Spector trial ends, is set to go to the jury

Prosecutors completed closing arguments in the Phil Spector murder trial Friday with a computer-animated video illustrating their version of how Lana Clarkson died. The thrust of the animation was to rebut the defense’s central point -- that the 40-year-old actress shot herself.

Spector, 67, is accused of killing Clarkson on Feb. 3, 2003. She was found dead, shot in the mouth, in his Alhambra home hours after they had met at the House of Blues nightclub.

The animation showed Spector, using his right hand, firing into Clarkson’s face, with the gun barrel inside her mouth, and producing the bloodstains that were found on his jacket.

Prominent forensics experts testifying for the defense during the four-month trial said the small size and pattern of stains on the jacket showed that Spector was standing as far as six feet from Clarkson when she was shot -- too far to have held the gun in her mouth.

The defense also argued that a bloodstain on the right triceps area of Spector’s jacket meant his right arm was raised defensively, not pointing the gun at Clarkson.

The video, drawn in the exaggerated style of Japanese anime, showed how recoil from the gunshot could have thrust Spector’s arm upward, exposing the stained areas of his jacket -- the right triceps and the left breast -- to the blood.

The animation was part of the prosecution’s final rebuttal of defense arguments. Jurors will be read instructions Monday morning and then begin deliberating, Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler said Friday.

Prosecutor Patrick Dixon began his 1-hour-and-40-minute rebuttal presentation by telling jurors that the frightened reaction of Spector driver Adriano DeSouza when the music producer emerged from his house, holding a gun and saying, “I think I killed somebody,” showed he was telling the truth.

DeSouza, a Brazilian army veteran, said he saw Spector holding the gun and fled the scene to telephone Spector’s assistant, then the police, Dixon noted.

Had Spector been unarmed, DeSouza would have no reason to be afraid of his older, frail employer, Dixon said.

“It’s the reaction you’d expect from a person seeing someone with a gun,” he said.

DeSouza “did not rush in to offer aid, he jumped in his car and drove away, like any of us would,” Dixon said.

By contrast, Spector’s actions revealed consciousness of guilt, Dixon said. Spector did not use any of the more than a dozen phones in the house to call police. He did not ask DeSouza to help him or Clarkson.

“He didn’t call for help. Why?” Dixon asked. “Because he murdered her. He killed her.”

Dixon assailed the credibility of defense science experts. Defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden had opened the trial, he said, by promising experts who would be unbiased.

Dixon noted that one of the defense’s chief experts was Kenney Baden’s husband, forensic pathologist Michael Baden.

Dixon played video of Baden testifying under cross-examination that he could not define “conflict of interest” because he is not a lawyer.

The prosecutor reminded jurors that another defense pathologist, Vincent DiMaio, had said Clarkson could have pulled the gun from Spector’s hands, and that DiMaio claimed to have personally taken guns from assailants -- twice.

Looking at the jury, Dixon said dryly, “It’s for you to pick the most ridiculous point in the trial, not me.”

Dixon’s presentation followed the final portion of Kenney Baden’s closing arguments, the bulk of which had been completed Thursday.

Summing up, Kenney Baden said of her eccentric client: “We don’t convict people in this country because we don’t like them, because we don’t like their hair, because we don’t like their clothes.”

She urged jurors to reject “tall tales” from prosecutors and to conclude that Clarkson’s death was self-inflicted, either an accident or suicide.

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peter.hong@latimes.com

john.spano@latimes.com