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John Lennon Celebrity Crime

One of the most shocking murders that have taken place involving a celebrity is the murder of John Lennon. John Lennon who was a member of The Beatles and has been called one of the greatest songwriters of all time was murdered in New York City by a deranged fan Mark David Chapman. Lets take a closer look at the murder of John Lennon

John Lennon Murder

Months before the murder of John Lennon his murderer, Mark David Chapman, who had been a huge fan of The Beatles was not happy with the musician as he felt that Lennon’s remarks about The Beatles being more popular than Jesus plus his lyrics in his music since leaving The Beatles. Mark David Chapman who identified with the character Holden Caufield from JD Salinger’s novel The Catcher In The Rye began to plan on killing John Lennon.

Mark David Chapman would fly to New York City on December 6 1980. Once he was in the city he would buy another copy of The Catcher In The Rye which he would write “This Is My Statement” and signed it Holden Caufield. Police would find the book in his hotel room at the Sheraton Hotel after the murder.

Mark David Chapman was at the Lennon residence at The Dakota earlier in the day and spent time talking with other fans. Chapman would actually shake hands with Sean Lennon who was then only five years old. Chapman would be distracted and would miss seeing John Lennon that morning.

At 5:00 pm John Lennon and Yoko Ono would return to their residence and Lennon would sign autographs for fans including Mark David Chapman who would later describe the meeting as “He was very kind to me. Ironically, very kind and was very patient with me. The limousine was waiting … and he took his time with me and he got the pen going and he signed my album. He asked me if I needed anything else. I said, ‘No. No sir.’ And he walked away. Very cordial and decent man.”

At approximately 10:50 pm John Lennon would arrive back at his residence at The Dakota after spending a few hours recording. The doorman began to walk up to Lennon’s limousine. Yoko Ono would walk past Mark David Chapman who he nodded at. When John Lennon walked past Chapman he appeared to recognize him from earlier in the day.

Mark David Chapman would pull out a .38 caliber handgun and would shoot John Lennon with four hollow point bullets. John Lennon would be loaded into a police car and rushed to the hospital where he was announced dead on arrival. he was forty years old

Mark David Chapman would take off his jacket and sit down on the sidewalk. Police would find him reading another copy of The Catcher In The Rye.

John Lennon – Mark David Chapman Trial

Mark David Chapman trial for the murder of John Lennon would begin in January 1981 where he entered a plea of not guilty by the reason of insanity.

Mark David Chapman would undergo over two hundred hours of testing and was declared competent. The defense team planned on calling a ton of witnesses to dispute the mental well being of Chapman however Mark would change his plea and would plead guilty to second degree murder.

Mark David Chapman would be sentenced to twenty years to life. Since being eligible for parole in 2000 Chapman has been turned down eleven times.

Mark David Chapman 2021

DIN (Department Identification Number)	81A3860
Inmate Name	CHAPMAN, MARK D
Sex	MALE
Date of Birth	05/10/1955
Race / Ethnicity	WHITE
Custody Status	IN CUSTODY
Housing / Releasing Facility	WENDE
Date Received (Original)	08/25/1981
Date Received (Current)	08/25/1981
Admission Type	NEW COMMITMENT
County of Commitment	NEW YORK

John Lennon Videos

John Lennon More News

Mark David Chapman, who murdered John Lennon outside his New York apartment in 1980, has been denied parole for the 11th time. A parole board at Wende correctional facility near Buffalo, New York, denied Chapman’s release, though detailed reasons have not been given. He will have to wait two years before applying for parole again.

Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono, who was with him when he was shot four times by Chapman, has long opposed parole, and submitted comments to the parole board that were “consistent with the prior letters”, according to her lawyer Jonas Herbsman. Chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life imprisonment, and first became eligible for parole in 2000.

Prison officials published a transcript of his 10th hearing, in 2018. In it, Chapman said: “Thirty years ago I couldn’t say I felt shame and I know what shame is now. It’s where you cover your face, you don’t want to, you know, ask for anything.”Advertisement

He had previously said that he killed Lennon for fame and notoriety. “I felt that by killing John Lennon I would become somebody, and instead of that I became a murderer, and murderers are not somebodies,” he said in 2010. He chose Lennon because “he seemed more accessible to me” as his apartment building wasn’t as “cloistered” as other celebrities’. “If it wasn’t Lennon, it could have been someone else,” he said.

In 2018, he spoke of an internal “tug of war” over whether to carry out the killing, which he did hours after he had met Lennon and got a record autographed. “I was too far in,” he said. “I do remember having the thought of, ‘Hey, you have got the album now. Look at this, he signed it, just go home.’ But there was no way I was just going to go home.”

Chapman is religious and has said he would like to work with a minister if he was released. He is still married to his wife, Gloria, following their marriage 18 months before the Lennon killing.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/27/mark-chapman-john-lennon-killer-parole-denied-yoko-ono

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Rigoberto Lopez Arrested For NYC Subway Murders

The New York Police Department (NYPD) have announced they have arrested and charged Rigoberto Lopez with the two murders that took place in the New York subway system. According to police reports Rigoberto Lopez was arrested at a homeless shelter where he was still armed with a knife. It is unknown at this time whether that knife was the one used during the four stabbings that left two people dead.

Who Is Rigoberto Lopez

Not a lot is known so far about Rigoberto Lopez as this is a breaking story. What is known is that Rigoberto Lopez is homeless and was living at a Brooklyn homeless shelter.

A variety of news sources online are reporting that Rigoberto Lopez who suffers from mental illness has confessed to the four stabbings that left two people dead.

According to police sources Rigoberto Lopez has been arrested before and has been convicted of assault and criminal contempt against his father. Apparently after Rigoberto Lopez asked his father for drug money he would be refused and Rigoberto would strike his father with a wooden stick. The father would get an order of protection against his son

Rigoberto Lopez would be arrested again the next month when he struck a police officer who was investigating a call that Rigoberto was harassing someone else who had an order of protection against him.

Rigoberto Lopez was last arrested in November when police stopped him after seeing him walking around with a large knife. After searching him they would find 48 bags of cocaine on him.

Rigoberto Lopez Subway Stabbings

Remember all of this is alleged as though Rigoberto Lopez has been arrested and reportedly confessed he has not been convicted on the charges

On Friday February 12, 2021 a sixty seven year old homeless man was sitting on his walker by the 181st St. stop was stabbed in the right knee and buttocks before Rigoberto Lopez fled

NYPD would find the body of a man on a subway train near the Far Rockaway-Mott Ave. station. The man was stabbed multiple times in the neck and chest

Two hours later a woman was stabbed multiple times near the Inwood/207th St. stop. She was transported to the hospital where she would die from her injuries.

The last person was stabbed multiple times in the back and neck while he slept at the 181st St./Fort Washington Ave. station just after midnight. The victim was able to find a security guard who immediately called for help.

All four stabbing took place along the A line of the New York Subway System

Rigoberto Lopez Videos

Rigoberto Lopez More News

A man arrested following a series of violent subway stabbings is being held without bail amid growing calls for action to stop a rising tide of violence on New York City’s subway system.

Rigoberto Lopez was ordered held without bail at his arraignment Monday morning in connection with four violent subway attacks.

Prosecutors say the 21-year-old man admitted to all four attacks and has a history of drug and assault arrests.

Lopez was taken into custody late Saturday and charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with the stabbing deaths of two homeless people on an A train and a knife attack on two others at the 181st station in Washington Heights, where he was apprehended.

Detectives were able to track Lopez down using video surveillance.

He was found with bloody clothes and a knife which, according to investigators, Lopez himself identified as the murder weapon.

The NYPD has now assigned an extra 500 additional officers to the city’s subway system after a string of attacks in recent months has led to calls for increased police presence.

Mayor Bill de Blasio rode the downtown 5 train Monday night to assure riders the subways are safe. Of course, he was surrounded by police.

“I want people to know, we’re going to do whatever the hell it takes to keep subways safe,” de Blasio said.

However, transit officials say 1,000 more cops are needed.

According to the MTA, ridership is down 70 percent on subways and 50 percent on buses

https://abc7ny.com/a-train-stabbing-new-york-city-subway-nyc-rigoberto-lopez/10341557/

Phil Hartman Celebrity Crime

Phil Hartman was a Canadian American comedian who spent over eight years on Saturday Night Live and was starring in the popular television program News Radio when his life was cut short by his wife Brynn Omdahl.

Phil Hartman Murder

Phil Hartman and Brynn Omdahl were married in 1987 and it was the third time for the comedian. Unfortunately the marriage was not a happy one with allegations of domestic violence and drug abuse. According to sources Brynn Omdahl was struggling with drug addiction and was not happy that Phil Hartman career kept him out of town for long periods of time.

On the night of the murder, May 28 1998, the married couple were arguing about Brynn Omdahl addictions and Phil Hartman was talking about ending the marriage. Phil Hartman would go to sleep and soon after he would be fatally shot by Brynn who would then use the gun on herself.

Phil Hartman was forty nine years old at the time of his murder.

Phil Hartman Videos

Phil Hartman Other News

Former “Saturday Night Live” comic Phil Hartman was shot to death early Thursday, apparently by his wife, who killed herself as police were shepherding the couple’s two children from the family’s million-dollar Encino home.

Officers responding to a call of shots fired at the home arrived to find the couple’s 9-year-old, Sean, fleeing out the front door. They took the boy to safety, then returned to get his 6-year-old sister, Birgen. A single shot was heard–Hartman’s wife, Brynn Hartman, 41, apparently killed herself as police took her daughter from the home.

Upon searching the home, police found the Hartmans dead in the couple’s upstairs bedroom in their home in the 5000 block of Encino Avenue, a tree-lined street of pricey homes just north of Ventura Boulevard.

Phil Hartman, 49, clad in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, was lying on his side on the bloody bed.

Brynn Hartman, in a two-piece sleep suit, was on her back.

There was no sign of a struggle, police said.

The two young children, who police said suffered no physical injuries, were distraught as they were escorted away in their pajamas to a police station for questioning, authorities said. A family spokesman said relatives were flying into Los Angeles on Thursday evening to take custody of the children.

Although the coroner’s office did not release a time of death, police believed that Brynn Hartman killed her husband before they reached the house at 6:20 a.m.

“Mr. Hartman had been dead for a while,” police spokesman Lt. Anthony Alba said.

The apparent murder-suicide shocked fellow stars and longtime friends of Hartman, a gifted mimic who was known for masterful impersonations of such figures as President Bill Clinton and Liberace.

Phil Hartman starred in the current NBC situation comedy “NewsRadio,” provided voices for “The Simpsons,” and appears in “Small Soldiers,” a movie set for release next month. He joins Chris Farley, John Belushi and Gilda Radner in the ranks of “Saturday Night Live” alumni who have suffered untimely deaths.

“This is a tragedy in so many ways,” said Mike Scully, executive producer of “The Simpsons,” the animated series for which Hartman supplied the voices of such recurring bit characters as washed-up actor Troy McClure and lawyer Lionel Hutz. “Phil was just tremendous fun to work with. The minute he said hello, you were laughing.”

Some close to the family said the slayings seemed a shocking final burst of anger from Brynn Hartman, who they described as having a mercurial temper.

“She had trouble controlling her anger,” said Steve Small, an attorney who handled Hartman’s two previous divorces and stayed in frequent contact with Hartman.

“She got attention by losing her temper,” said Small, adding that the two had separated more than once. “Phil said he had to . . . restrain her at times.”

Police said they were unaware of any previous visits to the Hartman residence. The couple had been married since 1987.

Reached at their home in North Dakota, Brynn Hartman’s family declined to comment. “We’re still in shock,” her mother, Constance Omdahl, told the Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald.

Stan Rosenfield, a spokesman for Brynn Hartman’s brother and sister, said the family was concerned for the welfare of the children.

“This a situation that occurred that redefines tragedy in every conceivable way,” Rosenfield said. “There are two very young children and their needs must be attended to.”

Craig Harvey, the coroner’s chief investigator, said police told him that a man was at the home when police arrived and that the man had placed a 911 call. Police declined to confirm the account.

Harvey said police took two revolvers from the scene. A woman who described herself as a friend of Brynn Hartman said the former model, who recently changed her name from Vicki Jo, bought a gun upon relocating from New York to Los Angeles about six years ago because she felt unsafe in the family’s four-bedroom, five-bath, 4,000-square-foot home.

“She had guns in the house, but I begged her to get rid of them,” said the friend, who met Brynn shortly after she arrived in Los Angeles. “She didn’t feel safe in this house” because he worked long hours and she was alone with the children so much, the friend said.

The woman and her sister said they talked frequently with Brynn and knew of no marital discord. Both described Brynn Hartman as a doting mother who took great pride in her two children.

But other friends and neighbors said there were clues of trouble in the marriage, Phil Hartman’s third.

Andrea Diamond, who said she had been a friend of the couple for six years, said Brynn had spoken to her about problems in the marriage but “I didn’t take it seriously–he’s in the industry, those kinds of things happen all the time.”

“There were rumors,” Diamond said. “But you should have seen how he used to look at her. You could tell he loved her. I don’t know why she would do this to the kids.” Lisa Strain, Hartman’s second wife, said she was “completely shocked” when she heard about the deaths.

“He always talked about his children, and how he and Brynn were working it out,” said Strain, who divorced Hartman in 1985 but remained friends with him.

Hartman was born in Canada in 1948, and the family moved to Los Angeles in 1960. His father, Rupert, sold roofing supplies and building materials.

Phil Hartman attended schools in Westchester and showed an early interest in drama. During his junior high school years at Orville Wright Junior High, he shared the stage with Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, who is serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of then-President Gerald R. Ford.

Even after Hartman left Westchester and became famous, he never lost touch with old friends and remained down to earth, a comment repeated over and over during interviews Thursday.

Nora Kanoy, 49, said Hartman was her first love during the time the two attended elementary school together. Back in town for a high school reunion, Hartman paid her a visit.

“We barbecued at the beach. We talked about old times and he met my girls, which they loved,” Kanoy said. “He wasn’t bigheaded. He was always funny. He was an honest, good, down-to-earth person.”

Phil Hartman attended Santa Monica College and Cal State Northridge, where he majored in graphic design. An early highlight was designing the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash.

In 1975, he joined the Groundlings, an improvisational Los Angeles comedy group. Tim Stack, a former member of the Groundlings, recalled the actor/comedian as a generous friend and devoted family man.

At a lunch the two men had at a San Fernando Valley deli two weeks ago, Hartman talked about reducing his workload this summer so that he could spend more time with his family.

Phil Hartman never talked of trouble within the family or marriage, Stack said. “In fact, that was the weird thing,” he recalled. “He had such great affection for Brynn. He said, ‘This is the one that’s for real.’ The crazy years were behind him.”

Phil Hartman helped create the Pee-wee Herman persona of comedian Paul Reubens after meeting him in 1978, and shared co-writing credit on the 1985 feature “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.” However, his career didn’t really take off until he joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 1986.

Hartman’s average looks and poker face helped him do imitations of more than 50 characters, including Ed McMahon, Ronald Reagan and Jack Nicholson.

NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield spoke of Hartman’s importance to “Saturday Night Live.”

“Phil just flourished there,” Littlefield said. “He was the go-to everyman. He became so many characters and such an integral part of the ensemble through some great years.”

Phil Hartman left “Saturday Night Live” in 1994. In 1990, he began doing regular voices on “The Simpsons” and in 1995, he began starring in the role of a self-centered and arrogant anchor on “NewsRadio.” Littlefield said no decision has yet been made about the future of “NewsRadio,” which is scheduled to return in the fall.

Phil Hartman was also active in the community, participating in such causes as Heal the Bay, to restore the Santa Monica Bay, and the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica. He also served as honorary sheriff of Encino.

With material success secured, friends and family said, the Hartmans had increasingly expressed a desire in recent years to focus on their children.

Their son Sean was a particular source of pride, according to Stack. He followed in his father’s footsteps as a graphic artist, and Hartman would brag that the boy’s talent far exceeded his own. Daughter Birgen, other friends said, had Hartman’s gift for comedy.

Hartman’s death, friends said, came at the peak of a long climb toward success.

“I have a plane. I have a boat. I have a great house. I have a great family. In fact I have everything I ever wanted,” film director Joe Dante recalled Hartman telling him recently. “It feels great.”

https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-phil-hartman-19980529-20160521-snap-htmlstory.html

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Rebecca Schaeffer Celebrity Crime

Rebecca Schaeffer was a promising young actress whose life was cut brutally short by a stalker by the name of Robert Bardo. The laws surround stalking would change following the Rebecca Schaeffer murder. Lets take a closer look at the sad event

Rebecca Schaeffer Murder

According to court documents Robert Bardo became interested in Rebecca Schaeffer three years before the actual murder. Robert Bardo had even attempted to get onto the lot in order to meet Schaeffer as she was filming the television program My Sister Sam, Bardo who was armed with a knife was turned away by security.

Robert Bardo lost interest in Rebecca for awhile but when a move titled Scenes From The Class Struggle In Beverly Hills came out he became incensed as the young actress was in bed with a man. Robert Bardo would travel to Los Angeles, after paying a private investigator to find the home address of Rebecca Schaeffer, and after wandering around her neighborhood asking people if she actually lived there.

Robert Bardo would knock on her front door and when Rebecca Schaeffer would answer the door, Brando would explain how Rebecca once wrote him back and declared his love for her, Rebecca politely asked Bardo to leave her alone.

Robert Bardo would leave her home and go sit in a nearby diner. After finishing eating Brando would return to Rebecca Schaeffer home and when she opened the door he would fatally shoot her point blank in the chest.

Rebecca Schaeffer was twenty one years old.

Robert Bardo would return to Arizona following the murder and would be arrested soon after for running through traffic on a major interstate highway. As soon as he was arrested he would confess to the murder

Rebecca Schaeffer Killer – Robert Bardo 2021 Information

Inmate Name	BARDO, ROBERT ALLEN
CDCR Number	H21272
Age	51
Admission Date	01/15/1992
Current Location	Avenal State Prison
Location Link	Directions
Parole Eligible Date (Month/Year)	LWOP
Parole Eligible Date Information	The inmate shown above is serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole and is, therefore, not eligible for parole consideration at this time.

Rebecca Schaeffer Other News

On July 18, 1989, someone rang the front doorbell of actress Rebecca Schaeffer’s house. The 21-year-old up-and-comer was best known at that point for costarring with Pam Dawber on the CBS sitcom My Sister Sam, and on that day, she was reportedly waiting for a script to be delivered to her home.

Specifically, the screenplay was for The Godfather Part III, and Schaeffer reportedly had an audition set up with iconic filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. A part of that caliber might have been a major milestone in her career.

When Schaeffer opened the door though, it wasn’t a studio courier. Instead, it was Robert John Bardo, a 19-year-old “fan” from Tucson.

Bardo had reportedly paid $250 for a Tucson detective agency to locate Schaeffer’s address by using public records from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Once Bardo had that info, he allegedly crossed state lines to use it.

Prior to showing up at Schaeffer’s doorstep, Bardo is believed to have written her numerous “love” letters. In addition, he allegedly tried to gain access to the set of My Sister Sam. Following his failure to meet Schaeffer, Bardo is said to have returned to Arizona and shifted his obsession to other female celebrities.

Reportedly, though, Bardo became enraged after seeing Schaeffer get romantic with another actor in the film Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989), and he refocused his fixation on her — with homicidal intensity.

Once Schaeffer opened her front door that horribly fateful July day, Bardo reportedly said he was a great admirer of hers. It’s believed she wished him well and politely turned him away.

From there, Bardo reportedly grabbed breakfast at a nearby diner and, about an hour later, he rang Schaeffer’s doorbell again. This time, when she answered, authorities say Bardo produced a .357-caliber handgun and pumped a bullet into her chest.

Schaeffer allegedly screamed for help and, 30 minutes after being rushed to a hospital, the rising star was pronounced dead.

According to ABC News, authorities picked up Bardo in Arizona the next day, when he was allegedly spotted running alongside a freeway, yelling, “I killed Rebecca Schaeffer!”

While being questioned, investigators said they made two especially chilling discoveries. The first was that when Bardo shot Schaeffer, he had been carrying a copy of the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger — the same book reportedly carried by Mark David Chapman in 1980 when he gunned down John Lennon.

The second was that Bardo allegedly told a psychiatrist he was inspired to kill Schaeffer in part by a 1982 attack on Raging Bull actress Theresa Saldana by a drifter who went to her apartment and stabbed her with near-fatal consequences.

Heading into trial, Bardo’s attorneys never denied that their client killed Schaeffer, but they maintained he was schizophrenic and should not be held responsible for murder.

Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark — yes, the same Marcia Clark of the O.J. Simpson murder trial — argued against that claim, and the jury agreed with her.

Robert John Bardo was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In the meantime, the shock and heartbreak of the so-called “My Sister Sam murder” is believed to have powerfully illuminated stalking as a crime that many said was not being properly addressed by existing laws.

As a result of public awareness and a widespread push for change, then, in 1990, California passed the first-ever anti-stalking law in the United States, which made it “a felony to cause another, or their family, to be in reasonable fear for their safety and carries a state prison sentence.”

In 2019, all 50 states have anti-stalking laws on the books and countless lives may have been saved by the changes that followed in the wake of Rebecca Schaeffer’s murder.

https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/crime-history/my-sister-sam-celeb-stalker-murder-of-actress-rebecca-schaeffer

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Phil Spector Celebrity Crime

Phil Spector was at one time the most sought after music producer on the planet but when a woman would die at his home under suspicious circumstances everything would change.

Phil Spector Crimes

On February 3, 2003 actress Lana Clarkson was shot in the mouth and would die slumped over in the chair she was sitting in. At first the violent death was thought to be an accidental suicide however something was not quite right with the scene.

One of the first issues to come up was during the 911 call Phil Spector driver was speaking to the operator where in the background of the call Spector voice could be heard saying “I think I killed someone”. The driver would later testify he saw Spector leaving the home with a gun in his hand.

It would take years before Phil Spector was charged and it was not until 2007 that he would go to trial. That first murder trial would end with a hung jury with two jurors refusing to convict him.

In 2008 Phil Spector would go on trial again for second degree murder. This time the jury would convict Spector of the murder and guilty of using a weapon in the commission of a crime. Spector would be sentenced to eighteen years to life in prison.

In 2021 Phil Spector would die in prison from complications with Covid-19

Phil Spector Videos

Phil Spector More News

US music producer Phil Spector has died at the age of 81, while serving a prison sentence for murder.

Spector, who transformed pop with his “wall of sound” recordings, worked with the Beatles, the Righteous Brothers and Ike and Tina Turner.

In 2009, he was convicted of the 2003 murder of Hollywood actress Lana Clarkson.

His death was confirmed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“California Health Care Facility inmate Phillip Spector was pronounced deceased of natural causes at 6:35 p.m. on Saturday, January 16, 2021, at an outside hospital. His official cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner in the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office,” it said.

Spector produced 20 top 40 hits between 1961 and 1965. His production methods influenced major artists including the Beach Boys and Bruce Springsteen.

His life was ultimately blighted by drug and alcohol addiction, and he all but retired from the music scene during the 1980s and 1990s.

In February 2003, actress Lana Clarkson was found dead at his house in Alhambra, California with a bullet wound to her head. Clarkson, who was known for her work in the sword-and-sorcery genre and starred in films including Barbarian Queen, had met Spector hours earlier at a nightclub.

Spector claimed the shooting happened when Clarkson “kissed the gun” – but his trial heard from four women who claimed Spector had threatened them with guns in the past when they had spurned his advances.

Following an initial mistrial, Spector was convicted of second degree murder and given a sentence of 19 years to life.

Harvey Phillip Spector was born in New York in 1939, to Russian-Jewish parents. His father killed himself when Spector was a boy, and his mother moved her family to Los Angeles.

He began his career in his teens as a performer, forming a band – the Teddy Bears – with three high school friends. They had a hit single in 1958 with a song that took its title from the wording on his father’s gravestone: “To know him is to love him.”

The record went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, but the group split the following year.

Spector founded his own record label, Philles, in 1961. He produced high-profile 1960s girl groups such as Crystals and the Ronettes, including on 1963 hits Be My Baby and Baby I Love You.

He also worked on The Righteous Brothers’ hits You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ and Unchained Melody.

His signature production technique, the “Wall of Sound,” involved layering several instruments, including strings, woodwind and brass, to give a lush, orchestral sound.

In the early 1970s, Spector collaborated with The Beatles on their final album Let It Be, as well as producing John Lennon’s solo album Imagine.

As the decade progressed, the much-feted producer became reclusive and disturbing accounts of his behaviour became widespread. Spector is said to have held a gun to singer Leonard Cohen’s head during sessions for his album Death of a Ladies’ Man.

Ronettes lead singer Veronica “Ronnie” Bennett, who became Spector’s second wife and divorced him in 1974, wrote in her 1990 autobiography that he subjected her to years of horrific abuse. She said he had threatened to kill her and display her body in a glass-topped coffin he kept in her basement.

“I can only say that when I left in the early ’70s, I knew that if I didn’t leave at that time, I was going to die there,” Ronnie wrote of the time.

Writing on Instagram after her ex-husband’s death, Ronnie Spector said he had been “a brilliant producer but a lousy husband”.

“When I was working with Phil Spector, watching him create in the recording studio, I knew I was working with the very best,” she wrote. “He was in complete control, directing everyone. So much to love about those days.

“Meeting him and falling in love was like a fairytale,” she continued. “The magical music we were able to make together was inspired by our love. I loved him madly, and gave my heart and soul to him.

“Unfortunately Phil was not able to live and function outside of the recording studio. Darkness set in, many lives were damaged.”

Singer Darlene Love, who sang on several songs Spector produced, said he “changed the sound of rock ‘n’ roll” but likened their relationship to “a bad marriage”.

“The problem I have with Phil is that he wanted to control Darlene Love’s talent,” she told Variety. “If he couldn’t do that, he was going to do everything in his power to keep my talent from shining.”

Weeks before Lana Clarkson was shot dead, Spector gave a rare interview to British broadsheet The Telegraph.

“I would say I’m probably relatively insane, to an extent,” he told the paper, adding that he had “devils inside that fight me”.

Responding to news of the producer’s death, Blondie guitarist Chris Stein tweeted: “When we went to Phil Spector’s house in the 70s he came to the door holding a bottle of diet Manischewitz wine in one hand and a presumably loaded 45 automatic in the other. Long story.

“I thought he was nuts.”