Transcripts Detail Spector’s Behavior

Phil Spector, the rock music producer, was belligerent and profane in his first interview with police the night he allegedly shot and killed an actress in his Alhambra mansion.

Transcripts of Spector’s police interrogation show that he said he shot Lana Clarkson accidentally, then told police that she had committed suicide. At one point, Spector derided Clarkson for going to his house and “blowing her brains out.”

Spector’s driver, Adriano De Souza, also told a 911 dispatcher that the producer had told him that he killed the woman, according to transcripts of the call. De Souza testified that was what Spector had said when he stepped out of his house minutes after the driver had heard a shot inside.

The 44 pages of transcripts were made from taped conversations played for the Los Angeles County Grand Jury that indicted Spector on a murder charge in September. They were unsealed Monday.

Spector, 64, has pleaded not guilty to killing Clarkson. He faces life in prison if convicted.

His lawyer, Bruce Cutler, accused Los Angeles County prosecutors last week of making a case against his client out of “lies and half-truths.”

When Alhambra police arrived at Spector’s home on Feb. 3, 2003, they found Clarkson’s body in a chair in the foyer, and they detained Spector.

“This is the most devastating thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Spector told the officers searching his estate.

At first, the music producer offered to tell police what happened, according to the grand jury transcript.

“Just ask me and I’ll tell you. I’m not Robert Blake,” he said, referring to the star of the 1970s television series “Baretta,” who is accused of killing his wife.

“The gun went off accidentally. She works at the House of Blues. It was a mistake,” Spector said. “I don’t know how it happened.”

Alhambra Police Officer Beatrice Rodriguez also testified before the grand jury that Spector said: “What’s wrong with you guys? What are you doing? I didn’t mean to shoot her. It was an accident.”

At his house, Spector complained about being “tied up like a pig” and accused the officers of acting “so ... important.”

“The LAPD works for me,” he told officers searching his house, according to the transcript. A few minutes later, Spector told the same officers, “I love you guys.”

Spector changed his story once behind bars.

He told a detective that Clarkson “had no right” to go to his house and kill herself, and called the dead woman an obscene name, according to the newly released transcript.

In the same recorded jailhouse conversation, Spector asks Det. Esther Pineda, “I’m being charged with murder?” according to the transcript.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s one of the things.”

“Of whom?” Spector responded.

Spector said his arrest was “the most bizarre nonsense,” the transcript shows. “This is absolutely absurd,” he said, then asked the detective not to leave him alone in the cell for too long.

“I’m sorry this happened,” he said. “I don’t know how it happened.”

Spector also told the detective that Alhambra’s mayor had asked him to bring singer Bono, of the rock band U2, to sing at an anniversary event.

In a transcript of the 911 call, De Souza, the limo driver, told the operator, “I think my boss killed somebody.” He said he heard a shot, saw Spector with a gun and saw a woman’s body on the floor.

“I hear the uh, uh, uh, uh, uh -- like a noise. And then he opened the door and [said], ‘I think ... I killed her,’ ” De Souza testified.