Original subtitles

[Phil Spector] If they don't like you,

if you got a tainted past,

if they've got a picture of you with a gun,

if you've done something wrong,

if they think you've done something wrong,

and they don't like you for whatever reason,

they will screw you.

Phil Spector very much saw himself

as a victim of all kinds of things.

Whether it was from being puny at high school,

being a Jew, not getting a stamp made

with his name on it when Buddy Holly did...

most of the way he viewed the world

was about how unfairly he was treated.

And his characterization of himself

as the victim on that night was on a par with that.

I think he was terrified that he'd be found guilty,

and that he...

tried to act just like he had all the reasons

to think that he wouldn't be found guilty.

What happens when artistic genius

collides with the criminal justice system?

[cameras snapping]

Daydreaming 'bout you

So glad I found you

I was lost without you

I'll sing a little louder

So glad I found you

I was lost without you

I'll sing a little louder

Phil Spector appeared to be doing everyday living.

He had gotten married.

[Mick Brown] I guess she's probably 40 years his junior.

This woman named Rachelle Short.

She, too, was a sort of aspirant musician,

aspirant actress, model.

In fact, the wedding was in the castle,

the place where Lana Clarkson was murdered.

For a lot of this period, he's then going out and about.

You know, he's sort of-- he's seen in restaurants,

he's talking to friends.

He actually gives an interview to Esquire Magazine,

but barely finds time to mention the fact

that he's on a murder charge.

And as you can well imagine,

you have Lana's family

very frustrated, you know.

His life is still going on,

and their loved one's life is over.

[Alan Jackson] Phil Spector thought, "If I just throw

"enough money at this.

"It's been happening for 40 years.

"Celebrities get off in this town all the time.

"They'll never convict me.

"I'm Phil Spector, for God's sake.

"I have unlimited resources.

"I will throw enough lawyers, I will throw enough experts,

"that they'll just get convoluted.

"They'll get turned inside and out.

I'll never get convicted."

[Beth Karas] Phil Spector put together a good team.

Linda Kenney Baden has expertise in forensics,

and this is a forensic case.

It's gonna largely be based on blood spatter,

and the wounds, and the autopsy, and all that.

The defense position was that the scene

and everything was messed up right from the beginning,

and that it wasn't interpreted properly.

[Linda Kenney Baden] Our trial team's narrative

at the trial was that Phillip was coming down the stairs.

He had left Miss Clarkson sitting in the chair,

he was coming down the stairs after a certain period of time

thinking that she would be leaving, or had gone,

and that she had the gun in her mouth,

and then it went off, and you know,

as it went off, he said "No!"

And that was consistent

with what we saw with the forensics,

which was the one possible bloodstain

that was underneath Phillip's white jacket

that he was definitely wearing.

That could only happen if his arm was up

at the time of the shooting.

If Phillip Spector were standing right in front of her,

she had the blood spatter all over her, he did not.

[Ricardo Enriquez] They showed the jacket on the screen.

We can't see the blood.

And certainly, if he had done it,

there would have been more blood.

So, that was-- that was troubling.

There was a Quentin Tarantino-esque idea

by-- that was propounded by the defense,

that when you walk up and shoot someone at close range,

you're just covered in blood.

You know, spatter's all over you.

That's not true. It's just not the science.

There's times where you can be

within three feet, shoot someone,

and not get a speck of blood on you.

The spatter pattern on the jacket actually shows

that he did stand on top of her,

and he did put the gun in her mouth.

If he's within two feet of her

at the time that the shot was fired,

and his right arm is raised,

which the bloodstain pattern evidence established,

then that's got his finger on the trigger

that's got the gun in his hand.

Lana Clarkson was stretched back in the chair.

The blood spatter stopped at the hem of her skirt.

If high-velocity back spatter

went any further than the hem of her skirt,

it would have been on her thighs,

on her knees, and her shoes.

It wasn't.

We know where the pattern ends.

It ends in two feet.

That means arm's length.

Arm's length from Lana Clarkson.

Arm's length.

That's where Phillip Spector was.

His conduct was so abusive and so abhorrent.

He would put guns in women's mouths,

push guns up against people's heads.

[Beth] This is a man who didn't like to take "no" from a woman.

He wanted control.

He did not like rejection, he did not like to be alone.

He had abandonment issues.

Maybe it goes back to his father

killing himself so young

and the relationship he had with his mother.

[Vikram Jayanti] The children of deranged parents,

or alcoholic parents, or abusive parents,

frequently turn into control freaks.

They want a world where they have total control

so they have a world of order.

And he was a fiend for order.

He's controlling, he needs to control.

And the reason he needs to control

is 'cause he's got insecurity himself.

[Richard] The officers arrived within three minutes

of the call, and they waited for the assisting units.

They interviewed Mr. De Souza at the scene,

obtained more information.

They developed a gameplan to approach the house.

[gate creaking]

[Alan] The police had no idea what they were dealing with.

They set up to make entry into the house

as carefully as they possibly could.

It was probably 45 minutes or so later

after the 911 call.

Never once during that time

did Phil Spector pick up a phone,

any of the phones in his house to call the police.

He doesn't know the police are on their way,

he doesn't know De Souza has called,

but he never calls.

If, in fact, he's the shooter,

he has time to clean up some of the scene.

He had on a white jacket when he was out that evening.

When the officers came,

he no longer had that white jacket.

It was found on the floor of his bedroom, not hung up.

So, one could infer that he took it off very quickly

and just dropped it to the floor.

[Alan] To me, it showed he was in a panic.

He needed time to think,

and he needed time to try to cover up

this incredibly horrific deed that he had just done.

There was a cloth baby diaper found at the scene,

in the bathroom that was just adjacent to that foyer.

Gun owners often wrap their guns in cloth diapers

to keep it lubricated.

This cloth diaper had blood.

It was later determined to be Lana Clarkson's blood.

The toilet had blood in it,

indicating that the diaper had been used

to wipe her face,

and then it was washed off in the toilet.

Not the sink. In the toilet.

Why would Phil Spector wash a baby diaper in a toilet

unless he was trying to get rid of evidence?

Was there or was there not an open toilet

right next to the bloody wet rag?

Yes, sir, but when people

go to wash their hands,

they usually wash their hands

in a sink rather than washing

in a toilet, if there's a sink.

What if they just killed somebody, Doctor?

You'd have to be a master criminal.

I really don't think he's a master criminal.

The prosecution kept saying,

"Well, she has all this blood all over her,

"and he was trying to clean it up

and clean it off her."

But what are you gonna clean up?

She's full of blood, the carpet is full of blood.

There's teeth everywhere. What are you cleaning up?

I mean, she's in the house.

You're not cleaning up anything.

[Beth] There's the gun under her left leg.

How do you kill yourself with your right hand,

and how does the gun get under your left leg?

That's not a natural place where the gun would fall

if you kill yourself like that, right?

He had time to stage some of the scene.

When you fire a gun, there's kickback to it,

especially if you're-- you end up dead,

it's your kickback, it hits-- it hits your thumbnail

and it falls.

So, you don't know where that gun fell.

So, we didn't think the position of the gun mattered an iota.

[Richard] If one was shot in the mouth,

there's an expectation that there would be a lot more blood

on the actual weapon itself.

There was not,

indicating someone had wiped it down.

That's an impossibility that she did that.

He decides in a panic, "I'm gonna wipe her face off.

"I'm gonna take the gun, I'm gonna wipe that off

"because I had it in my hand.

"I'm gonna place it under her leg,

and then I'm gonna say that she did it herself."

[man] Dr. Di Maio, what was it about the emails

that suggested to you that Miss Clarkson

was the victim of a self-inflicted wound?

[Vincent] Well, she had financial problems.

She was afraid of being evicted.

One note to a doctor,

she said she was at the end of her rope

and couldn't function.

She also, of course, had the wrist injuries

and had been on very heavy doses

of narcotics for almost six months.

There's this evidence about her depression,

and she was on antidepressant.

All the proof was it's a suicide.

I think she was a very troubled woman.

She was an actress who's 40 years of age.

I'm sorry, you know, that's sex discrimination,

but that's the way it is.

[Nili Hudson] I understand that Phil Spector's attorneys

had to mount a defense,

and that the only way they could defend Phil Spector

was to put the gun in her hand.

[Vincent] I'd list the cause of death

as an intraoral gunshot wound,

and the manner of death is suicide.

[Nili] The picture that the defense was painting

was that she was suicidal,

which couldn't be further from the truth.

Could not be further from the truth.

[Rod Lindblom] We all sat there in disbelief

when they concocted this defense

that she was down on her luck and suicidal,

and I mean, it was pretty hard to sit there

day in and day out

and listen to that.

She had no reason to kill herself.

She was busy, you know, she was working.

She had just booked an audition that Friday.

She told me she was gonna let go of the job

at House of Blues because she was, you know,

getting busy again.

She was going to emcee an event in a few days.

This is not a woman who's ready to die.

[Paul] You just gotta be reasonable.

Would someone go into a stranger's home

and just kill themself for no reason?

I've handled numerous suicides

and I've never had a woman shoot herself in the face.

I'm not saying it's never happened,

but I've never handled one like that.

[Alan] We were well into the trial.

There was another thing that we knew,

and that was dealing with her fingernail.

It was white. And it was quite small.

Just a little white thing the size of my fingernail.

[female reporter] These witnesses claim

they saw something in the foyer of Phil Spector's house.

Prosecutors say it's a critical piece of evidence

that could help prove their case for murder.

We knew that Lana Clarkson had acrylic nails.

She kept them perfectly done at all times.

And when she was found after the shot,

her right thumbnail had been badly chipped off.

There are rules with regard to what the defense

can and cannot do at a crime scene.

They're allowed equal access.

That's just basic due process rights.

What they can't do is remove, or manipulate,

or alter evidence found at the crime scene.

Something unusual happened at this crime scene, however.

[female reporter] Prosecutors believe Lana Clarkson's

broken acrylic fingernail was recovered

by Dr. Henry Lee.

The renowned criminalist was hired by the defense team

to examine the shooting scene.

[Alan] A female lawyer for the defense testified,

"I was there, I was at the crime scene,

"and I believe Henry Lee

may have taken something from the crime scene."

[Sara Caplan] He picked it up and put it in a plastic vial.

And that's the last I saw of that.

Because of that revelation,

we called Henry Lee to the stand

in a motion outside the presence of the jury,

inquired of him whether or not that ever happened.

So, if Miss Caplan testified that she watched you

pick a small white object up with--

it was flat with uneven edges--

and drop it into a test tube, she would be incorrect?

I think she made an honest mistake.

Whatever we found, I reported.

Nothing to hide about it.

[Alan] He said he didn't take anything from the crime scene,

and we had no way of proving otherwise.

To this day, I've never seen that nail.

Dr. Lee, he testifies that he never put anything

in a vial, and that is inconsistent

with Miss Caplan's testimony.

And if I have to choose between the two,

I'm gonna find that Miss Caplan

is more credible than Dr. Lee.

[Alan] The lawyer who watched it,

she said, "I saw it.

"I saw that there was a black mark

"on one side of it.

"I asked Henry Lee what that was,

and his answer was he believed it was a strike mark,"

meaning a lead strike mark.

The only thing lead in that room is a bullet,

meaning the bullet struck that item.

[Pat Dixon] We think it's the victim's fingernail,

and it has bullet wipe on it,

and it's because her hand

was in her mouth

trying to push the gun away

when Phil Spector

pointed the gun in her face,

in her mouth, and fired the weapon.

I've handled numerous suicides

where people have shot themselves in the head.

And I've never seen a fingernail broke over that.

So, the fingernail indicated to me

that there was a struggle of some sort

right there at that time.

The fact that the bullet wipe would be on her fingernail

would show that her hands and her fingers

were not on the trigger.

She did not commit suicide.

He probably put that gun to her face.

She had a wrist injury, but she tried to fight him off.

And when doing so, he either panicked,

or whatever happened, and shot her.

[Vikram] I don't really know how much Phil felt

in terms of other people's sufferings.

I don't think he had any talent for empathy.

But I suspect the death of Lana Clarkson

and the trial, it all fit into his narrative of himself

as someone sinned against.

This woman had come to his house

and ruined his life.

He genuinely at every point seemed to believe

that she killed herself.

When you're indicted, when you're accused,

you are guilty,

and that's just the way it goes.

Innocent until proven guilty is the bill of rights.

It's out the window.

[Carol Kaye] After I saw him on trial,

I just couldn't watch any of that.

That wasn't the Phil Spector I knew.

Phillip, what the hell happened to you?

What happened to all the work

that we did on those hit records?

You put us all at risk, you know, to a certain extent,

the work that we had put into those records.

That was a piece of us that was on trial too.

[Phil] I have to admit that I've been somewhat ostracized

by the industry with this indictment.

Something as heinous as a murder charge

is appalling to some people,

with no foundation whatsoever to base it upon.

There's just nothing you can do about the assumption of guilt

when you're accused by an indictment.

[Vikram] I remember early on him saying that the judge

wouldn't let him play any of his music,

I mean, that they weren't allowed to talk

about his musical career in the trial,

'cause it had no bearing on that night.

The trial was going on all around him,

and he was thinking, "If these guys

"could just hear this,

we wouldn't be sitting here in this courtroom."

[Beth] The courtroom was always full,

primarily full of media, and you know,

some interested members of the public.

But in terms of family,

Lana Clarkson's mother would be there,

and the attorney representing the family.

And on Phil's side, his wife Rachelle

was always there.

Rachelle seemed to like the attention,

and was always very, you know, made up and well-dressed,

and you know, presenting herself.

Phillip obviously felt the need to have somebody around

who he thought believed in him.

So, we had to be very careful with Rachelle.

We're trying to get the best for Phillip,

we're trying to represent him the best,

and we can't have anyone throw roadblocks our way.

But yes, it was a problem.

- [woman] Get out of the way. - Excuse me, please.

Get out of the way.

[man] She attended her husband's trial each day,

where her advocacy got people's attention.

[Judge Fidler] Mrs. Spector, I want you to hear

every comment I make.

I can assure you, I will hold you

in contempt of court for violating my order,

and I will treat it accordingly.

[Rachelle] And that's okay for Louis?

- Ma'am... - ...and all the other bad people

- to go out and say stuff... - Ma'am, you don't...

...and be nasty about him?

Would you like to remain in the courtroom?

[Nicole] She was definitely in the limelight.

I suppose that that was exciting for her,

or grati-- I mean, I don't know, it seemed like she liked it.

His DNA was nowhere on the weapon,

his fingerprints were not on the weapon.

[Linda] She wanted to be in on everything,

she wanted to judge every decision.

We co-opted Rachelle to understand

that every decision we were making for Phillip

was a good decision, and that he was for it,

and that we had to be a team here.

There was sort of an air that he was somehow being

held aloft by Rachelle.

I mean, clearly, she was very protective of him,

and this attitude clearly then came to play

later in the courtroom.

One of the themes that the defense embraced

throughout the entirety of the trial was...

how to denigrate Lana Clarkson and her memory.

[man] Mr. Terzian, I'm gonna ask you

to watch this, okay?

It's a short video.

And when we conclude it,

I'm gonna ask you some questions, okay?

- Sure. - Thank you.

[music playing]

[Alan] They decided to argue for the admission

of a sizzle reel that Lana Clarkson had put together,

"Lana Unleashed," to sort of showcase her abilities.

Hello, and welcome to DA-- Dolls Anonymous.

I'm Barbie, an anatomically incorrect icon.

[Alan] She considered herself much like Lucille Ball

in terms of a comedic actress.

She was funny, she was goofy,

she liked to be physical in her comedy.

They decided to use it to embarrass her.

[man] After you saw this, after you looked at this,

did you still think that she was extremely marketable,

the Bible, a real moneymaker?

[Nick] Yes.

I believe they thought that it was a valid defense

to try to make her somewhat less worthy.

She never performed in any A-movies, correct?

No.

To embarrass her.

Any year that you represented her,

did she ever make a million dollars?

[Nick] Not to my recollection.

To decrease her value as a human being, as a person.

Well, well, well.

I know you're not stupid, Polly.

Phil Spector's wife was sitting behind him

in the audience, and she made a point,

as did some of the folks on the defense team,

to snicker and laugh out loud

while this was being played for the jurors.

I sat there seething.

I don't know that I've ever been as pissed

as I was that day watching them snicker

and make fun of this beautiful woman

who died far too young.

[Donna] I just had to tolerate it.

You know, I had to just be the mom

and be there for her,

and try to hold my composure as best as I could.

[Alan] What that sizzle reel actually did,

was it put flesh and bone onto Lana Clarkson

for those jurors.

Do you have a minute to sit?

I own this place, they don't care.

- Okay. - So, how are you?

[scoffs] Good.

Just trying to do the dating thing.

[Ricardo] She was doing a conversation with a guy

across a table, and I saw her.

And she was funny, she was alive,

she was a person.

She wasn't a piece of meat on an embalming table,

or a disembodied throat, or a tongue.

Check? [laughing]

For that moment...

[choking up] I knew Lana.

And I-- and I missed her,

and I grieved for her, because I got to know her.

And then I got angry at that motherfucker

for doing this to her.

We went back into the jury room,

and we're... we're sitting there sobbing,

because it totally just brought her to life.

Mwah, ciao, bye-bye. Yeah.

[Beth] Linda Kenney Baden gave the closing argument

for the defense.

We thought that we had the better narrative.

We thought we had given the jurors who were interested

in actually finding the truth,

or seeking the truth, as we called it,

we thought we'd given them

the points to argue in that jury room.

[Beth] And then Alan Jackson brought it home

with all the final arguments, and explaining why this guy

absolutely killed Lana Clarkson, she did not kill herself,

dismantling the forensic evidence.

I felt like the evidence was there.

I felt like we had done our job.

We had provided them with cogent, coherent,

lucid arguments about why Phil Spector

was guilty of second-degree murder,

why he should be convicted of second-degree murder.

She didn't kill herself. He murdered her.

And then it was in the jurors' hands.

[man] The Phil Spector murder case

is now in the hands of jurors.

Jurors have been deadlocked in their deliberations

since Tuesday, when they told the judge

they were unable to reach a verdict.

The defense put together a scientific case

and really did have a fair amount of evidence,

believe it or not, to suggest

that if Phil Spector had fired the gun,

there should have been a lot of blood on him

in places that blood was not found.

The longer the deliberations went on...

the more concerned you get.

[Alan] And I think there were people on that jury

who were bound and determined to come to a verdict.

I stayed hopeful.

I kept telling Donna, Lana's mother,

we've done what we've needed to do.

We've presented this evidence to a jury.

It's a difficult case, it's a long case.

But as the-- as the days marched on,

I became more wary and more concerned.

[Ricardo] It was a Thursday or a Wednesday, and I said,

let's do this.

One by one, we will all go around the table

defending our decision, either guilty or not guilty

based on the evidence only.

No bullshit.

And that was it. Just like that.

- [man] Back up, sir, back up. - [woman] What do you think

the jury's thinking, Phil? Rachelle?

[man] Spector arrived for another court session

Wednesday afternoon in Los Angeles

as jurors were signaling

they had a message for the judge.

[man] This court is now in session,

the Honorable Larry Paul Fidler, judge presiding.

All right, the defendant's present with his counsel,

the district attorneys are present,

the jurors and the alternates are present.

At this time, I will find that the jury

is unable to arrive at a verdict,

and declare a mistrial in this matter.

All right, I'm gonna ask that the courtroom

be cleared at this time, please.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

[woman] And we have some breaking news

that we want to bring to you.

Jurors in the Phil Spector murder trial,

they say that they're still unable to reach

a unanimous verdict, and now we understand

that the judge has declared a mistrial.

Ten to two.

Ten for guilty, two for not guilty.

[Ricardo] What I got from the jury

was that they wanted black and white.

There is no black and white.

Unless you were there, it's gonna be reasonable doubt.

[reporter] So, the jurors that were holdouts,

did they actually believe that it was suicide?

Or were they-- what was the feeling in the room?

They believed it could have been suicide,

and there was enough reasonable doubt.

See, the defense put enough out there,

and it stuck.

It was something to do with Adriano, I'm sure.

Maybe he didn't hear "I think I killed somebody."

Maybe Adriano heard, "Someone's been killed."

He told me, like, "I think I killed somebody."

Some people expected more blood.

Some people said, "Well, you know,

"it was probably her fault,

because what was she doing there?"

But, the same time, I said even if you go have sex

with somebody, and there was a half a bottle

of tequila or whatever, it doesn't mean

that she deserved to die.

You know, in my opinion,

I mean, he acted like a guilty man.

You know, he was guilty. That's how I voted.

I can look at myself in the mirror tomorrow,

get up, and sleep, and know that I did the right thing.

Give us three feet, give us three feet.

Give us three feet. Thank you.

Give us three feet.

- How are you feeling? - Give us three feet.

I just dropped my head and thought...

so this is what it feels like? [chuckles]

This is what it feels like

to fail at that level.

Back up, please. Back up.

[Linda] It happened so fast that I actually said,

okay, I think I'll try to make a plane flight for that night

because there's nothing left for me to do here.

And that was it.

[Donna] It was difficult to judge

what the verdict was gonna be.

And then when he wasn't convicted,

I just, you know, didn't know what to say.

It was horrible.

It was second only to her murder.

[woman] After five months, more than 70 witnesses,

and hundreds of exhibits, Phil Spector's murder trial

ends in a deadlock.

[cameras clicking]

Five and a half months of sitting there

listening to this day after day

about your daughter, your sister, is horrific.

Is this really Hollywood? Did that just happen again?

We were hoping for closure.

We were hoping for, um...

some peace.

And we were denied.

This is the video just in

of the Alhambra castle

just after the mistrial was declared.

It is Rachelle and Phil dancing a bit of a jig.

[Rod] I was at home and I was watching the news.

I see a helicopter shot

of Spector's house,

and his wife and he

are doing a jig, jumping around,

and just acting like...

Well, I mean, talk about inappropriate.

[Alan] You know, people talk about salt in a wound.

I've never wanted to put a brick through a TV

so bad in my life.

I do remember one thing.

Somebody stuck a microphone in my face and said,

"What are you gonna do now, Mr. Jackson?

Are you gonna try him again?"

And I don't remember anything else that I said

other than I looked right at the reporter

and said, "I will try this case again

every single time until justice is served."

[Nili] Thank God for Alan Jackson.

Thank God that he decided, like a dog with a bone,

that he was not gonna let it go.

No matter your fame, or your wealth,

or your supposed celebrity, you will stand trial,

and you will be accountable for your actions.

Alan came right up to me-- Alan Jackson, the prosecutor--

and said we're gonna retrial.

And he petitioned immediately for another trial.

[Alan] We had blueprinted the first case.

We knew what the evidence was,

we knew what the fact witnesses were gonna say,

we knew what the experts were going to say.

We knew how they had testified previously.

We didn't do it much differently.

What was different was the defense team.

Even if the gun went in accidentally,

it would go in with some force.

At the second trial, he just had one main attorney.

He didn't have all the group that he had before.

None. Not a contusion,

not an abrasion, nothing.

[Rod] Phil Spector prided himself

on, you know, being that guy,

being the guy that had all the big attorneys,

all the big experts.

But I think at-- during the second trial,

he didn't quite have that same legal dream team.

There was a new defense team.

And you know, I know that Phillip

was so unhappy with his representation.

I felt very bad that I could not try the second case.

But I had been so sick, there was no way

I was gonna do a second trial. Couldn't do it.

[Mick] I think by this point

Phil was seriously hemorrhaging money.

I mean, seriously hemorrhaging money.

The second trial was--

it almost passed as an afterthought.

All the celebrity had drained out of it.

All the-- kind of the media interest

had drained out of it.

[Donna] There wasn't as many people in the audience

trying to get in, 'cause the first trial,

people were in line at the door with numbers waiting to get in.

Well, it wasn't as much of a circus.

You know, it was a little calmer.

Like I said, it was just the one attorney

and his secretary, or assistant,

and then a gentleman that ran his audio-visual.

If Phillip Spector had shot Lana Clarkson...

[Alan] The defense attorney who took over the case

was far more sober about the type of defense

he wanted to put on.

It didn't have all of the glitz

that the first defense had.

He pared everything down, and that's why the trial

didn't last nearly as long.

By that point, that was the second trial,

and I was like, you know,

I had learned to be really tough

and accept what they were trying to do,

and not let it turn me into a weeper,

or a monster, you know. [chuckles]

Just try to keep my dignity.

I didn't know what to think, and you know,

I was just, you know, holding my breath again.

Right at that moment, you see the driver walk over...

I was trepidatious, to say the least, obviously,

having gone through the crucible of a second trial.

We put on as good a case as we could.

We closed the case out as strong as we could.

I wasn't trusting anything to chance.

[Nili] I was there for the verdict,

and it was one of those moments in your life

that you just... you don't breathe.

[cameras clicking, photographers shouting]

When I finally got the call, it was very different

than the last time I got a call like that.

It wasn't just, "Show up to court,"

it was, "Alan, get back to court, they have a verdict."

[man] Remain seated, come to order, department 106

is now in session, the Honorable Larry Paul Fidler,

judge presiding.

All right, in the Spector matter,

he's present with his counsel.

[woman] We, the jury, in the above entitled action,

find the defendant, Phillip Spector,

guilty of the crime of second-degree murder

of Lana Clarkson.

We further find the allegation

that in the commission of the above offense,

said defendant, Phillip Spector,

personally used a firearm,

to wit: handgun, within the meaning

of Penal Code Section 12022.5(a)(1) to be true.

Yes, I felt justice.

[Susan Michelson] I remember...

[chuckles] feeling ecstatic

that he was going to finally pay for it,

and be in jail, and off the street

where he couldn't harm someone else.

[Kim Gregory] It was relief.

Alan Jackson, just amazing attorney,

and did so well

navigating through two huge trials

to be the first celebrity that's been

put away in years, you know?

I was actually on the phone with my mother,

and I turned the TV off,

and I made her tell me

what they said.

We were both just complete messes after that.

[Donna] I wasn't sure how to feel, what to think.

I was still feeling quite emotional.

I just knew that we had gotten a guilty verdict,

and it was a good thing, and that now we could,

you know, move forward.

[Carol Connors] I don't believe that Phil really believed

that he was ever going to be convicted.

Phil just couldn't conceive

that here, he'd done so much

and accomplished,

and was the genius of rock and roll,

and the Hall of Fame, and Phil--

"And me? I'm going to go to jail?"

I don't think Phil could conceive that in his head.

[Judge Fidler] Thank you.

We're here for sentencing.

I've received the following,

the defendant is sentenced to the term of,

required by law, of 19 years to life.

[Mick] Was sentenced to 19 years to life.

He was taken to Corcoran Prison in upstate California.

[fence rattling]

And that was it.

I think anyone should be absolutely terrified

if they go to prison.

I think a man in his-- what was he, late 60s

who's got mental health complications

that need frequent tending to,

they should be terrified.

Extra terrified, I guess. And he was.

[Mick] And then these pictures came out, the prison pictures

of suddenly, shockingly Spector stripped of his wig

looking like a very, very old man.

Shrunken, wizened figure, balding figure

with strands of hair, looking terrible,

and looking pathetic, and looking like a con,

which is what he was.

[Jeff Barry] It must have been awfully painful

to him to be in prison

without his hairpiece.

Really feeling, you know, sorry for him in that--

in what he must have had to endure, knowing him.

[man] Barred from seeing her husband in prison

until a classification process has passed,

Rachelle says Phil wrote her a letter

describing in detail the conditions

under which he was being held.

"Rachelle dearest, it's hell here.

"The first four days I was on suicide watch

and slept naked on the floor."

I talk to him through a bulletproof piece of glass

on the phone.

And he's down to less than 130 pounds,

and he's sitting in a 5x9 cell

23 1/2 hours a day.

You know, Rachelle was the person

who visited him most, and she didn't really, um...

I don't think she was a huge fan of me visiting.

That's just my interpretation, maybe I'm wrong.

It would be good if I'm wrong, 'cause I would, you know,

I would hope that she didn't have negative feelings about me.

[Rachelle] I mean, I feel like I'm on a mission

for testing my husband's innocence,

restoring his name, honor, legend.

This is far greater and a bigger challenge

than I ever imagined.

[man] "Showbiz Tonight" brings you the woman

who has stood right there by his side

insisting he is innocent.

Thank you so much for taking some time

- with us, Rachelle. - Thank you.

It was clear that Rachelle, who had gone to great pains

to stress her love for Phil Spector

and her continued loyalty to Phil Spector,

at the same time, she-- you know, she was pursuing

a life of her own, and this involved

buying a small aircraft and spending time

on the Adriatic Coast, and you know,

doing what any young woman of considerable means,

which is what she was, on Phil Spector's money.

My favorite car to drive

is the one I designed, my Smart car.

[male reporter] The tricked-out Smart car,

a new home for her mom back in Beaver Falls.

They did get divorced.

I basically divorced her in that I was my dad's proxy

who divorced her while he was incarcerated.

You know, I don't think it was one

that she anticipated or wanted.

I have, you know...

I've-- my perspective maybe isn't the best one

to go with, because you know, you see dark sides of people.

There are periods where my dad didn't want visitors.

He would just get real down in the dumps,

and just didn't feel like dealing with it.

You know, it's quite hard to be visited in prison.

You have to get strip-searched,

and you're in a crowded room,

it's hot, it's uncomfortable.

It's really laborious.

[Mick] As far as I'm aware, Spector didn't want visitors

other than his daughter, his lawyers.

There were no famous friends,

none of the musicians who worked with him,

none of the people who'd sat around his table

sharing jokes and listening to his stories.

[Paul Shaffer] I never visited him in prison,

although I wanted to.

And I called him and I said I'd like to visit Phil,

now that he's in prison.

There's a protocol you have to go through.

You have to write a letter, they have to assure the--

whoever runs the prison

that they want the visit.

And word came back from him that Phil doesn't want a visit.

I just thought, what a horrible...

fate for a legend.

You know, what more can one say?

I tried to send some letters, but they wouldn't accept 'em.

So, they'd come back.

I was so sad. It was so sad.

[Nicole] I will say he was incredibly strong,

much stronger than we thought he would be, and resilient.

I think that in some ways

he was trying to protect me a little bit.

I learned that he got COVID,

I wanna say, like, mid-December?

Early-- maybe a little bit earlier.

Another inmate called me.

He was like my dad's unofficial caregiver.

And he called me at night from the same phone number

my dad used, a payphone there,

and he said, "They just took your dad away

"in a-- in a gurney,

and he's having trouble breathing."

And I was just hysterical, I was a complete mess.

Ten days go by, he calls me

and he's like, "I made it, I made it through COVID."

He sounded horrible, but he's, like, telling me

that, like, he's gonna be okay, he beat it.

You know, I was so happy to hear from him,

and I was so happy to be able to tell him how much I loved him

and all of that stuff.

But something just told me, like, this isn't over yet.

And then, on Christmas, on his birthday,

he called me, and he was like,

"I'm really, really sick. I can't breathe."

He couldn't stop coughing on the phone.

And he made a joke, he was like, "I just had to tell you

I thought I was gonna die on my birthday."

And he said it like-- he tried to laugh.

And I tried to laugh too, but he sounded so horrible.

He, you know, then he died on the 16th.

And I was with him, so that's... that's good.

[birds chirping]

I'm often asked if... justice was served

with the verdict in the Spector case.

He got his day in court, and he got his just desserts.

But can justice ever quite be served

when Lana is still dead?

I don't think, in a way, that humanity

has ever been properly restored in this story, you know.

That she's been forever the washed-up B-movie actress

who was murdered by Phil Spector,

you know, and her life has been-- has been disregarded,

her life has been overlooked, her life has been...

has been sort of slightly forgotten about.

I wanted to know who this woman was,

and I wanted to pay my respects to her.

And so, I went to Lana's final resting place,

which is at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery,

where a lot of old Hollywood stars are buried.

You know, she lived in Hollywood,

and she died in Hollywood,

and she always wanted to be in Hollywood.

So, there's something very poignant

about her final resting place

in the resting place of the stars, you know.

And she is there the star that she always wanted to be.

Sunny!

Hi, sweetheart.

Hey, darling, how are you?

- Good. - Nice to see you.

Nice to see you.

Oh, you look gorgeous, as always.

[Nili] We would always get together on Lana's birthday,

and almost always get together

on the anniversary of her passing.

- We miss you, honey. - Aw, we miss you so much.

- We do. - And we love you.

We love you too.

There's a core of us that continually remember...

[choking person] that wonderful person.

Yeah. [clicks tongue]

Mm.

She made people feel good in whatever way she could.

And she had an extraordinary ability to do that.

[choking up] She's dearly missed.

[exhales sharply]

Sorry.

[Alan] This town does things to people.

There's the glitz and the glamor,

and then there's a darker underbelly of Hollywood.

And that's Phil.

[Carol] Phil was a star maker.

People will not go against that.

They want to be in that sort of realm.

I doubt very much that there were people around Phil

who might have steered him in a different direction

or dissuaded him from some of his actions.

I don't know who. Certainly not myself.

The Phil I know, it might have provoked him even more.

So, I don't think he could have been deterred.

When someone is allowed

or does swing a gun around that often,

there's that risk that something could happen

and it could go off.

It's not inevitable, but it's predictable

that there's that possibility of it happening.

And it should have been stopped.

But she was alone in his house with him

with a driver outside, where she expected,

"I'm safe, there's a driver.

This guy is a small guy and I'm a big, strong girl."

She had no reason to anticipate

that anything untoward would happen.

For me, the thing that I wanna take for a whole life,

that I could not save her, you know, I mean,

if I knew that he-- I'm gonna swear to God,

I never heard anything about him,

this kind of thing happen.

You know, I tried to think about something else,

you know, like, I mean...

I don't blame myself, but again,

like, I could save her, you know, and I didn't.

He had a whole life where people couldn't--

wouldn't say no to him.

[man] Here is Mr. Phil Spector.

[applause]

[Vikram] I think that combined with his childhood trauma,

then the success that he had,

too early, really, to process it,

you get locked into a sense of exceptionalism.

Understand, now Goldwater had trouble with this too.

I think the tragedy for Lana

was it was a perfect storm.

She slipped into the path

of this toxic culture

that Phil was an avatar of.

Were it not for timing, Lana would still be here.

[Phil] You know, timing is--

is the key to everything.

Call it fate.

That is the key, but timing is essential.

There's an element of luck in everything,

in who you are...

where you are, what you are.

But I call it timing.

[Mick] Will he be remembered for

"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"

and "Be My Baby," or will he be remembered

for murdering Lana Clarkson?

He was brilliant, and he was...

he was not what he became.

It's so strange.

He brought music from heaven

into our world.

I think we should have fun with it.

I think we should fall in love to it.

And I hope that it will evolve

into something lighter

and more magical again.

All I can say is that, you know,

to know him is to love him.

[Donna] The music was beautiful.

But then, personally, he seemed like he had a lot of troubles.

He was a very troubled person.

And it's just really sad that his troubles

came in contact with our Lana.

[Vikram] Should we throw the song away?

Can we listen to the song and not think of the murder?

I don't have a verdict.

[Mick] Did you worry that being remembered

as-- as a kind of eccentric sort of, you know,

- the reclusive eccentric... - [Phil] Maniacal.

[Mick] Da-dum, da-dum, maniacal...

[Phil] Yeah. That's why I say,

let-- let history speak for itself.

Daydreaming 'bout you

So glad I found you

I was lost without you

I'll sing a little louder

So glad I found you

I was lost without you

I'll sing a little louder