So that it, it's decided. Phil Spector couldn't have possibly shot Lana Clarkson in the mouth and killed her because he's so old and weak and frail that Lana Clarkson would have body-slammed him through a brick wall if he'd even tried.
That's the claim made yesterday by Dr Vincent DiMaio during his third day on the stand at the Phil Spector murder trial. The Phil Spector-employed forensics expert has stated that since Lana Clarkson was younger, taller and fitter than Phil Spector she'd have been able to beat Spector back as he tried to place the gun in her mouth. Vincent DiMaio hasn't yet testified that Lana Clarkson was also so strong that she was able to use her teeth to crush any bullets being fired into her mouth by anyone else but her, but it's though that Phil Spector was keen for that to be the grand finale.
Now that the defence in the Phil Spector murder trial has started to make its case, two very different pictures are emerging of the tragic 2003 night that Lana Clarkson was fatally shot in Phil Spector's mansion. According to the prosecution, Phil Spector was acting weird on the night of the death, possibly because all those gunpoint rape attempts had left him tired. Then Phil Spector met Lana Clarkson in a bar, took her home, popped a couple of Viagra pills and, standing right in front of her, shot Clarkson in the mouth with his unregistered gun, causing enough blood to spurt out that all his DNA was removed from the gun. Following the shooting, Phil Spector then told his driver that he killed someone.
But, somewhat unsurprisingly, the defence sees things differently. Phil Spector's defence claims that Lana Clarkson committed suicide because she saw the ghost of a dead actress once. However, thanks to the testimony of retired forensics expert Vincent DiMaio things have got a little more scientific. DiMaio has already claimed that Phil Spector was at least six feet away from Clarkson, and thus unable to hold a gun into her mouth, at the time of her death and proved it by discussing violent blood explosions. Then DiMaio mentioned that Clarkson was depressed enough to kill herself and now he's saying that Phil Spector is too puny for murder anyway. E! Online reports:
"Look at Mr. Spector," the former chief medical examiner for Bexar County, Texas, said, pointing to the Wall of Sound creator, whose hands were visibly shaking. "He has Parkinson's features. He trembles… She was 25 years younger, seven to nine inches taller. She outweighed him by 25 pounds and was in better health than he was… Her reflexes would have been greater, her strength greater. "It would be more likely for her to have shot him than for him to have shot her," DiMaio said.
This 'small and weedy' claim backs up Phil Spector's earlier claim that he's too short to kill anyone, although during cross-examination Alan Jackson of the prosecution carefully pointed out that it's a bit of a stretch to think that small people can't kill bigger people with guns.
The Phil Spector murder trial has next week off thanks to Independence Day, but when the trial resumes there's only one way to really gauge how strong Phil Spector really is – a Man Vs Beast contest. Phil Spector would have to run the gauntlet of physical tasks against animals of all sizes for the jury, from punching a squirrel off a perch to garroting an angry grizzly bear with one of his shoelaces. Since Lana Clarkson isn't around for a rematch with Phil Spector, it might be the only way we'll ever really be able to test his strength as a man.
Read more:
Witness: Clarkson, Stronger Than Spector, Pulled Trigger – E! Online
Gilbert Wham says
Can they not find someone of similar build and have him attempt to shoot her? Sort of an ‘If I did it’ moment.