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Witness: Spector-Plus-Rifle Equaled Elmer Fudd
05/14/2007 2:45 PM, E! Online
The night Lana Clarkson died, Phil Spector didn't seem particularly drunk, according to the woman who he took to the House of Blues and, after meeting Clarkson, sent on her merry way before the night was over.
Kathy Sullivan, a waitress at the Grill on the Alley, where Spector ate dinner on Feb. 2, 2003, testified under cross-examination Monday that the famed music producer was not stumbling or exhibiting overt signs of drunkenness when they arrived at the West Hollywood venue and that it was possible he didn't consume all of the alcohol he ordered throughout the course of the evening.
Receipts presented in court last week showed that Spector ordered two daiquiris at the Grill, where he dined with high school friend Rommie Davis, two Navy Grogs at Trader Vic's, two more daiquiris at Dan Tana's, and a Bacardi 151 drink at the House of Blues, where Clarkson was working as a hostess in the elite Foundation Room.
For the prosecution, however, Sullivan also relayed an incident in 1999 when Spector escorted her and a friend out of his Alhambra home on a Saturday morning while armed with a rifle or a shotgun, an accessory that made him look "like Elmer Fudd," she said, causing a few twitters in the jury box.
"What's that for?" Sullivan recalled asking Spector. "He said, 'Protection.'"
"I don't like guns," Sullivan continued. "Bad things happen when guns are around." She said that night was the last time she saw Spector before Feb. 2, 2003.
"It was the funniest thing in the whole wide world," Sullivan remembered telling investigators. But she also stated that, as she and her friend drove away, she remarked, "I'm so glad we're out of there."
That made Sullivan the fifth woman to take the stand and attest to Spector's affinity for guns. The defense had tried to prevent Sullivan from telling the somewhat humorous gun story, calling it prejudicial, but Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler allowed it.
The L.A. District Attorney's Office is arguing that Spector's alleged pattern of boozing it up and threatening women with guns finally took a lethal turn in the wee hours of the morning on Monday, Feb. 3, 2003, culminating in Clarkson's murder.
Spector's camp, meanwhile, is maintaining that the Barbarian Queen actress shot herself.
Trying to poke a hole in the prosecution's drunk-and-deadly argument, defense attorney Roger Rosen got Sullivan to admit that she wasn't paying close attention to how much Spector drank that night, and that she did not feel either threatened or afraid of him at any time, including the night she saw him toting that long gun. She described Spector's behavior toward her over the years as "fatherly."
As she testified last Thursday, Spector had his chauffeur, Adriano De Souza, drive Sullivan home shortly after 2 a.m. on Feb. 3 Sullivan said that she heard Spector tell De Souza, "Get Lana. I'm sending Kathy home."
House of Blues security footage played for the jury today showed Spector and Clarkson getting into a limo outside the club at 2:24 a.m. Clarkson died about three hours later.
De Souza, who could take the stand as early as tomorrow afternoon, testified before a grand jury in 2004 that, after hearing a single gunshot while sitting in the car outside Spector's house on Feb. 3, Spector came outside and said, "I think I killed somebody."
Also taking the stand Monday was Manuel Cuadra, who waited on Spector and Sullivan at Dan Tana's that night.
Although according to Depute District Attorney Alan Jackson, Cuadra told prosecutors that Spector ordered four alcoholic beverages, the waiter testified today that he couldn't' remember whether the $33 Spector charged that night was for alcohol or not. He did recall that Spetor seemed to be in "good spirits."
Trader Vic's general manager Chai Rojana testified this morning, meanwhile, that the navy grogs Spector ordered are signature drinks that contain three shots of rum apiece. Bartender Ming Fong Chu added that he serves the cocktail up in a 15-ounce glass.
Scheduled to testify tomorrow before De Souza are Spector's waitress from the House of Blues and a member of the club's security team.
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