Phil Spector found guilty of 2nd-degree murder

LOS ANGELES — Rock music producer Phil Spector was convicted Monday of second-degree murder in the shooting death of a film actress at his mansion six years ago.

A Superior Court jury returned the verdict after an estimated 29 to 30 hours of deliberations. The jury had the option of choosing involuntary manslaughter, but did not do so.

Spector exhibited no reaction to the verdict. His attorney argued that he should remain free on bail pending the May 29 sentencing, but Judge Larry Paul Fidler remanded him to jail immediately.

Second-degree murder carries a penalty of 15 years to life in prison.

Spector's young wife, Rachelle, sobbed as the decision was announced.

The 40-year-old Lana Clarkson, star of the 1985 cult film "Barbarian Queen," died of a gunshot fired in her mouth as she sat in the foyer of Spector's mansion in 2003. She met Spector only hours earlier at her job as a nightclub hostess.

Prosecutors argued Spector had a history of threatening women with guns when they tried to leave his presence.

The defense claimed she killed herself.

It was Spector's second trial. His first jury deadlocked 10-2, favoring conviction in 2007.

The murder case was a flash from Hollywood's distant past, a reminder of the 1960s when Spector reigned as the hit maker supreme with such songs as the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" and the Ronettes' classic, "Be My Baby."

Spector, 69, who had long lived in seclusion at his suburban Alhambra "castle," was out on the town in Hollywood when he met Clarkson on Feb. 3, 2003, at the House of Blues. The tall, blond actress, recently turned 40 and unable to find acting work, had taken a job as a hostess. When the club closed in the wee hours, she accepted a chauffeured ride to Spector's home for a drink. Three hours later, she was dead.

Spector's chauffeur, the key witness, said he heard a gunshot, then saw Spector emerge holding a gun and heard him say: "I think I killed somebody."

During jury selection, only a few panelists remembered Spector's heyday as the inventor of the "Wall of Sound" recording technique and producer of teen anthems including, "To Know Him is to Love Him," The Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "He's a Rebel" and Ike and Tina Turner's "River Deep-Mountain High."

He also worked on the Beatles' Let It Be album with John Lennon. An un-Spectorized version of that album, Let It Be Naked, was released in 2003.