Spector trial on recess due to graphic images

The judge on the Phil Spector murder trial yesterday (June 19) ordered a recess following the viewing of photographic evidence of Lana Clarkson’s body.

Photos of the actress showed blood oozing from her mouth and nose, as criminologist Lynne Herold described the ways in which blood splatters when it leaves a wound.

Phil Spector is being tried for the murder of the actress, who was found dead in his home in February 2003. He is denying that he killed her, and is saying she accidentally shot herself.

Herold referred to the smeared blood found on the gun, and said she assumed that “no law enforcement personnel moved it.”

Spector’s chauffeur Adriano DeSouza previously testified that the music producer emerged from his mansion on the night in question with a gun in his hand and said ‘I think I killed somebody’.

Herold also said based on the photographs of the body that someone had moved Clarkson’s head before police arrived.

She said blood spatter can not travel more than three feet from a bullet entry-point. Spector’s defense team previously said blood can travel up to six feet. The defense team’s forensics expert Dr. Henry Lee is expected to revisit this issue in further testimonies.

Lee was recently discredited in the courtroom when former Spector defense lawyer Sara Caplan said she saw him place a small, flat white object in a vial. The object is thought to be an acrylic fingernail belonging to Clarkson and would give some evidence to the prosecutions claim that she tried to avoid being shot. Lee is denying such an object exists, but Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler ruled that Caplan’s claim is the truth.

Caplan meanwhile, is refusing to give this evidence in front of a jury, citing laywer-client privilege. As a result, the judge has sentenced her to jail for contempt.

The trial is expected to continue tomorrow.

--By our New York staff.
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