Bill Pavelic - William Bill Pavelic

City News Service

June 11, 2007 Monday 5:40 PM PST

City News Service

BYLINE: CIARAN McEVOY

DATELINE: LOS ANGELES

The lack of blood in the area in front of actress Lana Clarkson’s body sug-gests someone may have been standing in front of her when she was shot in the foyer of Phil Spector’s Alhambra mansion, a criminalist testified today in the music producer’s murder trial.
Spector, 67, is accused of shooting Clarkson, a 40-year-old hostess at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, inside his “Pyrenees Castle’ home during the early hours of Feb. 3, 2003. He maintains she shot herself.
Steve Renteria, a forensic scientist for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s De-partment, testified he sprayed luminol — a chemical used to detect blood that isn’t obvious to the naked eye — in the foyer the day after Clarkson’s death.
He testified he could not find any blood in the foyer other than the pools of blood underneath the chair where Clarkson’s body was found.
When asked by Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson if the lack of blood sug-gested that someone was standing in front of Clarkson, Renteria replied: “That would be one explanation, yes.”
The DNA found with swabs taken from Clarkson’s body and the alleged crime scene were consistent with DNA from Spector and Clarkson, Renteria also told the court.
He said Clarkson’s blood was also found on a door about five feet from her body, as well as on a handrail on a nearby staircase, he said.
Clarkson’s DNA was also found on the tips of the bullets found in the Colt Cobra  .38-caliber revolver that killed her, he said.
Brandy snifter glasses found in Spector’s living room and the foyer bathroom had primarily Spector’s DNA on them, Renteria told the court.
Prosecutors also showed jurors photographs of the clothes Spector wore when Clarkson died. The small specks of blood on Spector’s white jacket matched Clarkson’s DNA, as did the blood on Spector’s front left trouser pocket, Rente-ria testified.
Defense attorney Christopher Plourd, in his cross-examination, suggested that Renteria was not thorough enough in looking for possible blood spatter near Clarkson’s body.
“Is there any way the blood would be there but the luminol didn’t detect it?” Plourd asked.
“No,” Renteria responded.
Plourd also asked several questions about material found underneath Clark-son’s fingernails, suggesting that no struggle took place between Clarkson and Spector.
In other developments, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler de-nied a defense motion for a mistrial, with attorneys taking exception to a num-ber of rulings the judge has made in the case.
Defense attorney Roger J. Rosen said Fidler’s adverse decisions regarding possible defense witnesses, including forensic expert Henry Lee, had compromised Spector’s constitutional rights.
Fidler also postponed until 9:30 a.m. Thursday a decision as to whether Sara Caplan, a former lawyer for Spector, will be held in contempt for refusing to testify in her ex-client’s murder trial.
Caplan was one of Spector’s lawyers in the months immediately following Clarkson’s death. On May 3, she testified in a hearing outside the presence of jurors that she saw Lee pick up an object in Spector’s foyer on the evening of Feb. 4, 2003.
Fidler later ruled that Lee picked an object up in the foyer and didn’t hand it over to the prosecution. Lee has vehemently denied the allegation.
Prosecutors then included Caplan as one of their witnesses to discuss the is-sue in front of the jury. Last Wednesday, she refused to testify, claiming at-torney-client privilege prevents her from doing so, even though she no longer represents Spector.
Fidler — who called Caplan “an unimpeachable witness from the (prosecu-tion’s) standpoint” — appeared ready to hold her in contempt, possibly result-ing in her being fined or even jailed. But, after hearing her emotional appeal, said he would not rule until today.
Caplan filed a motion with the court today, which Fidler said he was reading. Prosecutors have also offered a stipulation about Caplan’s potential testimony, possibly averting her having to testify. Defense attorneys have not commented on the stipulation.
Fidler also declined to take action against three potential defense witnesses — including Lee — for allegedly speaking to the media about the case in viola-tion of his orders. Fidler said he never issued a formal gag order and had merely suggested that attorneys tell their witnesses not to speak to the media.
But Fidler said his first impression of the potential testimony of Jody “Babydol” Gibson — a convicted madame who suggested in a memoir that she em-ployed Clarkson — was that it was “salacious” and “irrelevant” and suggested the defense was attempting to attack Clarkson’s character.
Gibson has been interviewed by Marie Claire for its next issue and recently appeared on Geraldo Rivera’s radio show.
Rosen said Gibson’s testimony was merely intended to shed light on Clarkson’s state of mind before she died and he took exception to Fidler’s comments. Fidler replied that he hadn’t prejudged Gibson’s testimony.
Fidler also said he would “keep an eye on” possible defense witness Bill Pavelic, a private investigator who was at Spector’s home the day after Clarkson died.
Pavelic appeared on Court TV last week and “issued opinions and conclusions about witnesses yet to be called in this case, and he also engaged in a personal attack on Patrick Dixon, one of the prosecutors in the case,” according to a mo-tion filed last week by Jackson.
Clarkson was a Long Beach native best known for her starring role in the 1985 Roger Corman cult film “Barbarian Queen.’
Spector, a 1989 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee famed in music circles for his layered “Wall of Sound’ recording technique, is free on $1 million bond.

Tags: Author / Writer //