The former girlfriend who dined with Phil Spector the night Lana Clarkson was fatally shot at the legendary producer's Beverley Hills home has told the court that he "was not his usual self" on the night of the killing.
Rommie Davis was giving testimony at the Spector murder trial yesterday, recalling the hours she had spent with the producer before he hooked up with Clarkson, who was working at the LA House Of Blues club, and who accompanied the producer back to his house that night in 2003. Davis, a school friend of Spector, says that she had dined with the producer for the three nights before the shooting, and that she was concerned about him because he was drinking and taking medication, something she thought of as a "lethal combination". The drinking was unusual, she added, because she hadn't previously seen Spector drink alcoholic drinks during their five month relationship. She told the court: "I was very concerned about him. He was not his usual self. He was not interested in what I had to say. ... In all the time I went out with him, he was great fun to be with ... This weekend, the behaviour was totally different". Asked about Spector's alleged habit of playing with guns in front of his girlfriends, she said she had never seen the producer with a gun, but that he had once "politely" told her that he carried one in the boot of his car. Under cross examination, she said she could not actually say for certain that Spector was drunk when they parted company on the night of the shooting, and stressed that Spector had never threatened her during their five month relationship.
Davis is the latest in a string of Spector's former girlfriends that have been called to testify at the trial, though her testimony was clearly more about tracing the events of the night of the shooting, rather than furthering the prosecution's bid to paint Spector as a man with a sinister second personality prone to threatening women - though questioning Spector's sobriety at the time of the shooting might make the jury believe he was more capable of accidentally shooting Clarkson.
The case, of course, continues. Meanwhile, outside the courtroom, one Debbie Harry has reportedly being giving her own testimony about a gun incident with Spector, though to gossip site me-me-me.tv rather than any legal types. They quote her recalling an incident around about the time she was working with the Ramones when, she says, Spector started showing some interest in Blondie. She recalls: "He pulled a gun. That notorious thing he does. He stuck it in my boot. And he went 'Bang!' I was like, 'Erm, thank you'. I thought, 'Get me out of here! I want to go home!' It's his schtick, you know, but why a person would be walking around carrying a .45 automatic in their home... and now he's finally gone and done it". One assumes she meant to throw an 'allegedly' in that last bit.