LOS ANGELES — A chauffeur testified Tuesday that Phil Spector emerged from his mansion moments after the shooting of an actress with a gun in his hand and a confession on his lips.

"He said, 'I think I killed somebody,'" driver Adriano DeSouza said at the legendary music producer's murder trial.

DeSouza told a packed courtroom that Spector was gripping a small black revolver in his right hand and had blood on his index finger.

"What happened, sir?" DeSouza recalled asking. He said Spector responded with a silent shrug.

DeSouza said he peered around his boss's small frame and into the foyer where he observed the lifeless body of Lana Clarkson slumped in a chair.

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"I saw blood on her face," he said.

Clarkson, 40, was killed Feb. 3, 2003, by a single gunshot wound to her mouth fired by a revolver. Spector, 67, faces a possible life sentence if convicted of murder.

DeSouza, a Brazilian native who served as a back-up driver for Spector's regular chauffeur, is one of the most anticipated and important witnesses for the prosecution. Prosecutors have opted not to use as evidence numerous statements Spector made to police after his arrest, including some in which he claimed Clarkson committed suicide, and instead focus solely on the words he allegedly spoke to DeSouza.

Called to the stand late in the day, DeSouza recounted his evening from the time he navigated Spector's new black Mercedes out the gates of the Alhambra estate Feb. 2 until 5 a.m. the following morning when he saw Clarkson's body. A prosecutor is to continue questioning him Wednesday.

Speaking with a thick accent and wearing a black suit he said was similar to his chauffeur's uniform, he recalled ferrying Spector to a string of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills restaurants that evening. He was joined at various points in the evening by three different women, the last being Clarkson.

DeSouza said he noticed that, as the evening drew on, Spector became intoxicated.

"He was like a little bit slow, speaking slow, starting to have some difficulty to talk," DeSouza recalled.

He said his boss left the last stop, the Sunset Strip music venue The House of Blues, in the company of Clarkson, who worked there as a hostess. DeSouza detailed a conversation between the pair, who had just met, about whether she would come home with him. He said Clarkson was unwilling to at first. She told Spector that she had to work in the morning and she did not want to lose her job by accepting a ride with a customer.

"He asked like three times more. 'Let's go to the Castle. Let's go to the Castle,'" DeSouza said.

In the midst of the discussion, Spector urinated on the wall of a parking garage, he said.

Finally, Clarkson agreed, but told DeSouza that she was only going for one drink. He said in response, Spector screamed, "Don't talk to the driver!"

Back at the mansion, Spector insisted that he and Clarkson be left at the front of the house, which required them to climb 88 steep stairs, instead of the usual drop-off point at the rear door.

DeSouza said he was parked outside the rear door listening to the radio about two hours later when he heard "a pow."

He immediately left the car to look for the source of the noise, but saw nothing. Just then, he said, Spector exited the house and came within four to six feet of him.

DeSouza, who said he spent nine years in the Brazilian military, demonstrated to jurors how Spector held the revolver close to his waist with the barrel facing away from both men.

A lawyer for Spector is expected to cross-examine DeSouza extensively. In anticipation, the defense attorney, Bradley Brunon, asked the witness to return to court Wednesday with all his immigration paperwork. DeSouza entered the U.S. in 1999 on a student visa and was working illegally.

The defense has said the chauffeur did not speak English well enough to quote Spector accurately. Lead defense attorney Bruce Cutler suggested in his opening statement that the driver actually heard Spector say, "I think somebody is killed."

Under questioning by prosecutors, DeSouza, who has a bachelor's degree in computer science from a Brazilian university, said he had studied English through college and had taken English classes in Los Angeles.

But he acknowledged difficulty understanding Spector "when he was drunk."

Several witnesses have testified Spector was inebriated that evening. A House of Blues cocktail waitress said Spector was angry and slurring his words when she waited on him in the VIP room of the club.

Waitress Sophia Halguin said Spector propositioned her.

"He asked if I wanted to go home with him," he said.

After she rejected him, Halguin testified, Spector turned his attention to her colleague, Clarkson.