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FACTBOX - Notable music industry killers

Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:38am IST

REUTERS - Rock stars sing about murder all the time -- "Hey Joe," "Midnight Rambler," "I Shot the Sheriff" -- but few people in the industry ever turn their words into deeds.

Music producer Phil Spector, who on Monday was convicted of second-degree murder for killing a waitress, joins a select group of musical murderers.

Here are some others:

* Jim Gordon. The mentally troubled rock drummer, who co-wrote Layla" with Eric Clapton, battered his mother with a hammer in 1983. He was sentenced to 16 years to life for second-degree murder, and is serving his term in a California prison hospital.

* Leadbelly. The bluesman served about seven years after killing a man in 1918. He also did a stint in the 1930s for attempted murder.

* Little Willie John. The R&B singer, famed for the hit song "Fever," was convicted of manslaughter in 1966 following a fatal knifing. He died two years later in a Washington state prison.

* Sid Vicious. The former bass player with the Sex Pistols was arrested for murdering his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, in 1978. He died of a heroin overdose early the following year before he could go to trial.

* Spade Cooley. The Western swing musician and big-band leader drunkenly beat his wife, and served eight years before dying of a heart attack in 1969.

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