US:Hours before her death from a single gunshot wound in the mouth, the actor Lana Clarkson watched a recording of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, a James Cagney film, with music legend Phil Spector, who is on trial for her murder.
On the second day of the trial at a downtown Los Angeles court, Mr Spector's lawyer, Bruce Cutler, completed his opening statement by stressing that the music producer had no motive to kill Ms Clarkson.
He accused police of approaching the case with "murder on their mind".
Describing their choice of movie on the drive to Spector's house as "prophetic", Mr Cutler said: "Phillip never knew this woman . . . he had no motive to hurt this woman."
The evidence was going to show conclusively, he said, "that the gun was held by [ the deceased] when it was fired".
Mr Cutler returned to the contention that Ms Clarkson was unstable, and suggested that the defence might argue that the .38 calibre revolver that killed Ms Clarkson was mistaken for a starting pistol also found in Mr Spector's home. "Keep in mind," he urged the jury, "alcohol, painkillers, a starting pistol that doesn't work, a deadly gun that could kill." He added: "Whatever she was doing, however she felt, she took her life. Unfortunately. Much too young."
He concluded: "This was a unique incident, an accident, not at the hands of Phil Spector."
Jurors were set to hear testimony yesterday from the opening prosecution witnesses, two women who have alleged that Spector threatened them with guns in the mid-'90s.
They are expected to play a key role in the prosecution's attempts to portray the death of Lana Clarkson as part of a pattern of behaviour by the music producer, now 67.
Mr Cutler denied the suggestion, calling the alleged incidents "isolated spats over the course of 20 years". He said that the women sought out Spector, whom Mr Cutler described as a "true romantic", and dismissed the allegations as "tall tales".
One of the women, Dorothy Melvin, worked as an assistant to Joan Rivers, a friend of Spector.
She has told prosecutors that Spector threatened her with a gun when she tried to leave his house one day in 1993. The other witness, Stephanie Jennings, a freelance photographer, has alleged that Spector threatened her with a gun at the Carlyle Hotel in New York after she refused to join him in his suite.
The second day of the trial confirmed that the case is not reaching the levels of interest generated by previous celebrity defendants. Only two public seats in court were taken on the second day, there was no media scrum and passersby at the courthouse seemed to take little interest. - ( Guardian service)