Phil Spector Trial Evidence Part Two: Guest Entry by Mort Snerd

And other Spector tidbits.

Mort Snerd wanted to add some additional images as well as address some issues raised by an anonymous commenter in the last entry on this subject. For the record, Mort has a lifetime of knowledge and experience about firearms. Mort's parents owned guns and Mort has been involved in teaching about guns and gun safety to several generations of his extended family.

Below, Mort answers some of anonymous's comments in bold:
I've kept the spelling errors intact. Sprocket.

Anonymous said... April 2, 2008 12:13 AM
Also the Cobra is not made of steel and is very light.

Not a true statement. The barrel and cylinder are made of steel to withstand the pressures involved.

Anonymous said... April 2, 2008 12:13 AM
If the gun weighed more the back-blast would have been less.

Not a true statement. Back blast is created by the detonation of gunpowder in a cartridge. Recoil is the apparent reaction of the gun to being fired. Heavier guns "apparent" recoil is less.

Anonymous said... April 2, 2008 12:43 PM
I saw the making of a film of where the cobra with +p ammunition was stuck inside a little hole in a small watermellon. What a mess it made and the watermellon split open. It was stronger than the woman's soft mouth tissue.

The test was not valid enopught to enter as evidence because a watermelon is not a living human mouth.

Your point is that Lana Clarkson's head was made from a watermelon and was not human and made of bones, teeth, brains and soft tissue?

Anonymous said... April 2, 2008 12:43 PM
Blowing out her teeth caps was simple.

Not a true statement. Evidence was admitted showing that the front sight ramp of the Colt is what did the damage to the upper front teeth.

Anonymous said... April 2, 2008 12:43 PM
Your S&W pictured is a lot heavier and has much less recoil. The Cobra was NOT designed to shoot the higher powered +p rounds either.

True statement and so stated in my original post. I was unable to find a top view of a Colt Cobra to use, so I used a gun in my collection that is as close a representation to size as I could. If the reader of this forum wants, they can examine the photo's themselves.

Anonymous said... April 2, 2008 10:16 PM
The Smith and Wesson in the picture looks very much like a 2 1/2 " bbl Mod 66 .357 magnum. That's a very heavy gun with little recoil.

True statement. The S&W is made from stainless steel and is 4 pounds while the Colt is an aluminum frame and STEEL barrel and cylinder and weighs 1 pound. Both guns can and do fire the .38 caliber cartridge. As to its "apparent" recoil when firing, that is a extremely subjective measurement.

Attached are two pictures, the first is a photo taken from the gallery of the court house as evidence item #1 was introduced in Phillip Spector's trial and is the actual weapon that fired the fatal round.

The second picture is the full side view of the gun I used in the "cone" pictures, they are the identical model, style and manufacturer. Only thing I have done was to remove the serial number for obvious reasons. Please realize that the first photo is taken from the courtroom gallery and since it is a high angle shot to the screen, the picture is somewhat distorted. The second picture is totally undistorted and a right angle view of an identical gun.






Mortie

Thank you very much Mort.

Below are a few more Spector tidbits, from Sprocket.
On another note, Michelle Blaine has a great entry up over on her blog about Spector's Team Spector MySpace Page. Check it out.

I heard back from author Mick Brown about Spector's exact time-of-birth on December 26th, 1939. Mick writes:

The date I have in the book - December 26, 1939 (? - don't have a copy with me!) - is definately right. I can't tell you the exact time of birth, but I think it was just after midnight of the 25th - within the first one or two hours of the 26th. His mother would joke about the timing and giving birth to 'the next Jesus'.

Thank you so much Mick. I hope that helps the astrology student who was asking for that information.

Remember that article that came out on Spector in the September 9th, 2007 issue of the Sunday Daily Mail's magazine section, Live? It was by that documentary-maker, Vikram Jayanti, who I often saw in court during the last half of the trial giving Spector warm hugs every time he showed up. That magazine issue was not included in the Sunday editions that were available here in the US. A few online papers reported on the story, causing a bit of a ruckus in court where Linda Kenny Baden actually got up and told Fidler something to the effect that the statements in the article attributed to Spector were not approved by him. She basically obfuscated the truth since everyone knows Spector was working with this guy on a film for months, and he's just another Spector mouthpiece, so Spector can testa-lie to the press without getting on the witness stand.

Back in September, I called upon my friends over on the Blood Type Diet message board if anyone in the UK could find me that issue of Live and about a month later, one of the members tracked one down and sent it to me. There were reports in the news a few months ago that the documentary, "Phil Spector: The Agony and Ecstasy " would air in the UK on BBC Arena sometime in mid April. I've recently learned that there was supposed to be a press screening for journalists, but it was canceled and has not been rescheduled. As soon as I hear anything I'll post about it. I wonder what sanctions Fidler can place on Spector if/when that show ever airs. Sometime in the near future, donchais and I will put up an entry about the article, comparing some of the quoted statements in the story to other documented sources.