Letters From Corcoran

Phil Spector, currently serving a 19-year prison sentence for murdering actress Lana Clarkson, has been writing to musician / music journalist / friend Steve Escobar about his life behind bars.

According to Spector’s letters to Escobar, he is working “to get a better prison with people more like myself in it during the appeal process instead of all those lowlife scumbags, gangsters and Manson types. … They’d kill you here for a 39-cent bag of soup.”

Spector isn’t exaggerating about “Manson types.” Charlie Manson is an inmate at the same prison, the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison at Corcoran, Calif.

The record producer says his spirits are up because his wife, Rachelle, visits him twice a week, even though the journey from the couple’s Alhambra home to the prison is a 400-mile round trip, and brings him packaged food.

“I know it is a chance to get out of my cell going to the dining room but the less I see of the inmates, the better and safer I feel,” Spector said. “Even though 24/7 lockdown in a 3’ by 7’ cell is very tough.”