deliberating since March 26, but juror illnesses led to repeated interruptions.

Clarkson, 40, was found dead in Spector's Alhambra, Calif., home, with a gunshot wound through the roof of her mouth, hours after meeting the music producer at a Sunset Strip club where she worked as a hostess.

Attorneys for Spector, 69, argued that Clarkson had committed suicide. But prosecutors stressed that the music producer was a "very dangerous man" who had a history of menacing women with guns.

During the trial, five women testified to being threatened by Spector. His driver also took the stand to testify that he heard Spector say, "I think I killed somebody," and saw the producer leave his home with a pistol in his hand on the day Clarkson was found dead.

Clarkson had starred in such pics as Roger Corman's "Barbarian Queen" in 1985 and 1987's "Amazon Women on the Moon."

Spector, who is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, produced John Lennon's "Imagine," the Beatles' "Let It Be," the Ramones' "End of the Century," "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" by the Righteous Brothers.

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