The jury in the Phil Spector murder trial has been given a graphic account of the moment Lana Clarkson died at the music producer’s mansion and told her death was homicide and not suicide.

Dr Louis Pena told the Los Angeles court that, based on scientific findings, the barrel of a gun may have been forced into Ms Clarkson’s mouth, bruising her tongue before the gunshot that killed her.

“The bruise is very unique and is consistent with blunt-force trauma. Something struck the tongue,” he said.

Asked whether the bruise was made before the shot that killed Ms Clarkson, Mr Pena said it was.

Jurors were shown graphic, sometimes shocking, photos of the damage done to Ms Clarkson’s face and the inside of her mouth, forcing at least one juror to look away from the large display on a screen.

The coroner acknowledged it was the first time he testified about the bruise, which was not mentioned earlier in the case.

He said he was asked by prosecutors to go back and examine it and he also said he discussed the matter with his colleagues before reaching a conclusion.

Describing the death of the B-movie actress turned cocktail waitress, who had agreed to accompany the music producer to his mansion from her job as a hostess at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip in February 2003, Mr Pena said the recoil from the shot shattered her top front teeth, blowing them out of her mouth.

Asked to describe the incapacitation that followed the shot, he said that the bullet went through her head, severed her spine and death would have been almost instantaneous.

He also testified that there were bruises on Ms Clarkson’s right arm and wrist and described two of the bruises as “significant”.

Mr Spector’s defence team had told the trial that Ms Clarkson placed the gun in her own mouth and pulled the trigger in an “accidental suicide”.

But Mr Pena said Ms Clarkson’s death with a purse on one shoulder at a stranger’s home was not typical of someone taking their own life.

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