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Updated June 5, 2007, 11:06 a.m. ET
Pathologist stands firm on opinion that actress did not kill herself at Spector mansion


Phil Spector
Phil Spector is accused of killling actress Lana Clarkson on Feb. 3, 2003, at his mansion.
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LOS ANGELES — The actress shot to death in Phil Spector's mansion had a calendar packed with plans for the future, according to e-mails read at the music legend's murder trial Monday.

A prosecutor read the letters, which Lana Clarkson sent to friends in the weeks and days before her death, to rebut defense claims that the 40-year-old's death was a suicide.

In one e-mail sent Feb. 2, 2003, the day before her death, Clarkson agreed to attend a birthday party for a friend's husband scheduled for the end of the month.

"Can't wait! Hugs & kisses, Lana," she wrote.

Other e-mails referred to plans to do her taxes, work six days each week, take a class, meet a friend for lunch, act as a master of ceremonies at an event for her co-workers and film an infomercial for a "thigh machine." All were events scheduled for after Feb. 3.

In several e-mails, Clarkson wrote of daily workouts that she had been doing in advance of the Feb. 17 filming of the infomercial.

"I have absolutely no time for myself," she complained to one friend.

Jurors heard the e-mails near the close of the testimony of medical examiner, Dr. Louis Pena, the pathologist who ruled Clarkson's death a homicide. During a lengthy three-day cross-examination, an attorney for Spector had confronted Pena with numerous e-mails from the year before Clarkson's death that indicated she was depressed and in desperate financial straits.

Allowed to question Pena again Monday, Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson produced the more recent e-mails from Clarkson's computer and asked if they supported or undermined the pathologist's conclusion that the death was a homicide.

Repeatedly, Pena said that the e-mails bolstered his view.

"It supports and actually strengthens it," Pena answered when asked about an e-mail in which Clarkson described a temporary job she had taken at an art show.

"It shows she's a go-getter, making all these appointments."

Spector, dressed in a red shirt and black striped suit, sat low in his chair at the defense table as Jackson read each e-mail in loud and resolutely upbeat voice. The pop music producer, 67, faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted of murder.

Earlier in the day, defense attorney Christopher Plourd wrapped up his cross-examination of Pena by showing jurors e-mails written in 2002 in which Clarkson told several people that she was enduring the worst year of her life and could not land any paying jobs. Clarkson broke both wrists in December 2001 and had been unable to work for months.

"I am so tired of struggling to eat," she wrote.

In another e-mail, she wrote, "I'm kind of feeling like giving up the dream and therefore the struggle." She also wrote of a decision to stop using alcohol and pain medication and wrote in a date book that she had one month of sobriety in September 2002. Clarkson had alcohol and Vicodin in her system at the time of her death.

Pena acknowledged that he had not known the extent of her financial problems or that she was seeking loans from a friend, but he said the e-mails seemed to reveal "situational" negative feelings, not clinical depression.

"Does that make any difference at all as to the manner of death?" defense attorney Christopher Plourd asked.

"No," Pena insisted.

The defense contends Clarkson killed herself, but in statements to jurors, defense attorneys have left open the possibility it may have been unintentional. Asked by the defense attorney if Clarkson could have accidentally shot herself in the mouth, the pathologist said no. He cited a bruise near her tongue caused by blunt-force trauma as well as the location of the wound, which he said made an accidental shooting unlikely.

Later, after jurors heard the e-mails about Clarkson's plans, Plourd asked the witness if people who accidentally shot themselves had scheduled plans for the future. Pena said they often did.

Also Monday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler ruled that the defense could not question Pena about events chronicled in an unfinished memoir found on her personal computer.

Fidler had said Thursday that he was leaning toward allowing jurors to hear about incidents related in the autobiography, but he told the lawyers Monday that his reading of the manuscript found none of the relevant information the defense had promised.

Fidler noted a defense attorney had said the memoir told of Clarkson having visions of a dead actress who shot herself when she failed in her Hollywood career.

The judge read the passage in court. In it, Clarkson wrote that she and her roommates learned a struggling actress had killed herself at their residence 50 years earlier over her husband's infidelity and that subsequently, they all saw a "shadowy figure" moving through the yard. (VIDEO)

"I don't consider anything in this particular document to be significant," he said.

Testimony resumes Tuesday morning.

The trial is being streamed live on Court TV Extra.



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